Alvin Kamara is at the top. Christian McCaffrey is nearly there, as is Marlon Mack. Zach Whitman keeps track of an formula originally developed by Nike to measure a player’s athleticism relative to everyone else in the NFL. It’s a quick way to compare players in the same way a passer rating (or WAR in baseball) would contribute to the conversation, another metric by which players can be evaluated, understood and ranked. You can read a complete breakdown of SPARQ and its application here.
For our purposes, the metric, when applied to the incoming draft class, has raised a significant red flag around one player often considered to be a first round lock and someone who resembles a young Jamaal Charles.