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Audric Estimé NFL Draft 2024: Combine Results, Scouting Report For Notre Dame RB

Originally posted on The 33rd Team | By Greg Cosell | Last updated 3/15/24

The 2024 NFL Draft is getting close, making it an excellent time to highlight some of the class' best players with scouting reports. Each report will include strengths, weaknesses and background information.

Here's our report on Audric Estimé.

Audric Estimé'S 2024 NFL COMBINE RESULTS

Height: 5'11"
Weight: 221 lbs
40-Time: 4.71
10-Yard Split: 1.58
Vertical: 38"
Broad Jump: 10'5"
3-Cone: DNP
Shuttle: DNP

Audric Estimé 2024 NFL DRAFT SCOUTING REPORT

STRENGTHS:

Extensive experience in zone and gap scheme run game. More I-back runs in 2023.
Excellent size and frame with a downhill running mentality. He consistently ran with balance and a low pad level.
Showed decisive one-cut traits, sticking his foot in the ground and hitting the hole with short-area sudden burst.
Made sharp, decisive cuts to get downhill and hit the hole. Powerful feel to his running with his compact frame.
Got hard yards inside. Naturally powerful with a driving, churning feel to his running. High level sustaining traits.
Worked effectively in confined space. Got through small creases at POA and showed contact balance in traffic.
Physical finisher who attacked third-level defenders dropping his pads and initiating contact. Seeks out contact.
2023 – Extensive experience as an I back and shotgun back, with excellent success in both alignments.
Effective gap scheme runner with urgent short-area explosive traits. Downhill burst with accelerating speed.
At times, he showed excellent patience, tempo and vision, allowing blocks to develop and define the hole.
Understood defensive fronts-alignments. Did an excellent job instinctively reading gap fluidity and defensive flow.
Short-area burst with the balance and body control to get skinny to work through small creases at the POA.
Played consistently faster than his 40-yard dash time at the combine: 80-yard TD vs. North Carolina State.
Runs he showed accelerating burst at second and third levels of defense. Play speed better than timed speed.

WEAKNESSES:

A little stiff and tight-hipped through his core. Does not possess the looseness you’d like to see.
Not a shifty and elusive runner at second and third levels of defense. Looks for contact rather than eluding it.
2023 – Can be stiff and mechanical. Not fluid and loose hipped when forced to cut and change direction.
Must significantly improve pass protection vs. blitz to get more meaningful snaps at the next level.

NFL TRANSITION:

Estimé has the look and feel of a professional runner as you project and transition him to the next level with his downhill mentality and decisiveness in the zone and gap scheme run games. Estimé is a naturally powerful runner with strong finishing traits, who consistently got the hard yards inside that sustain an offense and keep it on schedule.

While he is not shifty and elusive with loose hips and, at times, looked a little stiff with his compact frame, Estimé did show the vision to make quick reactive and decisive cuts to elude tacklers and find the hole. He always seemed to maximize yards after contact at the second and third levels of the defense.

Estimé was a master of the 6- to 9-yard run with his vision, contact balance and finishing traits. The more I watched Estimé, the more I liked him as an NFL back, with his toughness and competitiveness as an inside runner who worked effectively in a tight, confined space and did not go down easily.

He can absolutely play at the next level, and I believe he can be part of a two-back system much like David Montgomery was for the Detroit Lions in 2023. Estimé brings a physical, competitive, sustaining presence as a runner with an attitude and swagger that every coach would like to have in his offense.

OTHER NOTES:

Estimé came out of New York as a 3-star recruit and top-30 running back prospect in the nation and was Notre Dame’s leading rusher in his sophomore season of 2022 and a junior season of 2023 when he was the 12th leading rusher in the nation with 1,341 yards.

In 2022, 113 of Estimé’s 156 carries came out of the shotgun formation with 29 coming out of the pistol. Estime rarely ran as an I back; Estimé predominantly ran zone concepts out of shotgun and pistol.

In 2023, 80 of Estimé's 210 rushes came as an I-back, and he had good success averaging 5.1 yards per rush. He was 113-795 (7 yards per rush) as the offset back in the shotgun. Estimé has extensive experience in multiple run game concepts: zone, gap scheme and outside pull schemes like pin-pull and G/G and C/G pull.

This article first appeared on The 33rd Team and was syndicated with permission.

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