Canes Blogger Evaluates Analytic Results Toward Success At Each Position

[Awsi Dooger]

Credit to Lance Roffers of CanesInsight. This is specific to high school translation to college success but I thought the draft types here might be interested in it. Certainly there has to be upward correlation as well.

Mostly I am convinced that analytics continue to be woefully underutilized compared to traditional scouting methods. There needs to be more of a blend of the two.

Interesting here is quickness required at the quarterback position, specifically the short shuttle drill. You don't want to be looking at slow footed guys. I'm not sure what Tannehill's short shuttle number was. I couldn't find that data. Maybe he was smart enough not to run it at the combine or his pro day.

Roffers found the greatest correlation at defensive tackle: "Perhaps the one position above all others, where if you post elite athleticism numbers, you are probably going to be a college star is DT. Only the Pac-12 (with two players) and Tim Settle (Virginia Tech) had even one below-average athlete at the position make All-Conference. The best course of action at this position seems to be to get 260-280 pound athletic freaks and let them gain weight and keep their athleticism."

That result is more impressive when you consider that Tim Settle is hardly a lousy athlete. Just the opposite. They had him fielding punts in practice at Virginia Tech. Settle gets so fat and sloppy he probably tested at an inflated weight.

Roffers says wide receiver translates the worst from test numbers to production: "The only position group of the entire study that didn’t show a high correlation between athletic testing and P5 All-Conference performance was the WR group. Much like the data regarding the NFL Combine showed little correlation, so to does the HS data."

I'm not shocked at that. I have mentioned recently that I have been fooled time and again, going back decades.

https://www.canesinsight.com/threads/college-footballs-legs-race-part-1.145029/

 

[Awsi Dooger]

For the heck of it I decided to look at the quarterbacks who have flunked the 4.47 criteria for the short shuttle at the combine. That is a fairly generous number so not many flunkers.

I was most interested in Jared Goff because he seemed like a lanky long striding candidate to fail. Interestingly, he fell smack on the number at 4.47. So did Matthew Stafford.

The Dolphins obviously don't care about this test score. Two of the flunkers were David Fales and Brandon Doughty. That doesn't sound like much until you look at the breakdown each season recently. Only 1-2 quarterbacks are above 4.47 each year. That is a huge change from the prior decade, when at least twice as many were butchering it each year. I'm not sure if quarterbacks are simply quicker these days, or they are placing more emphasis on preparing for this test, along with all the other tests.

One name that jumped out on the list was Curtis Painter. I laughed. Maybe the Colts knew something. If the Dolphins indeed want to tank 2019, they already have a slow footed aide in David Fales, as others have suggested.

I also went back and looked at Tom Brady. He had a notoriously weak combine with lousy numbers all over the place. Brady as recently as a couple of years ago insisted he would blow away his 2000 combine numbers, despite almost 40 years old instead of 22.

But Brady even in bad shape was still nimble enough to manage 4.38 in the 20 yard shuttle. Not good but comparatively superior to his other numbers, like 5.28 in the forty.

Below are all the quarterbacks who have been above 4.47 since 2000. I used this link at profootballreference.com. They make it easy to check combine results and vary your criteria, although only 200 lines are available at one time, so multiple checks are needed in some instances, like the one I used:

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/play-index/nfl-combine-results.cgi

The standout name on the list is Matt Ryan. Next would probably be Kirk Cousins. But a couple of examples of quarterbacks who have succeeded hardly means you scoff and throw it out. I always laugh at analysts who use that approach. Subjective types are remarkably stubborn. They wouldn't throw our their subjective methodology if it led to some poor evaluations. But as soon as some analytic or numerical category has a dud, then the dismissive ranting begins. Priceless.

Meanwhile, subjectivity has an absolutely dreadful history in regard to the NFL draft. The parallels between the college game and pro game are simply too great for the connect rate to be so low. It has been a flawed subjective scouting approach passed down from one generation to the next. Changes are on the way. Analytics will become more sophisticated and adopted. I will see some of the changes within my lifespan but others here will see exponentially more.

DeShone Kizer
Jacoby Brissett
Anthony Boone
Brandon Doughty
David Fales
Stephen Morris
Kellen Moore
Kirk Cousins
Chase Litton
Quinton Flowers
Jerry Lovelocke
Brad Sorensen
Ryan Nassib
Mike Glennon
Tyler Bray
James Vanderberg
Tony Pike
Tim Hiller
John Parker-Wilson
Curtis Painter
Stephen McGee
Graham Harrell
Hunter Cantwell
Cullen Harper
Chase Holbrook
Matt Ryan
Brian Brohm
John David Booty
Erik Ainge
Anthony Morelli
Jordan Palmer
Zac Taylor
Josh Swogger
John Stocco
Toby Korrodi
James Pinkney
Bruce Eugene
Darrell Hackney
Paul Pinegar
Kyle Orton
Brock Berlin
Derek Anderson
Chris Rix
Gino Guidugli
Matt Schaub
Kurt Kittner
Josh Booty
Justin Coleman
Romaro Miller
Spergon Wynn
Chris Wedman
Travis Brown

 

[rickd13]

It's really a meaningless list. None of those quarterbacks on that list were considered top prospects coming into the draft except for Matt Ryan. So obviously they had other issues to consider over short shuttle times. Show me a list of first round qb's that were busts and had short shuttle times.

 

[Awsi Dooger]

It's really a meaningless list. None of those quarterbacks on that list were considered top prospects coming into the draft except for Matt Ryan. So obviously they had other issues to consider over short shuttle times. Show me a list of first round qb's that were busts and had short shuttle times.

There are dozens of numerical criteria in the thread I linked. Every position.

At first view I merely picked out one of them to do a quick study, largely because the administrator on that Canes site spotlighted Malik Rosier and his 4.56 coming out of high school.

It was hardly intended as the ultimate proof of analytics superiority. I know that is not going to fly around here because the stale tape guy approach is preferred, and anything else is considered threatening.

These numbers are helpful tools. Not absolutes. There are some posters here who understand as much and don't scoff, like j-off-her-doll and djphinfan.

The Dolphins could have avoided several recent mistakes if they had applied analytic clarity.

BTW, I wonder if the Cleveland Browns would consider it a meaningless list? They drafted DeShone Kizer in the second round just two years ago. Interesting that two quarterbacks who led miserable seasons are on the list, but those miserable seasons turned into Andrew Luck and Baker Mayfield.

 

[rickd13]

There are dozens of numerical criteria in the thread I linked. Every position.

At first view I merely picked out one of them to do a quick study, largely because the administrator on that Canes site spotlighted Malik Rosier and his 4.56 coming out of high school.

It was hardly intended as the ultimate proof of analytics superiority. I know that is not going to fly around here because the stale tape guy approach is preferred, and anything else is considered threatening.

These numbers are helpful tools. Not absolutes. There are some posters here who understand as much and don't scoff, like j-off-her-doll and djphinfan.

The Dolphins could have avoided several recent mistakes if they had applied analytic clarity.

BTW, I wonder if the Cleveland Browns would consider it a meaningless list? They drafted DeShone Kizer in the second round just two years ago. Interesting that two quarterbacks who led miserable seasons are on the list, but those miserable seasons turned into Andrew Luck and Baker Mayfield.

I'm not discounting analytics at all. In fact I believe it is a great tool that the people in the NFL have been too slow to embrace, but I'm just saying that according to your list, short shuttle time doesn't seem to correlate to the success or failure of a qb. All of those qb's on that list were not thought of as having a great chance of succeeding except for Matt Ryan and he has had a successful career in my opinion. It's like having a list of all of these people that have cancer and all of those people had eaten ice cream in their life and concluding ice cream caused their cancer. There are so many other factors that caused those qb's to be busts to single out short shuttle times of all things.

 

[Pachyderm_Wave]

Analytics can have a place in talent evaluation and be a helpful tool, but they cannot and will not ever take the place of good ol’ fashioned tape watching.

An evaluator is able to account for many more variables by watching a prospect than they’ll ever be able to account for by looking at analytics or stats. Stats in a vacuum only increase variables that can’t be accounted for. A player can bounce from top to bottom and vice versa in situational statistics based on variables. But general strengths and weaknesses in terms of traits on film remain despite changing variables.

The 3rd down analytics in general are not a reliable criteria for one. You’d have Nathan Peterman as a better prospect than Deshaun Watson, Baker Mayfield, Mitch Trubisky, and Josh Allen based on this criteria.

Or McMaryion as a better prospect than Jordan Ta’amu. The examples are endless.

But I digress. Most serious evaluators are usually busy watching the players as opposed to reading articles. That will never change.