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This is my third installment of the Math to the Draft series, this week I'll be looking exclusively at David DeCastro. I've seen a lot of DeCastro and I'm absolutely in love with him and his pulling prowess. I mostly wanted to see whether or not the Dolphins would be justified in picking him at 8. While I only looked at him, so there's no other guard to compare to, I still think the numbers are interesting.
I looked at 4 games of Stanford and recorded each run in those games - where along the line they went, whether or not DeCastro pulled, and whether they were in zone or man on the plays where DeCastro did not pull. I came out to 144 runs for 773 yards overall (for those playing at home, that comes out to 5.37 Yards Per Carry)
First we're going to look at the percentages of runs along the line, how often the plays went to certain sides, etc. This chart isn't the most scintillating thing in the world, but it's going to set up the rest of what we're talking about:
If you're looking at the chart, you could see that 27.78% of the time, DeCastro would pull left and the running back would run outside the Left Tackle, and so on and so forth. The highlighted numbers are the plays I consider DeCastro to be directly involved in. These are when the RB ran through the hole created by DeCastro on the RG% and when he followed DeCastro on the pulls either off-tackle left or through the LG hole.
Before I say anything about the numbers here, let me say that these numbers aren't meant to definitively determine DeCastro's performance, just something to think about. None of these numbers are in a vacuum, each play involves all Stanford O-line and the TEs
That was a lot of data coding for not a lot of output, but I hope you found it interesting. I focused far more on the run than I did on the pass, but I have a little bit of bonus material!
Here are percentages of how often DeCastro was either uncovered, single blocking or double blocking in pass coverage:
I'm not sure that tells you anything relevant at all, but I was watching the tape anyway, figured I'd at least write it down.
That's what I have for this week, hope y'all enjoyed. From what you've seen/heard and hopefully read on here - would you be unhappy if the Dolphins picked DeCastro at 8? What about if they traded down to 15 and picked him? There are certainly a lot of holes on the roster, but I'm sure DeCastro is one, if not the safest pick in the draft. I'd like to hear your thoughts.
I looked at 4 games of Stanford and recorded each run in those games - where along the line they went, whether or not DeCastro pulled, and whether they were in zone or man on the plays where DeCastro did not pull. I came out to 144 runs for 773 yards overall (for those playing at home, that comes out to 5.37 Yards Per Carry)
First we're going to look at the percentages of runs along the line, how often the plays went to certain sides, etc. This chart isn't the most scintillating thing in the world, but it's going to set up the rest of what we're talking about:
| # Runs | Run LT% | Run LG% | Run RG% | Run RT% | |
| Pull Left | 27.78 | 4.86 | 0.00 | 2.08 | 34.72% |
| Man | 0.00 | 4.17 | 18.06 | 4.86 | 27.08% |
| Zone | 4.17 | 6.25 | 9.72 | 18.06 | 38.19% |
| 31.94 | 15.28 | 27.78 | 25.00 |
If you're looking at the chart, you could see that 27.78% of the time, DeCastro would pull left and the running back would run outside the Left Tackle, and so on and so forth. The highlighted numbers are the plays I consider DeCastro to be directly involved in. These are when the RB ran through the hole created by DeCastro on the RG% and when he followed DeCastro on the pulls either off-tackle left or through the LG hole.
- When we add up all the highlighted plays, we can see that DeCastro was directly involved in 60.42% of the plays.
- The pulling left play was by far the most popular play, 27.78% of the runs were pulls by DeCastro and then run off left tackle
- In a weird coincidence, another 27.78% of the runs were behind DeCastro when he stayed in-line on the right side, there were no times when he pulled and the RB went through the RG hole, so the two 27.78s are mutually exclusive
- Normally Stanford runs a combination of man and zone blocking, but far more zone as you can see in the 38% zone compared to the 27% zone, but when DeCastro stayed in line, they used far more man-blocking schemes when they went to his side
| YPC | Run LT | Run LG | Run RG | Run RT |
| Pull Left | 6.5 | 5.71 | 4 | |
| Man | 5.83 | 3.85 | 5.57 | |
| Zone | 5.5 | 5.33 | 3.29 | 6.15 |
Before I say anything about the numbers here, let me say that these numbers aren't meant to definitively determine DeCastro's performance, just something to think about. None of these numbers are in a vacuum, each play involves all Stanford O-line and the TEs
- I wasn't surprised by the high YPC on the left-pulling plays, you can see it on film without the numbers, at 6.5 yards per carry - the pulling play by DeCastro was the most productive play to run in the Stanford offense - it combined the strengths of Jonathan Martin and David DeCastro to go left
- However, I was amazed by the low YPC on the right side runs in both man and zone behind DeCastro. I noticed on film that they were running it a lot and expected it to be productive. It really wasn't, at least according to my criteria and coding. These two were the lowest YPCs out of all the runs. It wasn't like I had a small sample size either - I had 40 runs between the two.
| Pulling DeCastro | 6.38 YPC |
| In-Line DeCastro | 3.65 YPC |
| Others | 5.73 YPC |
| Total | 5.37 YPC |
- On all pulling plays, a gaudy 6.38 YPC, to be expected
- The non directly-DeCastro plays averaged 5.73 YPC
- Overall the line averaged 5.37 yards per carry
That was a lot of data coding for not a lot of output, but I hope you found it interesting. I focused far more on the run than I did on the pass, but I have a little bit of bonus material!
Here are percentages of how often DeCastro was either uncovered, single blocking or double blocking in pass coverage:
| Uncovered | 26.90% |
| Single | 57.93% |
| Double | 15.17% |
I'm not sure that tells you anything relevant at all, but I was watching the tape anyway, figured I'd at least write it down.
That's what I have for this week, hope y'all enjoyed. From what you've seen/heard and hopefully read on here - would you be unhappy if the Dolphins picked DeCastro at 8? What about if they traded down to 15 and picked him? There are certainly a lot of holes on the roster, but I'm sure DeCastro is one, if not the safest pick in the draft. I'd like to hear your thoughts.
