2017 NFL Draft: Pre-Combine Offensive Linemen Produciton Profiles
| February 10, 2017 04:18AM |
[coldomaha.com]
a long article with many fascinating evaluations. I do think the revelations within his article are worthy, and the largest demerit would be this doesn't include a running down component. In a pass happy league, it may be that he's on the right track. But adjusted for what some teams accomplish running the ball, it may make evaluations for that component easier. leafnose
A big component of draft evaluation is production. It’s not the biggest part and it’s not determinative—but it is helpful. Spending a first-round pick on a receiver who grabbed 200 receiving yards in his college career seems unwise. Production can fill in missing gaps in our film review and athletic testing; if we think of a position’s technical requirements, we can too often miss on an effective but unorthodox player.
Sebastian Vollmer, for example, is an extremely effective, but unusual offensive tackle. He handles the foundational skills well—he has to—but his approach to pass protection is not something one would expect from a top-level right (and sometimes left) tackle. He stays high, keeps his hands low and wins consistently.
Getting stuck in orthodoxy is a good way to miss winning players, and finding players who produce regardless of how they do it is a good way to win. So, finding players who produce in college can help us find players who produce in the NFL.
Obviously, one has to be careful. Trevor Insley and Troy Edwards are #1 and #2 in the FBS single-season receiving leaderboard. Insley went undrafted in 2000 while Edwards was a first-round pick for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1999. Between the two of them, they’ve played for 11 professional football teams, NFL Europe and Arena Football included—with 2569 total NFL receiving yards.
A more comprehensive statistical analysis, however, would have argued that Insley was undervalued as a UDFA (and, by having made any yards in the NFL, he was—especially given that it was injury that ended his career) and that Edwards was overvalued as a first-round pick (which, having never broken 800 yards in a season, he clearly was).
Edwards would finish his rookie year a little over 23.5 years old, and he only grabbed 38.5 percent of his team’s receiving yards (a percentage referred to by fantasy quants as “market share”) that year despite being somewhat old for a draft prospect.
The average market share for a receiver in CBS’ top 32 this year is 42.5 percent. For the top 50, it’s 46.6 percent. And those receivers are all younger, too.
Long story short, Edwards’ age and relative production put him below the generalized pick value he was eventually selected at.
This just means that production can enhance film grades, not supplant them. The production profiles in this piece will be used to adjust expectations relative to already established film grades; if Player A has a fifth-round grade but better production than a first-round graded player (Player
, it is unlikely that Player A is actually a better receiver than Player B—just that it is more likely that Player B should have been drafted higher than he was.
There’s a direct relationship between age, market share and future expected performance for receivers in the NFL. One must account for how dominant a receiver is within the confines of his own offense and how old he was within that offense.
But beyond that, I’ve also found that one must account for highly-drafted teammates, and one reason I argued that Michael Thomas had a strong—not weak—statistical case as a receiver despite having a low market share. Playing with Braxton Miller, Jalin Marshall, Ezekiel Elliott and Nick Vannett reasonably suppressed his market share.
Here, we’ll be looking at offensive linemen. Production for offensive linemen used to mean games started, team rushing yards and occasionally a total number of “pancake blocks” as determined by team media guides. Now, we have excellent resources like CFB Film Room and Pro Football Focus that track how many sacks, hits or hurries an offensive lineman gives up.
Most of the numbers for this piece will come from CFB Film Room, with PFF filling in the numbers where CFB Film Room doesn’t have them. They seem to track these a little differently, though not too much—there’s only so much disagreement one can have over how many sacks a player gives up. I adjusted the PFF scores, which are generally harsher to offensive linemen, to match the general pressure rates produced by CFB Film Room.
It’s important to remember then, that these won’t be useful for parsing finer details; two linemen with very similar ranks could end up with individual ranks higher or lower than each other in either system, but will generally be in the same ballpark.
After that, I threw in a demerit for penalty yardage, about ten percent of the weight that pressure rate received.
The most important adjustment might be for the offense. Generally speaking, two things have an enormous impact on quarterback sack rates: the quarterback and the offense they operate in. A QB who can sense pressure or adjust to blitzes may do more to impact a sack rate than a lineman’s skill, and a quick-strike offense can do even more.
So to get around that I incorporated team sack rates as a penalty to the lineman’s individual pressure rate. The team that led the country in sack rate last year was Troy, where Antonio Garcia comes from. While Garcia may individually be a good prospect, I find it unlikely that his four teammates along the line and his quarterback are similarly good prospects—Troy probably wouldn’t have a bottom-of-the-barrel passing offense if that were true.
Similarly, Nathan Peterman at Pitt does a pretty good job of avoiding pressure and that helps offensive linemen like Dorian Johnson and Adam Bisnowaty when it comes to their pressure numbers. It’s not an offense that uniquely enables better sack rates but Peterman himself does.
Accounting for that on a case-by-case basis is difficult, but providing an adjustment—something like a 25 percent weight within the pressure formula—using team sack rates for all of the draftable linemen will provide a clearer picture of their production.
As a reminder, before reading the table, production isn’t everything, especially for these offensive line metrics.
Unlike the receiver metrics mentioned above, I haven’t back-tested any of this data, and there’s only two years of it anyway given that PFF and CFB Film Room only rigorously started charting college players since 2015.
The methods here are just applications that make sense to me and not a rigorous understanding of offensive line metrics as applied to projection overall. Also, these only test pass protection and penalty avoidance, not run game production.
We have no idea if penalties project to the next level or if age is as significant for offensive linemen as it is for wide receivers, but for now it’s worth including as a means of understanding how those linemen perform.
The production ratings are on a baseball-style 100+ scale, where 15 points above 100 is one standard deviation above average while 15 points below is, as you’d imagine, one standard deviation below average.
As an example, Matt Ryan’s passing performance this year in a 100+ system using adjusted net yards per attempt, was 143—nearly three standard deviations above average (45 divided by 15 is three). Sam Bradford, at 114, was nearly one deviation above average and Tyrod Taylor was dead even at 100. Jared Goff, at 61, was more than two below average.
The ranks and projected rounds used below were grabbed from CBS’ official rankings from a week or so ago. The ages were compiled to the best of my ability and represent a player’s age at the end of December 2017.
First are the centers:
go to the link to read balance / too much to paste
[coldomaha.com]
a long article with many fascinating evaluations. I do think the revelations within his article are worthy, and the largest demerit would be this doesn't include a running down component. In a pass happy league, it may be that he's on the right track. But adjusted for what some teams accomplish running the ball, it may make evaluations for that component easier. leafnose
A big component of draft evaluation is production. It’s not the biggest part and it’s not determinative—but it is helpful. Spending a first-round pick on a receiver who grabbed 200 receiving yards in his college career seems unwise. Production can fill in missing gaps in our film review and athletic testing; if we think of a position’s technical requirements, we can too often miss on an effective but unorthodox player.
Sebastian Vollmer, for example, is an extremely effective, but unusual offensive tackle. He handles the foundational skills well—he has to—but his approach to pass protection is not something one would expect from a top-level right (and sometimes left) tackle. He stays high, keeps his hands low and wins consistently.
Getting stuck in orthodoxy is a good way to miss winning players, and finding players who produce regardless of how they do it is a good way to win. So, finding players who produce in college can help us find players who produce in the NFL.
Obviously, one has to be careful. Trevor Insley and Troy Edwards are #1 and #2 in the FBS single-season receiving leaderboard. Insley went undrafted in 2000 while Edwards was a first-round pick for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1999. Between the two of them, they’ve played for 11 professional football teams, NFL Europe and Arena Football included—with 2569 total NFL receiving yards.
A more comprehensive statistical analysis, however, would have argued that Insley was undervalued as a UDFA (and, by having made any yards in the NFL, he was—especially given that it was injury that ended his career) and that Edwards was overvalued as a first-round pick (which, having never broken 800 yards in a season, he clearly was).
Edwards would finish his rookie year a little over 23.5 years old, and he only grabbed 38.5 percent of his team’s receiving yards (a percentage referred to by fantasy quants as “market share”) that year despite being somewhat old for a draft prospect.
The average market share for a receiver in CBS’ top 32 this year is 42.5 percent. For the top 50, it’s 46.6 percent. And those receivers are all younger, too.
Long story short, Edwards’ age and relative production put him below the generalized pick value he was eventually selected at.
This just means that production can enhance film grades, not supplant them. The production profiles in this piece will be used to adjust expectations relative to already established film grades; if Player A has a fifth-round grade but better production than a first-round graded player (Player
, it is unlikely that Player A is actually a better receiver than Player B—just that it is more likely that Player B should have been drafted higher than he was.There’s a direct relationship between age, market share and future expected performance for receivers in the NFL. One must account for how dominant a receiver is within the confines of his own offense and how old he was within that offense.
But beyond that, I’ve also found that one must account for highly-drafted teammates, and one reason I argued that Michael Thomas had a strong—not weak—statistical case as a receiver despite having a low market share. Playing with Braxton Miller, Jalin Marshall, Ezekiel Elliott and Nick Vannett reasonably suppressed his market share.
Here, we’ll be looking at offensive linemen. Production for offensive linemen used to mean games started, team rushing yards and occasionally a total number of “pancake blocks” as determined by team media guides. Now, we have excellent resources like CFB Film Room and Pro Football Focus that track how many sacks, hits or hurries an offensive lineman gives up.
Most of the numbers for this piece will come from CFB Film Room, with PFF filling in the numbers where CFB Film Room doesn’t have them. They seem to track these a little differently, though not too much—there’s only so much disagreement one can have over how many sacks a player gives up. I adjusted the PFF scores, which are generally harsher to offensive linemen, to match the general pressure rates produced by CFB Film Room.
It’s important to remember then, that these won’t be useful for parsing finer details; two linemen with very similar ranks could end up with individual ranks higher or lower than each other in either system, but will generally be in the same ballpark.
After that, I threw in a demerit for penalty yardage, about ten percent of the weight that pressure rate received.
The most important adjustment might be for the offense. Generally speaking, two things have an enormous impact on quarterback sack rates: the quarterback and the offense they operate in. A QB who can sense pressure or adjust to blitzes may do more to impact a sack rate than a lineman’s skill, and a quick-strike offense can do even more.
So to get around that I incorporated team sack rates as a penalty to the lineman’s individual pressure rate. The team that led the country in sack rate last year was Troy, where Antonio Garcia comes from. While Garcia may individually be a good prospect, I find it unlikely that his four teammates along the line and his quarterback are similarly good prospects—Troy probably wouldn’t have a bottom-of-the-barrel passing offense if that were true.
Similarly, Nathan Peterman at Pitt does a pretty good job of avoiding pressure and that helps offensive linemen like Dorian Johnson and Adam Bisnowaty when it comes to their pressure numbers. It’s not an offense that uniquely enables better sack rates but Peterman himself does.
Accounting for that on a case-by-case basis is difficult, but providing an adjustment—something like a 25 percent weight within the pressure formula—using team sack rates for all of the draftable linemen will provide a clearer picture of their production.
As a reminder, before reading the table, production isn’t everything, especially for these offensive line metrics.
Unlike the receiver metrics mentioned above, I haven’t back-tested any of this data, and there’s only two years of it anyway given that PFF and CFB Film Room only rigorously started charting college players since 2015.
The methods here are just applications that make sense to me and not a rigorous understanding of offensive line metrics as applied to projection overall. Also, these only test pass protection and penalty avoidance, not run game production.
We have no idea if penalties project to the next level or if age is as significant for offensive linemen as it is for wide receivers, but for now it’s worth including as a means of understanding how those linemen perform.
The production ratings are on a baseball-style 100+ scale, where 15 points above 100 is one standard deviation above average while 15 points below is, as you’d imagine, one standard deviation below average.
As an example, Matt Ryan’s passing performance this year in a 100+ system using adjusted net yards per attempt, was 143—nearly three standard deviations above average (45 divided by 15 is three). Sam Bradford, at 114, was nearly one deviation above average and Tyrod Taylor was dead even at 100. Jared Goff, at 61, was more than two below average.
The ranks and projected rounds used below were grabbed from CBS’ official rankings from a week or so ago. The ages were compiled to the best of my ability and represent a player’s age at the end of December 2017.
First are the centers:
go to the link to read balance / too much to paste
[coldomaha.com]
| Subject | Author | Views | Posted |
|---|---|---|---|
 | leafnose | 536 | February 10, 2017 04:18AM |
| LMU93 | 229 | February 10, 2017 04:34AM |
