ZWK's 2017 Prospect Analysis (1 Viewer)

Dinsy Ejotuz · Apr 9, 2017

Z, you've mentioned a few times that your first cut is a player's score on your NCAA performance metric, and if they fail that test they can't make it up elsewhere.

Have you looked at swapping the order of operations? I'm not saying do something else first all the time, but rather switch up the order for a single prospect and see how they compare to others who emerge from the revised ordering.

FWIW (which is at least what you paid), I tend to look at players from 10 different angles by changing who the comps might be under different scenarios. I don't think there's enough data to really know which measures are most important for any given player (in fact I'm pretty sure it varies, depending on the player) so I try to incorporate that uncertainty by looking at prospects as many different ways as possible.

ZWK · Apr 9, 2017

Dinsy Ejotuz said:
Z, you've mentioned a few times that your first cut is a player's score on your NCAA performance metric, and if they fail that test they can't make it up elsewhere.

Have you looked at swapping the order of operations? I'm not saying do something else first all the time, but rather switch up the order for a single prospect and see how they compare to others who emerge from the revised ordering.

FWIW (which is at least what you paid), I tend to look at players from 10 different angles by changing who the comps might be under different scenarios. I don't think there's enough data to really know which measures are most important for any given player (in fact I'm pretty sure it varies, depending on the player) so I try to incorporate that uncertainty by looking at prospects as many different ways as possible.

I occasionally do one-off analyses like this (which I think is the sort of thing that you're recommending):

ZWK said:
Here are the 15 players who were drafted in the first 3 rounds from 2006-2016 who are most similar to Mike Williams in terms of height/weight/BMI/40 time (using nfldraftscout estimates for Williams, and for other players who don't have combine or pro day numbers):

Player Ht Wt BMI 40 time
Mike Williams 75.3 225 28.1 4.50
Josh Gordon 75.1 224 27.9 4.52
Demaryius Thomas 75.3 224 27.8 4.52
Jon Baldwin 76.4 228 27.5 4.49
Dez Bryant 74.0 225 28.9 4.52
Dwayne Bowe 74.0 221 28.4 4.51
Mike Evans 76.8 231 27.6 4.51
Brian Quick 75.5 220 27.1 4.50
Kenny Britt 74.9 218 27.3 4.49
Greg Little 74.5 231 29.3 4.51
Jaelen Strong 74.4 217 27.6 4.44
Alshon Jeffery 74.9 216 27.1 4.48
Jordy Nelson 74.6 217 27.4 4.51
Cody Latimer 74.5 215 27.2 4.44
Devin Thomas 74.0 215 27.6 4.41
Dorial Green-Beckham 77.1 237 28.0 4.49

That's a strong list with a lot of stars, though also a fair number of busts. But a random player from that list is a valuable prospect.

Here is how those players rank in terms of college production, from best to worst by my career production score (leaving out Brian Quick, who was non-FBS):

Demaryius Thomas
Dez Bryant
Mike Evans
Jordy Nelson
Alshon Jeffery
Kenny Britt
Dwayne Bowe
Devin Thomas
Cody Latimer
Jaelen Strong
Mike Williams
Jon Baldwin
Dorial Green-Beckham
Josh Gordon
Greg Little

That does not look so good for Williams. It's nearly all stars in the top half of the list and all busts in the bottom half (with the one big exception of Josh Gordon, who had to leave college early). Williams is squarely in the bottom half.

I don't have a convenient way to do lots of analyses like that. It's possible that it's worth trying to set something up for that.

My guess is that, if my goal is finding things that my current system is missing, then I'm currently at a point where I'd get more value out of doing more analyses like this other one or looking more closely at the ratings being produced by other people (like PFF, Matt Harmon, and Football Outsiders).

ZWK · Apr 10, 2017

Here's a first pass at the order that I'd draft this year's WRs in, if my draft was today. This is taking into account all info, including projected draft spot and various other analyses. I'm not that confident on the exact ordering within a tier. The NFL draft can still shake things up a lot, especially for the big group of guys in the last tier.

Corey Davis

Mike Williams
John Ross

Carlos Henderson
JuJu Smith-Schuster
Curtis Samuel

Taywan Taylor
Dede Westbrook
Chris Godwin

Zay Jones
Cooper Kupp
Isaiah Ford
Ardarius Stewart
Josh Malone
Jalen Robinette
Amba Etta-Tawo
Josh Reynolds
Kenny Golladay
Chad Hansen
Robert Davis
Amara Darboh
Malachi Dupre
KD Cannon
Ishmael Zamora
Austin Carr
Shelton Gibson
Mack Hollins

ZWK · Apr 11, 2017

Matt Harmon has a pretty devastating article on Dede Westbrook, as part of his Reception Perception series.

ZWK · Apr 11, 2017

As I wrote about last year, there seems to be a BMI cutoff for WRs around 26.0, with few successful NFL WRs coming in below that cutoff. Out of the 51 successful/promising WRs who entered the NFL since 2006, here are the 10 with the lowest pre-draft BMI:

Code:

Name               Ht      Wt     BMI
DeSean Jackson     69.8    169    24.42
Sidney Rice        75.5    200    24.67
John Brown         70.0    179    25.68
A.J. Green         75.6    211    25.94
Steve Smith (USC)  73.0    197    25.99
Martavis Bryant    75.5    211    26.02
Emmanuel Sanders   70.9    186    26.03
Allen Hurns        73.0    198    26.12
Jordan Matthews    75.1    212    26.41
Keenan Allen       74.0    206    26.45

Only 2 out of 51 (4%) with BMI below 25.6, and only 8 out of 51 (16%) with BMI below 26.4. So there seems to be a cutoff somewhere near 26.0, although low BMI is not a guaranteed dealbreaker and I wouldn't want to draw a single sharp line as the cutoff.

The main two types of WRs that seem to have been able to succeed despite a low BMI are the superfast ones (DJax, John Brown, sorta Emmanuel Sanders) and the tall, lanky type (Sidney Rice, AJ Green, Martavis Bryant).

Here are all the WRs in this draft class who currently look fantasy-relevant and have a BMI below 26.5:

Code:

Name            Ht      Wt     BMI
Josh Reynolds   74.9    194    24.33
Dede Westbrook  71.6    178    24.39
Malachi Dupre   74.5    196    24.83
KD Cannon       71.0    182    25.38
Isaiah Ford     73.0    194    25.59
Zay Jones       74.1    201    25.72
Travis Rudolph  71.8    189    25.81
Chad Hansen     73.9    202    26.02
Josh Malone     74.8    208    26.17
Corey Davis     74.9    209    26.21
Cooper Kupp     73.6    204    26.46

I'd call this a major concern for the Reynolds-Cannon part of this list, a concern for the Ford-Hansen range, and a minor concern for Malone & Davis.

Reynolds & Westbrook are even thinner than DJax and Sidney Rice. Westbrook & Cannon are fast but not 4.35 fast. Reynolds, Dupre, Ford, Rudolph, and Hansen have average or below-average speed to go along with their thin build. Reynolds, Malone, and Dupre are somewhat tall but still below 6'3", and they also each have shorter-than-usual arms for their height.

Zyphros · Apr 11, 2017

What are the ages for each of those guys? It'd be less of a concern for guys on the younger side. That way they could add playing weight in strength. No clue where the cutoff would be, 22 years old? Older than that can't strengthen their BMI without sacrificing speed/quickness, younger can without sacrificing anything). Just don't know if it'd be true or not, but it passes the "logical" test.

ZWK · Apr 12, 2017

Zyphros said:
What are the ages for each of those guys? It'd be less of a concern for guys on the younger side. That way they could add playing weight in strength. No clue where the cutoff would be, 22 years old? Older than that can't strengthen their BMI without sacrificing speed/quickness, younger can without sacrificing anything). Just don't know if it'd be true or not, but it passes the "logical" test.

Age doesn't show any clear relationship with low-BMI receivers who wound up being successful. DeSean Jackson and Sidney Rice were both younger than the typical successful NFL WR when they entered the draft, but I don't think that either of them bulked up much in the NFL. And John Brown, AJ Green, Steve Smith, Martavis Bryant, Emmanuel Sanders, and Allen Hurns were all older than the typical successful NFL WR when they entered the draft.

Among the low BMI guys in this year's draft class, Malachi Dupre, KD Cannon, Isaiah Ford, Travis Rudolph, and Josh Malone are younger than average.

EBF · Apr 12, 2017

Don't really have a strong opinion on KD Cannon, but he was quite a track star in HS:

https://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/Athlete.aspx?AID=6628476#/L0

http://www.all-athletics.com/node/800800

For a skinny guy, I would say he might fall into the "superfast" group.

ZWK · Apr 12, 2017

Zay Jones looks to be one of the WRs who I am most down on relative to other people. He was the 6th WR off the board in the Shark Poll (15th overall), and is generally seen as a 2nd or 3rd round pick.

His 158/1746/8 statline for the season (in only 12 games) looks ridiculously productive, but college WRs who feed on a lot of short passes tend not to amount to much in the NFL. The WRs who continue to succeed at the NFL level are the ones who beat defenses for longer gains and touchdowns, rather than just taking easy underneath catches. My WR production formula takes that into account and rates Jones as the 34th most productive receiver in college football this past season - above average but below the level that good NFL players usually reach. Jones's 7.9 yards per target is bad - looking at the 45 successful/promising WRs who entered the NFL since 2006 and who I have YPT data for, 7.9 would equal the lowest YPT of that group and only 5 of the 45 had below 9.0 YPT. Football Outsiders' Playmaker Score is even more pessimistic about him, for similar reasons (they cite his 10.7 yards per reception for his career).

In Jones's favor, he didn't only catch short passes. He had 13 25+ yard receptions in 12 games, including 4 40+ yard receptions, which are average to above average numbers. And he showed better-than average speed at the combine with a 4.46 40, and good explosiveness with a 36" vertical and 11'1" broad jump.

Against Jones, my formula already takes into account his long receptions and athleticism. His production rating is held down not only by his bad YPT, but also by the fact that he scored touchdowns at only an average rate (I'd expect more than 4 red zone TDs from an elite possession receiver) and had just an averageish number of long receptions. Also, his BMI of 25.72 is below the 26.0 threshold that most successful WRs meet. And, according to Matt Harmon's Reception Perception numbers, he did most of his damage underneath against zone defenses, and struggled against press coverage and on nine routes.

The bottom line is that I think he has a better shot than my formula says, but I'm still not that excited about him as a prospect.

Biabreakable · Apr 12, 2017

ZWK said:
As I wrote about last year, there seems to be a BMI cutoff for WRs around 26.0, with few successful NFL WRs coming in below that cutoff. Out of the 51 successful/promising WRs who entered the NFL since 2006, here are the 10 with the lowest pre-draft BMI:

Code:

Name Ht Wt BMI DeSean Jackson 69.8 169 24.42 Sidney Rice 75.5 200 24.67 John Brown 70.0 179 25.68 A.J. Green 75.6 211 25.94 Steve Smith (USC) 73.0 197 25.99 Martavis Bryant 75.5 211 26.02 Emmanuel Sanders 70.9 186 26.03 Allen Hurns 73.0 198 26.12 Jordan Matthews 75.1 212 26.41 Keenan Allen 74.0 206 26.45

Only 2 out of 51 (4%) with BMI below 25.6, and only 8 out of 51 (16%) with BMI below 26.4. So there seems to be a cutoff somewhere near 26.0, although low BMI is not a guaranteed dealbreaker and I wouldn't want to draw a single sharp line as the cutoff.

The main two types of WRs that seem to have been able to succeed despite a low BMI are the superfast ones (DJax, John Brown, sorta Emmanuel Sanders) and the tall, lanky type (Sidney Rice, AJ Green, Martavis Bryant).

Here are all the WRs in this draft class who currently look fantasy-relevant and have a BMI below 26.5:

Code:

Name Ht Wt BMI Josh Reynolds 74.9 194 24.33 Dede Westbrook 71.6 178 24.39 Malachi Dupre 74.5 196 24.83 KD Cannon 71.0 182 25.38 Isaiah Ford 73.0 194 25.59 Zay Jones 74.1 201 25.72 Travis Rudolph 71.8 189 25.81 Chad Hansen 73.9 202 26.02 Josh Malone 74.8 208 26.17 Corey Davis 74.9 209 26.21 Cooper Kupp 73.6 204 26.46

I'd call this a major concern for the Reynolds-Cannon part of this list, a concern for the Ford-Hansen range, and a minor concern for Malone & Davis.

Reynolds & Westbrook are even thinner than DJax and Sidney Rice. Westbrook & Cannon are fast but not 4.35 fast. Reynolds, Dupre, Ford, Rudolph, and Hansen have average or below-average speed to go along with their thin build. Reynolds, Malone, and Dupre are somewhat tall but still below 6'3", and they also each have shorter-than-usual arms for their height.

Z I have some questions about this and the conclusions you seem to draw from it.

First of all, do you think BMI is a static metric?

Leonard Fournette as a recent example lost about 10 lbs from the combine to his pro day. Many players have their weight change over the course of their careers. You constantly hear about a guy adding 10 lbs or losing 10 lbs. The variable nature of this causes your BMI metric to be a moving target. Some times a guy is on one side of the line, other times the same guy is on the other side of it.

A players weight, especially a young players weight is likely to change post combine.

What was TY Hiltons BMI?

Why would being under 26 BMI be a major concern for some players but not others?

It seems like you are being arbitrary in how you assign significance to the BMI metric when you call it a major concern for some players but only a minor concern for others. If it is a major concern for any of these players then that concern should be applied equally, otherwise you are not applying the metric fairly to all players.

Personally I think BMI is pretty flawed. Height has shown to be random and to not have predictive value. Weight does have some correlation to success for players, but that is only half of the metric to calculate BMI. Seems that going by just wright would be a more accurate metric to use than BMI.

ZWK · Apr 12, 2017

Biabreakable said:
Z I have some questions about this and the conclusions you seem to draw from it.

First of all, do you think BMI is a static metric?

Leonard Fournette as a recent example lost about 10 lbs from the combine to his pro day. Many players have their weight change over the course of their careers. You constantly hear about a guy adding 10 lbs or losing 10 lbs. The variable nature of this causes your BMI metric to be a moving target. Some times a guy is on one side of the line, other times the same guy is on the other side of it.

A players weight, especially a young players weight is likely to change post combine.

What was TY Hiltons BMI?

Why would being under 26 BMI be a major concern for some players but not others?

It seems like you are being arbitrary in how you assign significance to the BMI metric when you call it a major concern for some players but only a minor concern for others. If it is a major concern for any of these players then that concern should be applied equally, otherwise you are not applying the metric fairly to all players.

Personally I think BMI is pretty flawed. Height has shown to be random and to not have predictive value. Weight does have some correlation to success for players, but that is only half of the metric to calculate BMI. Seems that going by just wright would be a more accurate metric to use than BMI.

Height is related to success as an NFL wide receiver. The average successful receiver is taller than the average adult man, and also taller than the average WR at the NFL combine. And a disproportionate number of successful WRs are 6'3" or taller. You may be thinking of some Adam Harstad articles which argued that height doesn't predict NFL success after controlling for draft spot, but that just means that NFL teams understand the value of height and take it into account appropriately when drafting wide receivers.

The reason that I looked at BMI rather than weight is that there's a much starker pattern with BMI than with weight. Having a weight under 189 is roughly as rare as having a BMI under 26 for a WR at the NFL combine, but it's much less predictive of what a receiver will do in the NFL. There have been elite WRs who came into the NFL around 5'10" 185 lbs. (BMI of 26.5), but none who came into the NFL around 6'0" 185 lbs. (BMI of 25.1). If you look at higher weights there is a similar pattern with a higher height cutoff. You can look here at the WRs who entered the league with a weight in the 180s. The 36 WRs with a combine height of 6'0" or more and a combine weight of 180-189 have a total of 1 Pro Bowl appearance between them (by Brandon Lloyd), and are highlighted by Brandon Lloyd, Bernard Berrian, Antonio Bryant, Mario Manningham, and Will Fuller. Whereas the 42 WRs who came into the league at 5'10" or shorter and 180-189 lbs. include 3 players with multiple Pro Bowls (Steve Smith CAR, Antonio Brown, TY Hilton) as well as Brandin Cooks, Santana Moss, Eddie Royal, Jamison Crowder, Tyler Lockett, and Danny Amendola. (TY Hilton had a BMI of 26.54, at 5'9.6" 183 lbs.)

I agree that weight can change, and that should make us more skeptical about historical patterns involving weight compared to patterns involving other less changeable variables. But there are limits to how much weight a player can gain - limits to how much a person's frame will hold, limits to how much weight they can add without sacrificing their ability to move well. And every player has an opportunity to gain weight. WRs who are entering the NFL now with a 25.7 BMI can try to work out and bulk up, but WRs who entered the NFL a decade ago with a BMI of 25.7 could also try to work out and bulk up, and very few of them managed to pull it off and be successful NFL WRs. If extra muscle/bulk is useful for an NFL WR, then WRs who enter the NFL with a BMI of 26.5 will presumably also be trying to work out and bulk up; in order for the 25.7 BMI guy to catch up he needs to match the physique that the other guy ends up with (not just the physique that the other guy came into the league with). I don't actually know what playing-weight BMI WRs generally need to have in order to be successful - it's possible that there's a cutoff at a playing-weight BMI of 27.2, and WRs who enter the NFL at 26.5 BMI are often able to bulk up enough to meet that cutoff but WRs who enter the NFL at 25.7 BMI generally aren't.

I expressed more concern about the guys who are well below 26.0 BMI than about the guys who are around 26.0, because I don't think it is a fixed sharp cutoff where a guy who enters the NFL at 26.1 is completely fine and a guy who enters the NFL at 25.9 is completely doomed. Weights can change, as you say, and whatever advantage higher BMI brings, it probably doesn't come all at once as a player crosses a single specific threshold. So I'm more concerned about Malachi Dupre's 24.83 BMI than I am about Zay Jones's 25.72 BMI, and I'm more concerned about Jones than I am about Josh Malone's 26.17 BMI.

ZWK · Apr 12, 2017

ZWK said:
Here are the most productive draft-entering college QBs, mostly based on 2016 stats and giving some weight to 2015 stats.

Nathan Peterman   Pittsburgh   SR
Chad Kelly   Miss   SR
Deshaun Watson   Clemson   JR

Patrick Mahomes II   Texas Tech   JR
Seth Russell   Baylor   SR
Jerod Evans   Va Tech   JR

DeShone Kizer   Notre Dame   JR
Mitch Trubisky   N Carolina   JR
Zach Terrell   W Mich   SR
Ryan Higgins   La Tech   SR

Scouting matters a lot for QBs; basically these are the 10 guys who I might wind up being on board with if NFL teams like them (and it's something of a stretch for the last 4). These numbers only reflect box score stats; I currently don't have data on arm strength or accuracy for different types of throws (which I have often been able to get my hands on in recent years).

These numbers still apply, although in hindsight it's a bit misleading to have these guys separated into 3 tiers when their numbers weren't that different from each other. No QB had elite production like Mariota 2014, Winston 2013, Wilson 2011, or Luck 2010.

In previous seasons folks like Darren Page, Greg Peshek, and PFF sometimes shared data on QB accuracy at different depths & under pressure, but that hasn't happened this year - the closest thing is PFF's chart of QB grades by throw type.

Watson, Trubisky, Mahomes, and Kizer are being talked about as the top QB prospects, with the standard view being that they're all worthy of a pick in the first round or two but aren't elite prospects. That basically matches their production numbers. Kizer has a major flag in that his PFF grade was actually pretty mediocre, while PFF graded the other 3 in the top 4 in the class. Watson has a less serious flag in that he didn't have much zip on his passes when he threw at the combine; his passes were clocked at only 49 mph when most good prospects throw at 55+ mph.

QBs drafted outside the top 45 picks have a much worse success rate than QBs who are drafted in the first round and a half, so if the NFL draft matches the current rankings then anyone besides these 4 will have an uphill battle to NFL relevance.

Davis Webb seems to be getting the most buzz, outside of these 4 QBs, but his college production wasn't very good by my metrics. Gaudy totals but unimpressive efficiency. One simple comparison: he had 68 more QB plays this year than Jared Goff did last year (pass attempts + sacks + scrambles + designed QB runs), and turned that into 521 fewer yards, 9 fewer first downs, and the same number of touchdowns. Just looking at passing attempts, Goff averaged 8.9 YPA and Webb averaged 6.9 YPA.

The guys who my production stats like, outside of the obvious 4, are Nathan Peterman, Chad Kelly, Seth Russell, and Jerod Evans. I watched a couple game videos of each of them, and have the opinion that Russell doesn't really belong in this group - he's an inaccurate passer who benefited from lots of wide open receivers in Baylor's 2015 offense. Peterman, Kelly, and Evans all looked pretty good to me, although I am far from an expert on evaluate QBs. PFF's grades agree, putting Kelly right behind Mahomes, Peterman & Evans a few slots back, and Russell down near the bottom.

If Peterman, Kelly, and Evans don't get drafted in the first 2 rounds, then I'd also say that Kelly has the best chance to succeed in the NFL despite a low draft spot, since he has plenty of character & medical issues that could cause him to fall in the draft. Whereas, if Peterman & Evans fall in the draft, that's presumably just because NFL evaluators looked at them and didn't think that they were likely to be starter-caliber quarterbacks in the NFL.

Dinsy Ejotuz · Apr 12, 2017

Curious to see if any NFL GMs will put their neck on the line for a pitcher with a 79 mph fastball.

maf005 · Apr 12, 2017

ZWK said:
These numbers still apply, although in hindsight it's a bit misleading to have these guys separated into 3 tiers when their numbers weren't that different from each other. No QB had elite production like Mariota 2014, Winston 2013, Wilson 2011, or Luck 2010.

In previous seasons folks like Darren Page, Greg Peshek, and PFF sometimes shared data on QB accuracy at different depths & under pressure, but that hasn't happened this year - the closest thing is PFF's chart of QB grades by throw type.

Watson, Trubisky, Mahomes, and Kizer are being talked about as the top QB prospects, with the standard view being that they're all worthy of a pick in the first round or two but aren't elite prospects. That basically matches their production numbers. Kizer has a major flag in that his PFF grade was actually pretty mediocre, while PFF graded the other 3 in the top 4 in the class. Watson has a less serious flag in that he didn't have much zip on his passes when he threw at the combine; his passes were clocked at only 49 mph when most good prospects throw at 55+ mph.

Similar to low BMI, how predictive of NFL failure is low pass mph? It's my understanding that basically no qb has ever had nfl success with a velocity under 50. Have you worked with passing velocity much?

(fwiw I don't think Watson belongs in the NFL. His lack of arm talent is akin to a wr running a 4.9 40-yard dash imo)

ZWK · Apr 12, 2017

maf005 said:
ZWK said:

These numbers still apply, although in hindsight it's a bit misleading to have these guys separated into 3 tiers when their numbers weren't that different from each other. No QB had elite production like Mariota 2014, Winston 2013, Wilson 2011, or Luck 2010.

In previous seasons folks like Darren Page, Greg Peshek, and PFF sometimes shared data on QB accuracy at different depths & under pressure, but that hasn't happened this year - the closest thing is PFF's chart of QB grades by throw type.

Watson, Trubisky, Mahomes, and Kizer are being talked about as the top QB prospects, with the standard view being that they're all worthy of a pick in the first round or two but aren't elite prospects. That basically matches their production numbers. Kizer has a major flag in that his PFF grade was actually pretty mediocre, while PFF graded the other 3 in the top 4 in the class. Watson has a less serious flag in that he didn't have much zip on his passes when he threw at the combine; his passes were clocked at only 49 mph when most good prospects throw at 55+ mph.

Click to expand...

Similar to low BMI, how predictive of NFL failure is low pass mph? It's my understanding that basically no qb has ever had nfl success with a velocity under 50. Have you worked with passing velocity much?

(fwiw I don't think Watson belongs in the NFL. His lack of arm talent is akin to a wr running a 4.9 40-yard dash imo)

There is much less data on pass mph than there is on BMI, so it's harder to tell if there's a pattern. Until recently, the top QBs usually didn't throw at the combine, so we don't know the passing velocity of successful QBs like Andrew Luck, Derek Carr, Matt Stafford, and Matt Ryan (or busts like Blaine Gabbert and Jimmy Clausen).

The lowest measured passing velocity that I've seen from a QB who has had some NFL success is 50mph from Tyrod Taylor, according to Ourlads.

I hadn't seen that Ourlads post before, and they give different speeds for this year's draft class than Jared Tokarz did. Ourlads has everyone's max speed 3-5 mph slower than Tokarz (if we take the faster of the two numbers that Ourlads gives for each QB). The Tokarz numbers seem more similar to the Ourlads numbers from previous years, so for now I think I'll go with them.

bicycle_seat_sniffer · Apr 12, 2017

is that steve smith NYG or Steve smith of Carolina fame?

ZWK · Apr 12, 2017

bicycle_seat_sniffer said:
is that steve smith NYG or Steve smith of Carolina fame?

They've both come up on this page. Steve Smith NYG went to USC and had a 25.99 BMI. Steve Smith CAR was short but did not have low BMI.

bicycle_seat_sniffer · Apr 12, 2017

ZWK said:
As I wrote about last year, there seems to be a BMI cutoff for WRs around 26.0, with few successful NFL WRs coming in below that cutoff. Out of the 51 successful/promising WRs who entered the NFL since 2006, here are the 10 with the lowest pre-draft BMI:

Code:

Name Ht Wt BMI DeSean Jackson 69.8 169 24.42 Sidney Rice 75.5 200 24.67 John Brown 70.0 179 25.68 A.J. Green 75.6 211 25.94 Steve Smith (USC) 73.0 197 25.99 Martavis Bryant 75.5 211 26.02 Emmanuel Sanders 70.9 186 26.03 Allen Hurns 73.0 198 26.12 Jordan Matthews 75.1 212 26.41 Keenan Allen 74.0 206 26.45

Only 2 out of 51 (4%) with BMI below 25.6, and only 8 out of 51 (16%) with BMI below 26.4. So there seems to be a cutoff somewhere near 26.0, although low BMI is not a guaranteed dealbreaker and I wouldn't want to draw a single sharp line as the cutoff.

The main two types of WRs that seem to have been able to succeed despite a low BMI are the superfast ones (DJax, John Brown, sorta Emmanuel Sanders) and the tall, lanky type (Sidney Rice, AJ Green, Martavis Bryant).

Here are all the WRs in this draft class who currently look fantasy-relevant and have a BMI below 26.5:

Code:

Name Ht Wt BMI Josh Reynolds 74.9 194 24.33 Dede Westbrook 71.6 178 24.39 Malachi Dupre 74.5 196 24.83 KD Cannon 71.0 182 25.38 Isaiah Ford 73.0 194 25.59 Zay Jones 74.1 201 25.72 Travis Rudolph 71.8 189 25.81 Chad Hansen 73.9 202 26.02 Josh Malone 74.8 208 26.17 Corey Davis 74.9 209 26.21 Cooper Kupp 73.6 204 26.46

I'd call this a major concern for the Reynolds-Cannon part of this list, a concern for the Ford-Hansen range, and a minor concern for Malone & Davis.

Reynolds & Westbrook are even thinner than DJax and Sidney Rice. Westbrook & Cannon are fast but not 4.35 fast. Reynolds, Dupre, Ford, Rudolph, and Hansen have average or below-average speed to go along with their thin build. Reynolds, Malone, and Dupre are somewhat tall but still below 6'3", and they also each have shorter-than-usual arms for their height.

Dupre was someone I was looking at late in round 2 of rookie drafts lets say. His Broad and Long jump are outstanding. puzzling with that kind of explosion why is 40 was 4.52. I knew he was super skinny

bostonfred · Apr 13, 2017

ZWK said:
As I wrote about last year, there seems to be a BMI cutoff for WRs around 26.0, with few successful NFL WRs coming in below that cutoff. Out of the 51 successful/promising WRs who entered the NFL since 2006, here are the 10 with the lowest pre-draft BMI:

Code:

Name Ht Wt BMI DeSean Jackson 69.8 169 24.42 Sidney Rice 75.5 200 24.67 John Brown 70.0 179 25.68 A.J. Green 75.6 211 25.94 Steve Smith (USC) 73.0 197 25.99 Martavis Bryant 75.5 211 26.02 Emmanuel Sanders 70.9 186 26.03 Allen Hurns 73.0 198 26.12 Jordan Matthews 75.1 212 26.41 Keenan Allen 74.0 206 26.45

Only 2 out of 51 (4%) with BMI below 25.6, and only 8 out of 51 (16%) with BMI below 26.4. So there seems to be a cutoff somewhere near 26.0, although low BMI is not a guaranteed dealbreaker and I wouldn't want to draw a single sharp line as the cutoff.

I'd be interested in seeing how many receivers with a bmi led than 26 declare for the draft. How many are drafted. How many are drafted to teams with an immediate need in the role they are drafted to play (e.g slot, y, joker). How many are drafted to teams in the first 3 rounds. How many are drafted in the first round. How many are drafted as the first or second wr off the board. Etc

This kind of analysis triple counts the bmi because gm's might not draft guys who have a low bmi as often as guys who fit the prototype build, coaches might not play them as often or put them on a pitch count especially if they're a little speed receiver, and so they never get to show they can do more, and then and only then do we get to the third thing which would be can the guy play.

So the flip side of this is that if it's rare for guys with low bmi to be drafted early, and a reasonable number of the guys drafted early do well, then seeing a low bmi guy get drafted early might actually be a positive indicator.

For example if aj green was successful with a sub 26 bmI, and Corey Davis has a bmi near 26, then the statistic might be 1 out of 1 receivers drafted at the top of the first with a sub 26 bmI was successful, so draft Davis with some confidence.

Note - I don't care one bit about Corey Davis. Just talking stats.

Note also - love your stuff as always

Biabreakable · Apr 13, 2017

ZWK said:
Height is related to success as an NFL wide receiver. The average successful receiver is taller than the average adult man, and also taller than the average WR at the NFL combine. And a disproportionate number of successful WRs are 6'3" or taller. You may be thinking of some Adam Harstad articles which argued that height doesn't predict NFL success after controlling for draft spot, but that just means that NFL teams understand the value of height and take it into account appropriately when drafting wide receivers.

How is height related to success of NFL WRs?

No I haven't read what Adam wrote regarding this. I have read Chase Stewart talking about this several times and I do not believe any correlations between being tall and being successful was found.

I was listening to Emory Hunt on a podcast yesterday and he was saying that size is not a skill.

Greg Cosell would disagree with this of course.

I have seen WR of all shapes and sizes be successful and I consider BMI to be a red herring, and as far as metrics go, one of the most useless.

The reason that I looked at BMI rather than weight is that there's a much starker pattern with BMI than with weight. Having a weight under 189 is roughly as rare as having a BMI under 26 for a WR at the NFL combine, but it's much less predictive of what a receiver will do in the NFL. There have been elite WRs who came into the NFL around 5'10" 185 lbs. (BMI of 26.5), but none who came into the NFL around 6'0" 185 lbs. (BMI of 25.1). If you look at higher weights there is a similar pattern with a higher height cutoff. You can look here at the WRs who entered the league with a weight in the 180s. The 36 WRs with a combine height of 6'0" or more and a combine weight of 180-189 have a total of 1 Pro Bowl appearance between them (by Brandon Lloyd), and are highlighted by Brandon Lloyd, Bernard Berrian, Antonio Bryant, Mario Manningham, and Will Fuller. Whereas the 42 WRs who came into the league at 5'10" or shorter and 180-189 lbs. include 3 players with multiple Pro Bowls (Steve Smith CAR, Antonio Brown, TY Hilton) as well as Brandin Cooks, Santana Moss, Eddie Royal, Jamison Crowder, Tyler Lockett, and Danny Amendola. (TY Hilton had a BMI of 26.54, at 5'9.6" 183 lbs.)

The evidence you provide here isn't very convincing. You are looking at a very small sample selection of 180-189 lbs. I see this data falling within the normal randomness of its distribution.

I agree that weight can change, and that should make us more skeptical about historical patterns involving weight compared to patterns involving other less changeable variables. But there are limits to how much weight a player can gain - limits to how much a person's frame will hold, limits to how much weight they can add without sacrificing their ability to move well. And every player has an opportunity to gain weight. WRs who are entering the NFL now with a 25.7 BMI can try to work out and bulk up, but WRs who entered the NFL a decade ago with a BMI of 25.7 could also try to work out and bulk up, and very few of them managed to pull it off and be successful NFL WRs. If extra muscle/bulk is useful for an NFL WR, then WRs who enter the NFL with a BMI of 26.5 will presumably also be trying to work out and bulk up; in order for the 25.7 BMI guy to catch up he needs to match the physique that the other guy ends up with (not just the physique that the other guy came into the league with). I don't actually know what playing-weight BMI WRs generally need to have in order to be successful - it's possible that there's a cutoff at a playing-weight BMI of 27.2, and WRs who enter the NFL at 26.5 BMI are often able to bulk up enough to meet that cutoff but WRs who enter the NFL at 25.7 BMI generally aren't.

What metrics do you think are less subject to change?

I suppose height is something that remains pretty much the same. Weight isn't. Speed and all those other combine measurements are very much in flux as well.

I expressed more concern about the guys who are well below 26.0 BMI than about the guys who are around 26.0, because I don't think it is a fixed sharp cutoff where a guy who enters the NFL at 26.1 is completely fine and a guy who enters the NFL at 25.9 is completely doomed. Weights can change, as you say, and whatever advantage higher BMI brings, it probably doesn't come all at once as a player crosses a single specific threshold. So I'm more concerned about Malachi Dupre's 24.83 BMI than I am about Zay Jones's 25.72 BMI, and I'm more concerned about Jones than I am about Josh Malone's 26.17 BMI.

I see that you recognize the arbitrary nature of these discreet cut offs. However that does not seem to be logically consistent when you describe a .35 BMI difference creating an entirely new category or partition of the data. The players are pretty damn close to the same thing. Some are taller, some are shorter. That's it.

The wide receiver position shows the least connection to these metrics and NFL success out of all other NFL player positions.

ZWK · Apr 13, 2017

bostonfred said:
I'd be interested in seeing how many receivers with a bmi led than 26 declare for the draft. How many are drafted. How many are drafted to teams with an immediate need in the role they are drafted to play (e.g slot, y, joker). How many are drafted to teams in the first 3 rounds. How many are drafted in the first round. How many are drafted as the first or second wr off the board. Etc

This kind of analysis triple counts the bmi because gm's might not draft guys who have a low bmi as often as guys who fit the prototype build, coaches might not play them as often or put them on a pitch count especially if they're a little speed receiver, and so they never get to show they can do more, and then and only then do we get to the third thing which would be can the guy play.

So the flip side of this is that if it's rare for guys with low bmi to be drafted early, and a reasonable number of the guys drafted early do well, then seeing a low bmi guy get drafted early might actually be a positive indicator.

For example if aj green was successful with a sub 26 bmI, and Corey Davis has a bmi near 26, then the statistic might be 1 out of 1 receivers drafted at the top of the first with a sub 26 bmI was successful, so draft Davis with some confidence.

Note - I don't care one bit about Corey Davis. Just talking stats.

Note also - love your stuff as always

Some of this data is readily available - for example, you can see the BMI of all WRs drafted in the first 3 rounds in 2006-2016 in the By Draft Pick tab of my WR spreadsheet. Low BMI WRs are less likely to be drafted early (AJ Green and Ted Ginn are the only sub 26.0 guys taken in the top 20 picks), but there does also seem to be a pattern of low-BMI WRs being less successful than other WRs drafted around the same spot. If we compare all WRs who weighed in at the combine in 2016 or 2017 vs. all WRs who were drafted in the first 3 rounds in 2006-2016 vs. the 51 elite/promising WRs (who have 100+ career VBD, or seem likely to get there, or seem like they would've gotten there if not for injury or character issues), here are the fraction that were below various BMI cutoffs:

Code:

BMI      Combine   Rd 1-3  Successful
&lt;25.5    16%        9%      4%
&lt;26.0    24%       18%     10%
&lt;26.5    36%       33%     22%

Only 10% of the Successful WRs had a BMI below 26.0, compared with 18% of the WRs who were drafted in the first 3 rounds and 24% of the WRs who weighed in at the combine in 2015-16. (I showed multiple cutoffs in this chart, and used round numbers as cutoffs, to try to avoid stacking the deck in favor of my hypothesis with carefully selected cutoffs.)

The two main things that I'm interested in are 1) predicting what a player's NFL career will be like based only on my evaluation of the player (ignoring what scouts are saying, NFL draft position, etc.) and 2) predicting what a player's NFL career will be like while incorporating all relevant information (including where he's drafted, what experts say about him, etc.). It's true that I don't necessarily know at which step in the process a particular receiver failed to develop into a successful NFL WR (was he just not given an opportunity, or used in a role that didn't play to his strengths, or ...), and figuring out which step is an interesting question, but I'm more interested in the bottom line question of whether he will succeed or not.

Biabreakable said:
How is height related to success of NFL WRs?

No I haven't read what Adam wrote regarding this. I have read Chase Stewart talking about this several times and I do not believe any correlations between being tall and being successful was found.

I was listening to Emory Hunt on a podcast yesterday and he was saying that size is not a skill.

Greg Cosell would disagree with this of course.

I have seen WR of all shapes and sizes be successful and I consider BMI to be a red herring, and as far as metrics go, one of the most useless.

The evidence you provide here isn't very convincing. You are looking at a very small sample selection of 180-189 lbs. I see this data falling within the normal randomness of its distribution.

What metrics do you think are less subject to change?

I suppose height is something that remains pretty much the same. Weight isn't. Speed and all those other combine measurements are very much in flux as well.

I see that you recognize the arbitrary nature of these discreet cut offs. However that does not seem to be logically consistent when you describe a .35 BMI difference creating an entirely new category or partition of the data. The players are pretty damn close to the same thing. Some are taller, some are shorter. That's it.

The wide receiver position shows the least connection to these metrics and NFL success out of all other NFL player positions.

The 180-189 lb. WRs were just an example; you can also pick another weight range and see similar things. For example, here are the data for 193-202 lb. WRs (I chose that weight range because it means that anyone 6'2" or taller has low BMI and anyone 6'0" or shorter does not). Or you can play around with the PFR search and see what you fine. And the chart I gave earlier this comment (about combine vs. rd 1-3 vs. successful) is another way of looking at the pattern.

It's true that there have been successful WRs of various shapes and sizes - AJ Green, Carolina's Steve Smith, Anquan Boldin, etc. But some shapes/sizes are more common than others, and we're trying to play the odds. If you can pick a prospect who has a 30% chance of succeeding rather than one with a 15% chance of succeeding, then you'll end up drafting twice as many good players. And if you compare successful NFL WRs to other WR prospects, you'll find many factors on which there's a trend (even though there are exceptions to pretty much any trend, sometimes lots of exceptions) - the successful WRs tend to be taller, heavier, faster, more athletic at jumping, and have longer arms. In college, the successful WRs tended to have more TDs, more long receptions, a higher yards per target, more big players in the running game or return game, a larger market share of their team's passing yardage, etc. (I summarized some of these differences in this post last year.) A player might wind up succeeding even if he doesn't measure out very well on many (or any) of these metrics, but you'll have a higher hit rate if you pick players who look good on these metrics rather than players who look bad at them.

Dinsy Ejotuz · Apr 13, 2017

Biabreakable said:
The wide receiver position shows the least connection to these metrics and NFL success out of all other NFL player positions.

Or it's more complicated and you can't look at just one or two variables at a time.

ZWK · Apr 14, 2017

Last year I took a look at which college stats are the strongest predictors of NFL success, by seeing on which college stats the successful NFL WRs tended to stand out the most.

ZWK said:
One of the tabs in the spreadsheet has the stats from receivers who have gone on to have NFL success (100+ career VBD). One way to see which stats are most predictive is to look at which stats those WRs excelled at (compared to other college WRs).

Their stats are above average across the board, but they are better on some stats than others. Here is a summary, based on taking the best season for each WR and seeing how it would have ranked relative to the 2011 & 2012 college season receivers. The number represents their percentile - e.g. the 0.77 for "yards per team attempt" means that these WRs were at the 77th percentile, on average, in YPTA.

0.77 Other big plays (rushing & returning)
0.77 Yards Per Team Attempt
0.75 Yards Per Target
0.71 25+ Yard Receptions per game
0.70 Market Share of Yards
0.68 Market Share of Team Offensive TDs
0.68 Market Share of Team Passing TDs
0.65 Team Strength of Schedule
0.63 Market Share of 25+ Yard Receptions (or 30+ Yard Receptions)
0.63 Yards per target above team YPA (YPT-TmYPA)
0.62 Rec TD per game
0.61 Rec Yd per game
0.59 Yards over Team Replacement (YOTR)
0.59 40+ Yard Receptions Per Game
0.57 Market Share of 40+ Yard Receptions

Most of these stats do better than the standard Rec Yd Per Game and Rec TD Per Game.

I suspect that "other big plays" coming in first is something of a fluke, although it is in fact the case that Harvin, Cobb, Antonio Brown, TY Hilton, and Jeremy Maclin were unusually good at this.

One rough way to see which combine numbers are important is to do the same thing with them. For example, if BMI is related to a WR's success, then we should expect to see that the average successful NFL WR is above the 50th percentile in BMI, compared to the other WRs who show up at the combine. This isn't a perfect measure - my view is that low BMI is a negative but high BMI isn't helpful, and that won't be captured in this analysis - but it's a decent starting point which makes it easy to compare different player features.

I ran the numbers for the 32 successful WRs who are in the Elite NFL WRs tab of my spreadsheet - that is every WR who entered the NFL since 2006 and has at least 100 career VBD (though some WRs are missing from some of the measures, e.g. not everyone did the 3 cone drill). I also re-ran the numbers on a larger group of 51 WRs, which includes the 19 guys in the Promising NFL WRs tab. As the baseline to compare them to, I used the WRs from the 2016 & 2017 NFL combine, since I am missing data on some measurements from previous years (especially arm length and non-rounded height).

Here are the numbers for the Elite NFL WRs who I have each measurement for (which ranges from all 32 for ht/wt/bmi down to 17 who did the bench press), with the numbers for the larger set of WRs in parentheses:

0.75 Vertical (n=22, 0.69 for all 39 WRs)
0.73 40 Time (n=29, 0.70 for all 47 WRs)
0.61 BMI (n=32, 0.58 for all 51 WRs)
0.60 Arm Length (n=31, 0.60 for all 49 WRs)
0.60 Weight (n=32, 0.60 for all 51 WRs)
0.60 3 Cone Drill (n=20, 0.55 for all 35 WRs)
0.60 Bench Reps (n=17, 0.66 for all 30 WRs)
0.56 Short Shuttle (n=21, 0.53 for all 37 WRs)
0.53 Height (n=32, 0.54 for all 51 WRs)
0.52 Broad Jump (n=20, 0.51 for all 37 WRs)

It's interesting that all of these come out above 0.50 - the successful NFL WRs were better than average on every metric (though sometimes not by much). The vertical and 40 are on top, and the similar-seeming broad jump comes in last. BMI and arm length are the top body size measures.

It is worth noting that all of these numbers are somewhat noisy estimates and the order could easily change with a larger sample of WRs. I would especially put less stock in the numbers with a smaller sample size, because those both have more noise and may be misleading if a nonrandom subset of WRs chose to skip that drill (e.g. if the WRs who are bad at bench press tended to choose to skip the bench).

Update: I reran the numbers using all WRs from the 2006-2016 combines as the baseline to compare to. I left out Arm Length (which I don't have that data for) and Bench (because my source of data has a bunch of errors for that; I have corrected a couple errors that I found which influenced the Bench numbers above and it might still have some errors). My source's numbers for Height are rounded and may have some errors too but I've included Height & BMI anyways. Here are those numbers:

0.65 Vertical (n=22, 0.59 for all 39 WRs)
0.65 BMI (n=32, 0.62 for all 51 WRs)
0.62 40 Time (n=29, 0.60 for all 47 WRs)
0.61 Weight (n=32, 0.60 for all 51 WRs)
0.61 Broad Jump (n=20, 0.60 for all 37 WRs)
0.56 3 Cone Drill (n=20, 0.52 for all 35 WRs)
0.54 Short Shuttle (n=21, 0.50 for all 37 WRs)
0.52 Height (n=32, 0.52 for all 51 WRs)

This means that (for example), of the 22 successful NFL WRs who did the vertical, on average they would be in the 65th percentile relative to all of the WRs who did the vertical at the combine in 2006-2016.

This is fairly similar to the first set of results. The main difference is that the 3 athleticism measures have converged to the 0.60-0.65 range: 40 Time & Vertical are lower and Broad Jump is higher. The agility drills (3 cone and short shuttle) have dropped a bit.

ZWK · Apr 14, 2017

Let's talk about arms.

Last year, information on prospects' arm length (and hand size) started to get more publicity, and I made the decision to treat a receiver's arm length as being just as valuable as height, inch-for-inch. I didn't have any data to back this up, but it seemed to me that the main benefit of a receiver's height is the increased catch radius, and an inch of arm length should increase their catch radius by at least as much as an inch of height. Arms probably increase catch radius by more than height does, since arms can reach in all directions, though height has the added benefit in helping to block out defenders.

This week, I looked up the arm lengths of all 51 receivers in my successful/promising lists, and found the data for all but 2 of them (I haven't found Julian Edelman or USC/NYG Steve Smith's arm lengths). And, as I showed in my last post, they do tend to have longer-than-usual arms; their arm length stands out even more than their height.

Here's another way of looking at that trend. There is a pretty close relationship between a WR's height and his arm length; generally taller people have longer arms. But you can look to see which people have arms that are longer than you'd expect given their height, or shorter than you'd expect. Out of the 49 successful/promising WRs that I have data on, 12 had arms that were more than an inch longer than you'd expect given their height, while only 4 had shorter-than-expected arms by over an inch:

Arm Length Minus Expected (inches)
2.08   Michael Crabtree
1.61   Hakeem Nicks
1.56   Dez Bryant
1.52   Odell Beckham Jr.
1.48   T.Y. Hilton
1.48   Mike Evans
1.38   DeAndre Hopkins
1.22   A.J. Green
1.19   Dwayne Bowe
1.17   Kenny Britt
1.12   Kelvin Benjamin
1.04   Santonio Holmes

-1.12   Greg Jennings
-1.44   Miles Austin
-1.94   Eric Decker
-3.57   Doug Baldwin

Crabtree, Nicks, Bryant, Beckham, and Hopkins are/were all "plays bigger than his height" type receivers (the tallest of them is Bryant at 6'2.0"), and this looks like part of the reason why. Evans, Green, and Benjamin are just huge, with each of them measuring at least 110" in height+arm length (Calvin Johnson & Marques Colston are also in that club; they are joined by only one of the 101 WRs from the 2016 & 2017 combines - De'Runnya Wilson). At the other extreme, Doug Baldwin is reported as having 27" arms by Player Profiler, but that might be an error - I couldn't find data on his arms in any of the other sources that had data on most of the players (like nfl.com or cbssports), and 27" is a full inch shorter than the shortest arms among the 330 players at this year's combine (WR Ryan Switzer at 28"). But I've decided to treat 27" as accurate and include Baldwin in all of my analyses.

I have added arm length to my WR spreadsheet, though I only have data for the 2 most recent draft classes and the 49 successful NFL WRs who I looked up. For this year's draft class, here are the receivers whose arms are longer or shorter than expected given their height, by at least 0.98 inches:

1.55   DeAngelo Yancey
1.52   Taywan Taylor
1.47   Keevan Lucas
1.33   ArDarius Stewart
0.99   Shelton Gibson

-1.12   Trent Taylor
-1.16   Jerome Lane
-1.16   Malachi Dupre
-1.23   Josh Reynolds
-1.32   Kenny Golladay
-1.40   Josh Malone
-1.76   Noel Thomas, Jr.
-1.92   Ryan Switzer

And for last year's draft class:

1.65   Charone Peake
1.54   Malcolm Mitchell
1.46   Keyarris Garrett
1.08   Pharoh Cooper
1.04   Johnny Holton
1.00   Chris Moore

-1.06   Trevor Davis
-2.06   Nelson Spruce
-2.28   Mekale McKay
-2.34   Robby Anderson

ZWK · Apr 25, 2017

Football Outsiders recently posted their RB projections, using a stat-based projection system which they call BackCAST. They see this as an extremely strong RB class, with Leonard Fournette, Dalvin Cook, and Joe Mixon all rating among the 10 best RB prospects of the past 20 years. They also give relatively strong ratings to Brian Hill, Marlon Mack, Christian McCaffrey, Samaje Perine, and Jeremy McNichols. They're down on Alvin Kamara, though, mainly because of his low workload and mediocre 40 time (which is the only combine drill that they include in their formula).

I've posted before about some of the strengths and weaknesses of FO's approach.

ZWK · Apr 25, 2017

ZWK said:
Here is how my formula currently rates this year's RB class, in comparison to my pre-draft ratings for the 4 previous draft classes:

Eddie Lacy   2013

Todd Gurley   2015
Melvin Gordon   2015
Christine Michael   2013
Carlos Hyde   2014
Ezekiel Elliott   2016

Joe Mixon   2017
Lache Seastrunk   2014
Jay Ajayi   2015
Curtis Samuel   2017
Tre Mason   2014
Giovani Bernard   2013
Ameer Abdullah   2015
Knile Davis   2013
Derrick Henry   2016
Darius Jackson   2016
Dalvin Cook   2017

Christian McCaffrey   2017
Jeremy Hill   2014
C.J. Prosise   2016
Jerick McKinnon   2014
Kenneth Dixon   2016

Jonathan Franklin   2013
Tevin Coleman   2015
Jordan Howard   2016
Duke Johnson   2015
Bishop Sankey   2014
Alvin Kamara   2017
DeAndre Washington   2016
Samaje Perine   2017
David Johnson   2015
Marcus Lattimore   2013
Jeremy McNichols   2017
Jhurell Pressley   2016
Stephen Houston   2014
Daniel Lasco   2016
Henry Josey   2014
Zac Stacy   2013
D.J. Harper   2013
Le'Veon Bell   2013
Kareem Hunt   2017
Cierre Wood   2013
Aaron Jones   2017
Kenjon Barner   2013
Paul Perkins   2016
Montee Ball   2013
Latavius Murray   2013
Elijah Hood   2017
Isaiah Crowell   2014
Andre Williams   2014
Charles Sims   2014
Joe Williams   2017
Dri Archer   2014
Alex Collins   2016
Marlon Mack   2017
Leonard Fournette   2017
Devonta Freeman   2014
David Cobb   2015
Devontae Booker   2016

James Conner   2017
T.J. Yeldon   2015
Cameron Artis-Payne   2015
Karlos Williams   2015
Josh Robinson   2015
Corey Grant   2015
D’Onta Foreman   2017
Kenyan Drake   2016
David Fluellen   2014
Treavor Scales   2013
Elijah McGuire   2017
Brian Hill   2017
Jeremy Langford   2015
Michael Ford   2013
Jamaal Williams   2017
Robert Godhigh   2014
Matthew Tucker   2013
Mike Davis   2015
George Atkinson III   2014
Wayne Gallman   2017
Keith Marshall   2016
Terrance West   2014
Michael Dyer   2015
Wendell Smallwood   2016
Tim Cornett   2014
Jonathan Williams   2016
C.J. Anderson   2013
Andre Ellington   2013
James White   2014
Stanley Boom Williams   2017
De'Anthony Thomas   2014
Anthony Wales   2017
Lorenzo Taliaferro   2014
Tyler Ervin   2016

Labeling these tiers as I have in previous years, that gives us:

Guys I like a lot: none
Guys I like: Mixon, Samuel, Cook
Awkwardly between tiers: McCaffrey
Guys who have a decent chance: Kamara, Perine, McNichols, Hunt, Aaron Jones, Hood, Joe Williams, Mack, Fournette
Guys I can't rule out: Conner, Foreman, McGuire, Brian Hill, Jamaal Williams, Gallman, Boom Williams, Wales

One thing that jumps out from this list is how weak this class is at the top, according to the formula. The top-rated RB this year is rated on a lower tier than the top rated RB from each of the previous 4 draft classes. And it's even worse when you consider that this year's #1 (Mixon) has major off-the-field concerns and this year's #2 (Samuel) is not really a RB (though, to be fair, there were also flags on a few of the highly-rated RBs in previous years like Lache Seastrunk, Knile Davis, and Darius Jackson).

A related thing that jumps out: how low Fournette is rated. His elusiveness rating is excellent, but other than that his numbers are averageish. Size/athleticism is only slightly above average (good size, slightly better than average 40 time, terrible vertical, skipped the other most relevant drills). Rushing efficiency is averageish (great is 2015, meh in 2016 & 2014); his 3-year stats are a bit above average on most metrics (breaking off long runs, scoring in the red zone, picking up first downs) but bad at converting in short yardage. Age & rushing volume are averageish (typical age, carried the load in 2015 but missed a bunch of games in 2016). "Average" would basically put a guy at the bottom of the last tier shown here; it's basically just his elusiveness numbers that raise him up a tier above that in my formula.

Focusing on the rest of the "decent chance" tier, from what I've seen I have generally not been that impressed with what I've seen from Jeremy McNichols, Aaron Jones, Joe Williams, and Marlon Mack. They all struggled to generate extra yards in traffic, in a way that seemed to reflect lack of basic RB skills (e.g., Mack danced around too much, Williams let defenders hit him solidly and got knocked back too often). I have been more impressed by Alvin Kamara, Samaje Perine, Elijah Hood, and Kareem Hunt (I think I'd rank them in that order). Perine and Hood are big guys who have looked good as power backs, but they're relatively slow and haven't done much in the passing game. They also both ran better in 2015 than in 2016. Kamara and Hunt are more versatile (they each had about 400 receiving yards this year). Hunt's big negative is his lack of athleticism, with a 4.62 40 at a medium-sized 216 pounds - those aren't disqualifying numbers (see: Mark Ingram, Thomas Rawls) but they're a bad sign. Kamara's big negative is his small workload, with 107 and 103 carries in his two seasons; he only led Tennessee's RBs in carries 4 times in the past 2 seasons (getting outcarried by Jalen Hurd 17 times and by John Kelly 5 times). But I think that Kamara's explosiveness (as measured by the jumps at the combine) and his success in the receiving game and the red zone give him the most upside out of this group.

Pre-draft RB update. Here's what my formula says:

Eddie Lacy   2013

Todd Gurley   2015
Melvin Gordon   2015
Christine Michael   2013
Carlos Hyde   2014
Ezekiel Elliott   2016

Joe Mixon   2017
Lache Seastrunk   2014
Jay Ajayi   2015
Tre Mason   2014
Giovani Bernard   2013
Ameer Abdullah   2015
Knile Davis   2013
Derrick Henry   2016
Dalvin Cook   2017
Curtis Samuel   2017
Darius Jackson   2016

Jeremy Hill   2014
C.J. Prosise   2016
Christian McCaffrey   2017
Jerick McKinnon   2014
Kenneth Dixon   2016

Jonathan Franklin   2013
Tevin Coleman   2015
Jordan Howard   2016
Duke Johnson   2015
Alvin Kamara   2017
Samaje Perine   2017
Bishop Sankey   2014
DeAndre Washington   2016
David Johnson   2015
D’Onta Foreman   2017
Marcus Lattimore   2013
Jeremy McNichols   2017
Aaron Jones   2017
Jhurell Pressley   2016
Stephen Houston   2014
Daniel Lasco   2016
Henry Josey   2014
Zac Stacy   2013
D.J. Harper   2013
Le'Veon Bell   2013
Kareem Hunt   2017
Cierre Wood   2013
Kenjon Barner   2013
Paul Perkins   2016
Montee Ball   2013
Latavius Murray   2013
Isaiah Crowell   2014
Leonard Fournette   2017
Andre Williams   2014
Marlon Mack   2017
Charles Sims   2014
Joe Williams   2017
Dri Archer   2014
Elijah Hood   2017
Alex Collins   2016
James Conner   2017
Devonta Freeman   2014
David Cobb   2015
Devontae Booker   2016
Matt Breida   2017

T.J. Yeldon   2015
Cameron Artis-Payne   2015
Karlos Williams   2015
Josh Robinson   2015
I'Tavius Mathers   2017
Corey Grant   2015
Kenyan Drake   2016
David Fluellen   2014
Jamaal Williams   2017
Treavor Scales   2013
Jeremy Langford   2015
Elijah McGuire   2017
Michael Ford   2013
Robert Godhigh   2014
Matthew Tucker   2013
Mike Davis   2015
George Atkinson III   2014
Keith Marshall   2016
Terrance West   2014
Anthony Wales   2017
Teriyon Gipson   2017
Brian Hill   2017
Michael Dyer   2015
Wendell Smallwood   2016
Wayne Gallman   2017
Tim Cornett   2014
Jonathan Williams   2016
C.J. Anderson   2013
Andre Ellington   2013
James White   2014
Stanley Boom Williams   2017
De'Anthony Thomas   2014
Lorenzo Taliaferro   2014
Christopher Carson   2017
Tyler Ervin   2016

And here's the order that I'd draft them in:

Leonard Fournette
Dalvin Cook
Joe Mixon
Christian McCaffrey

Alvin Kamara

Curtis Samuel
D'Onta Foreman
Kareem Hunt
Samaje Perine

Jeremy McNichols
Marlon Mack
Aaron Jones
Brian Hill

Jamaal Williams
Wayne Gallman
Elijah McGuire
James Conner
Elijah Hood
I'Tavius Mathers
Matt Breida
Christopher Carson
Joe Williams
TJ Logan

The top 4 RBs and Corey Davis are my top 5 rookies. After that I generally like the WRs (or TEs) more than the RBs where they seem to be going in rookie drafts. I rate Kamara closer to the Foreman-Hunt tier than to the Mixon-McCaffrey tier.

bicycle_seat_sniffer · Apr 25, 2017

Zwk

Great job man. You take alot of time on this stuff

Brandon Will · Apr 25, 2017

Thank God I acquired so many picks this year. 1, 4, 6, 7, 13

Coming into this I had 1,2,6,7,13.... Moved 2 overall for 4 and Sammy Watkins because he wanted one of the top 2 RBs and the guy @3 needs a RB. (No Brainer right?? a 24 year old WR who hasnt even touched his cieling... lets just hope he stays healthy.)

I wanted Fournette and whoever the top WR of the Class is. Im guessing Davis at this point.... I guess well find out Thursday!

Dinsy Ejotuz · Apr 25, 2017

I don't get the Dalvin Cook love. Great college player, but I don't think it will translate. And that's aside from the off-field stuff.

Ray Barboni · Apr 25, 2017

Zwk

you have Fournette rated extremely low - but he would still be your first drafted?

can you explain?

I have the top pick, and I'm liking for any excuse to take Mixon there. I think he's the too back this year. I do like LF ... but think Mixon will be the better pro

Xue · Apr 25, 2017

ZWK said:
Pre-draft RB update. Here's what my formula says:

Eddie Lacy   2013

Todd Gurley   2015
Melvin Gordon   2015
Christine Michael   2013
Carlos Hyde   2014
Ezekiel Elliott   2016

Joe Mixon   2017
Lache Seastrunk   2014
Jay Ajayi   2015
Tre Mason   2014
Giovani Bernard   2013
Ameer Abdullah   2015
Knile Davis   2013
Derrick Henry   2016
Dalvin Cook   2017
Curtis Samuel   2017
Darius Jackson   2016

Jeremy Hill   2014
C.J. Prosise   2016
Christian McCaffrey   2017
Jerick McKinnon   2014
Kenneth Dixon   2016

Jonathan Franklin   2013
Tevin Coleman   2015
Jordan Howard   2016
Duke Johnson   2015
Alvin Kamara   2017
Samaje Perine   2017
Bishop Sankey   2014
DeAndre Washington   2016
David Johnson   2015
D’Onta Foreman   2017
Marcus Lattimore   2013
Jeremy McNichols   2017
Aaron Jones   2017
Jhurell Pressley   2016
Stephen Houston   2014
Daniel Lasco   2016
Henry Josey   2014
Zac Stacy   2013
D.J. Harper   2013
Le'Veon Bell   2013
Kareem Hunt   2017
Cierre Wood   2013
Kenjon Barner   2013
Paul Perkins   2016
Montee Ball   2013
Latavius Murray   2013
Isaiah Crowell   2014
Leonard Fournette   2017
Andre Williams   2014
Marlon Mack   2017
Charles Sims   2014
Joe Williams   2017
Dri Archer   2014
Elijah Hood   2017
Alex Collins   2016
James Conner   2017
Devonta Freeman   2014
David Cobb   2015
Devontae Booker   2016
Matt Breida   2017

T.J. Yeldon   2015
Cameron Artis-Payne   2015
Karlos Williams   2015
Josh Robinson   2015
I'Tavius Mathers   2017
Corey Grant   2015
Kenyan Drake   2016
David Fluellen   2014
Jamaal Williams   2017
Treavor Scales   2013
Jeremy Langford   2015
Elijah McGuire   2017
Michael Ford   2013
Robert Godhigh   2014
Matthew Tucker   2013
Mike Davis   2015
George Atkinson III   2014
Keith Marshall   2016
Terrance West   2014
Anthony Wales   2017
Teriyon Gipson   2017
Brian Hill   2017
Michael Dyer   2015
Wendell Smallwood   2016
Wayne Gallman   2017
Tim Cornett   2014
Jonathan Williams   2016
C.J. Anderson   2013
Andre Ellington   2013
James White   2014
Stanley Boom Williams   2017
De'Anthony Thomas   2014
Lorenzo Taliaferro   2014
Christopher Carson   2017
Tyler Ervin   2016

And here's the order that I'd draft them in:

Leonard Fournette
Dalvin Cook
Joe Mixon
Christian McCaffrey

Alvin Kamara

Curtis Samuel
D'Onta Foreman
Kareem Hunt
Samaje Perine

Jeremy McNichols
Marlon Mack
Aaron Jones
Brian Hill

Jamaal Williams
Wayne Gallman
Elijah McGuire
James Conner
Elijah Hood
I'Tavius Mathers
Matt Breida
Christopher Carson
Joe Williams
TJ Logan

The top 4 RBs and Corey Davis are my top 5 rookies. After that I generally like the WRs (or TEs) more than the RBs where they seem to be going in rookie drafts. I rate Kamara closer to the Foreman-Hunt tier than to the Mixon-McCaffrey tier.

Would Breida and McGuire have ranked higher if they had come out last year instead?

ZWK · Apr 25, 2017

Ray Barboni said:
Zwk

you have Fournette rated extremely low - but he would still be your first drafted?

can you explain?

I have the top pick, and I'm liking for any excuse to take Mixon there. I think he's the too back this year. I do like LF ... but think Mixon will be the better pro

A big part of the question with Fournette is what to do about players who have a big season whose last season in college is far from their best season. It could mean that their big season was something of a fluke, or it could mean that they were playing through nagging injuries or dealing with a struggling offense.

My formula has a standard way of penalizing players for their worse production in their last season. But, in forming my overall personal opinion on when to draft players, I'm inclined to put some extra weight on the opinions of experts in situations like this, since they have extra information on what was going on. In this case, Fournette was dealing with an ankle sprain which seems like a pretty good excuse for worse production.

If a player is rated highly by conventional wisdom but has never had a big season then I tend to be pretty skeptical of him, but Fournette's 2015 season matches his reputation so I'm more willing to go along with the experts. In 2015 he had good efficiency stats, huge totals, and great elusiveness numbers. He also has a good size-speed combo.

Also, all of the other RBs have their own negatives; you can see that none of them reached the Gurley-Elliott tier in my ratings. Cook showed below average athleticism at the combine (with averageish size & 40 time and lousy jumps & agility drills), didn't have great rushing numbers in traffic, and has off-the-field concerns. Mixon has some concerns about his vision/decision-making, played behind Perine in 2015, and I think he benefited from getting the ball in space in Oklahoma's offense, along with his obvious off-the-field concerns. McCaffrey is undersized, didn't have great rushing numbers in traffic, and his rushing efficiency hasn't been at the same level as the other top RBs. Fournette had a mediocre 2016 season (including missed time), a lousy vertical, less involvement in the passing game, and weight fluctuations.

I think it's a good year to trade down to pick 5 or so and take whoever is left out of the RBs and Corey Davis, although I'd wait till after the draft in case things change on draft day.

Xue said:
Would Breida and McGuire have ranked higher if they had come out last year instead?

Yes. They are both players whose last season was not their best - McGuire's 2016 production was bad and Breida's was atrocious. Breida's workout numbers plus his impressive 2015 production would have me excited about him as a prospect, but the awful 2016 season which came in between has tempered my enthusiasm. Still seems like a decent late-round flyer.

Tau837 · Apr 26, 2017

ZWK said:
Pre-draft RB update. Here's what my formula says:

I am a

but I think you are missing on Matt Dayes given you are going 25 RBs deep and don't have him listed. His NFL draft profile grade is tied with James Conner and Joe Williams for the 14th best grade. He probably won't ever be more than a role player in the NFL, but that is more than a number of RBs you listed.

ZWK · Apr 26, 2017

Just Win Baby said:
I am a but I think you are missing on Matt Dayes given you are going 25 RBs deep and don't have him listed. His NFL draft profile grade is tied with James Conner and Joe Williams for the 14th best grade. He probably won't ever be more than a role player in the NFL, but that is more than a number of RBs you listed.

Dayes had lousy stats at NC State and was one of the least athletic RBs at the combine. The only good thing I see in his statistical profile is that they threw him a fairly high number of passes.

I'm paying attention to upside in my last tier, which means a lot of 1) guys who played better in previous seasons and might bounce back (McGuire, Conner, Hood, Breida), 2) guys who stood out on at least one aspect of athleticism (Breida, Carson, Joe Williams, Logan), and 3) guys with a strength who could wind up having fantasy value in the right role, like Theo Riddick or LeGarrette Blount (Mathers, Logan, Conner, Hood).

Tau837 · Apr 26, 2017

ZWK said:
Dayes had lousy stats at NC State

Fair enough. I thought his junior year was very strong - 1037 YFS and 12 TDs in about 7.5 games, averaging 6.5 ypc. He was leading FBS in TDs when he got hurt. I'm sure his draft stock was hurt by the fact that his senior season wasn't as good, though that was largely influenced by losing senior 2015 starters at LT, LG, and C. He also got very positive reviews at the Senior Bowl game and practices. :shrug:

ZWK · Apr 26, 2017

Just Win Baby said:
Fair enough. I thought his junior year was very strong - 1037 YFS and 12 TDs in about 7.5 games, averaging 6.5 ypc. He was leading FBS in TDs when he got hurt. I'm sure his draft stock was hurt by the fact that his senior season wasn't as good, though that was largely influenced by losing senior 2015 starters at LT, LG, and C. He also got very positive reviews at the Senior Bowl game and practices.

His production was a lot better in 2015 than in 2016, but his career production numbers aren't that good and we're still looking at a RB with bottom-of-the-barrel athleticism. Justin Forsett is the only sub-225 pound RB that I know of who has had some NFL success with workout numbers in the same neighborhood as Dayes.

ZWK · Apr 27, 2017

My approach isn't primarily based on direct comparisons between players, but here are a few interesting WR comparisons.

Comparison 1, of college receiving stats:

Next-to-last season:
Player A: 88/1517/9 receiving, 11.5 YPT, 45% of pyds
Player B: 118/1721/14 receiving, 10.2 YPT, 47% of pyds
Player C: 89/1454/10 receiving, 10.3 YPT, 39% of pyds

Last season:
Player A: 49/762/8 receiving, 8.7 YPT, 32% of pyds
Player B: 57/791/4 receiving, 8.7 YPT, 32% of pyds
Player C: 70/914/10 receiving, 8.8 YPT, 25% of pyds

Comparison 2, of combine measurements:

Code:

Player D	Player E
5'10.8"		5'10.3"
199 lbs.	199 lbs.
31.4" arm	30.5" arm
9.1" hands	9.3" hands
4.46 40		4.42 40
36" vert	35" vert
10'9" broad	10'0" broad
7.18 3-cone	7.12 3-cone
4.35 ss		4.34 ss

Comparison 3, of combine measurements:

Code:

Player F	Player G
5'11.3"		5'11.0"
198 lbs.	203 lbs.
32.8" arm	32.6" arm
10.0" hands	9.3" hands
4.43 40		4.50 40
38.5" vert	33.5" vert (38" at pro day)
10'2" broad	11'0" broad
6.69 3-cone	6.57 3-cone
3.94 ss		4.21 ss

Spoilers

Player A is Alshon Jeffery, Player B is Marqise Lee, and Player C is JuJu Smith-Schuster. All three of them had a huge year in their next-to-last season, and then a massive drop in production in their last season. It looks like all 3 will go in round 2 of the NFL draft (Jeffery at pick 45, Lee at pick 39). One of them has been a big success in the NFL (except for some injuries), 1 has been a disappointment (though he showed a bit of promise last year), and with one it remains to be seen. Of course, the 3 of them have very different physical measurements; if I was going for an optimistic comparison to a physically similar player I would've compared Smith-Schuster to DeAndre Hopkins. A year ago Smith-Schuster looked like the top WR in this draft class; his drop in production is a negative sign but I don't want to move him too far down the rankings just because his big season happened a year ago. I currently have him as my #5 WR, in terms of how I'd draft today.

Players D and E have strikingly similar measurements, with E having the edge in the 40 and D having the edge in the jumps, but when I initially thought to compare them I wasn't thinking about physical measurements. Player D is Carlos Henderson and Player E is Golden Tate. Henderson dominated after the catch, leading all WRs in missed tackles with 22 more than 2nd place. Tate repeatedly led NFL WRs (or came close) in missed tackle rate, even before his breakout in Detroit. They also both have low drop rates, despite getting some criticism for body catching. Henderson also did an excellent job of getting open, according to Matt Harmon's Reception Perception, though he did it on a limited route tree which included very few out-breaking routes, and scouting reports (like PFF's linked above) include some criticisms of his route running. I'm excited about Henderson and have him as the #4 WR on my draft list, behind only the 3 likely first-rounders.

Players F and G aren't tall, but they have long arms (about 1.5" longer than usual for their height) which help make up for it. Both have had success as deep threats, and have similar slightly-better-than-average drop rates (Player F has large hands but that only has a modest relationship to drop rate). They both have strong athleticism numbers which show up on the jumps & agility drills more than the 40 time, though for some reason Player G did better at the broad & 3-cone than the vertical and short shuttle. Player F has a faster 40 time and an extra 3/8" of length (height + arm). Player F is Odell Beckham and Player G is Taywan Taylor. I have Taylor as the #7 WR on my draft board; my own analysis puts him higher but NFL teams seem to see him as a late 3rd rounder. I think there's a reasonable shot that his game could translate to the NFL level even though he doesn't have prototypical size.

ZWK · Apr 27, 2017

Going into the draft, here are links to my most recent takes on RBs, WRs (also this), QBs, TEs, and edge rushers. Some of these were updated more recently than others; I also have additional posts on various players scattered throughout and my player stats spreadsheets linked in the first post of this thread.

Football Outsiders also their stats-based projections out for RBs, WRs, QBs, and edge rushers. Pro Football Focus has their draft board. Arif Hasan has published the consensus big board which averages together a bunch of experts' draft boards.

ZWK · Apr 28, 2017

8 skill position players in the top 12.

Generic rookie rankings after round 1 give a pretty straightforward top tier of Fournette and McCaffrey, with a large drop after the two RBs. The second tier so far has Davis, Williams, and Ross. In non-PPR some RBs could still join that 2nd tier; in PPR there is a tier break after the 3 WRs.

The TEs and QBs will probably end up mixed in among some RBs and WRs who haven't been drafted yet.

ZWK · Apr 28, 2017

After 3 rounds, the top 20 in the generic rookie rankings are set (PPR scoring):

Code:

Pk   Pos   Player               VBD
4    RB    Leonard Fournette    407
8    RB    Christian McCaffrey  371
            
            
5    WR    Corey Davis          243
7    WR    Mike Williams        232
9    WR    John Ross            222
            
19   TE    O.J. Howard          157
41   RB    Dalvin Cook          155
23   TE    Evan Engram          140
2    QB    Mitchell Trubisky    128
48   RB    Joe Mixon            125
29   TE    David Njoku          115
37   WR    Zay Jones            110
           
40   WR    Curtis Samuel        100
67   RB    Alvin Kamara          94
10   QB    Patrick Mahomes       93
86   RB    Kareem Hunt           89
12   QB    Deshaun Watson        88
89   RB    D'Onta Foreman        88
62   WR    JuJu Smith-Schuster   80
105  RB    James Conner          80

More players could mix in with the rest of the rankings. Here are the rest of the guys who have been drafted so far:

Pk Pos Player VBD
69 WR Cooper Kupp 76
72 WR Taywan Taylor 74
79 WR ArDarius Stewart 70
82 WR Carlos Henderson 69
84 WR Chris Godwin 68
44 TE Gerald Everett 66
45 TE Adam Shaheen 64
96 WR Kenny Golladay 55
98 WR Chad Williams 52
106 WR Amara Darboh 43
100 TE Jonnu Smith 32
52 QB DeShone Kizer 20
87 QB Davis Webb 10
104 QB C.J. Beathard 10

My final rankings will mostly be somewhere in between these and the ratings that my system gives. A few other things I'll be taking into account: New Orleans is a great landing spot for a receiving RB like Kamara, receiving is a strength for most of the TEs so they are probably worth more than their draft spot suggests, Mixon & Cook fell in the draft due to character concerns which are less relevant to fantasy football than to NFL. Also, Kizer seems a bit underrated here; I may have overfit the historical data by giving QBs such a sharp dropoff in expected production over the course of round 2.

Other details about landing spot / team fit seem like relatively minor issues for dynasty. Partly that's because the surrounding team & offensive system can change a lot over the next few years, and in part it's because there's always a competition for roles and if a player can't win a big role that usually means he wouldn't have put together a fantasy relevant career even if he was in a different situation. Though it is a bit of a negative for a WR to land on a team with an established star receiver like AJ Green, Antonio Bryant, or (arguably) Keenan Allen.

ZWK · Apr 29, 2017

Generic rookie rankings for the full draft (well, the top 53 prospects in expected career VBD) are here.

Here is a first pass at my rookie rankings, including where they slot into my overall positional rankings. Assuming 0.5 PPR, start 1Q/2R/3W/1T, about 250 position players rostered.

RB4 Leonard Fournette JAX (pick 4)
RB6 Christian McCaffrey CAR (pick 8)

WR17 Corey Davis TEN (pick 5)
RB10 Joe Mixon CIN (pick 48)
RB11 Dalvin Cook MIN (pick 41)
WR19 Mike Williams LAC (pick 7)
WR23 John Ross CIN (pick 9)
RB15 Alvin Kamara NO (pick 67)
TE5 O.J. Howard TB (pick 19)
TE6 Evan Engram NYG (pick 23)
TE8 David Njoku CLE (pick 29)

QB10 Mitchell Trubisky CHI (pick 2)
RB25 Kareem Hunt KC (pick 86)
WR43 Curtis Samuel CAR (pick 40)
WR44 JuJu Smith-Schuster PIT (pick 62)
WR45 Zay Jones BUF (pick 37)
RB31 D'Onta Foreman HOU (pick 89)
WR47 Carlos Henderson DEN (pick 82)
WR48 Taywan Taylor TEN (pick 72)
RB35 Samaje Perine WAS (pick 114)
TE11 Gerald Everett RAM (pick 44)
QB11 Patrick Mahomes KC (pick 10)
RB45 James Conner PIT (pick 105)
RB46 Jamaal Williams GB (pick 134)
RB47 Marlon Mack IND (pick 143)
RB48 Wayne Gallman NYG (pick 140)

WR56 Chris Godwin TB (pick 84)
TE14 Adam Shaheen CHI (pick 45)
QB15 Deshaun Watson HOU (pick 12)
WR68 Cooper Kupp RAM (pick 69)
WR71 ArDarius Stewart NYJ (pick 79)
WR73 Kenny Golladay DET (pick 96)
WR74 Dede Westbrook JAX (pick 110)

RB64 Joe Williams SF (pick 121)
WR79 Chad Williams ARI (pick 98)
RB65 Jeremy McNichols TB (pick 162)
QB29 DeShone Kizer CLE (pick 52)
RB66 Aaron Jones GB (pick 182)

RB73 Tarik Cohen CHI (pick 119)
TE25 Jonnu Smith TEN (pick 100)
RB74 Donnel Pumphrey PHI (pick 132)
WR80 DeAngelo Yancey GB (pick 175)
WR81 Josh Reynolds RAM (pick 117)
WR82 Amara Darboh SEA (pick 106)
WR90 Mack Hollins PHI (pick 118)
WR91 Josh Malone CIN (pick 128)
RB82 Brian Hill ATL (pick 156)
RB84 Elijah McGuire NYJ (pick 188)
WR99 Chad Hansen NYJ (pick 141)
WR100 Robert Davis WAS (pick 209)
TE35 Jake Butt DEN (pick 145)
RB92 T.J. Logan ARI (pick 179)
TE39 Michael Roberts DET (pick 127)
RB93 DeAngelo Henderson DEN (pick 203)
TE43 George Kittle SF (pick 146)
TE44 Jordan Leggett NYJ (pick 150)
WR113 Jehu Chesson KC (pick 139)
RB102 Elijah Hood OAK (pick 242)
TE45 Bucky Hodges MIN (pick 201)
QB33 Davis Webb NYG (pick 87)
WR114 Ryan Switzer DAL (pick 133)

ZWK · May 5, 2017

Looking ahead to future draft classes, I don't have a system for evaluating devy players but I can look at players' production so far (and their estimated size/speed) to see which players I'd already rate highly as prospects if they were entering the NFL right now.

WR: Taking into account production and estimated size/speed, these are the WRs who already show some promise as prospects (starting with the highest-rated): Courtland Sutton (SMU), Equanimeous St. Brown (Notre Dame), Cody Thompson (Toledo), James Washington (Okla St), Michael Gallup (CSU), Nick Westbrook (Indiana), Jonathan Giles (Texas Tech), Jester Weah (Pittsburgh), Anthony Miller (Memphis), Richie James (MTSU), Allenzae Staggers (USM), Cedrick Wilson (Boise St), Darren Carrington (Oregon). Sutton and St. Brown would already qualify as good receiver prospects (assuming their measured size/speed matched the estimates), while Thompson and Washington are borderline. Westbrook's production isn't quite there yet but he's young and has good size, Carrington looked promising in limited time in 2015 but followed that up with a mediocre 2016, and the others had good enough (though not amazing) production but don't have prototypical size or speed (according to nfldraftscout estimates). Some notable names are missing from this list, including Calvin Ridley and Christian Kirk, who both have had terrible efficiency numbers through their first 2 seasons (e.g., they were both in the bottom 5 in yards per target in 2016, among the 100 players with the most receiving yards). I put a lot of weight on a receiver's best season, so either of them (or plenty of other WRs) could shoot up the rankings if they play well in 2017.

RB: Derrius Guice (LSU), Royce Freeman (Oregon), Nick Chubb (Georgia), and Saquon Barkley (Penn State) all rate as high-level RB prospects who would be up there among this year's rd 1-2 backs. Freeman and Chubb both struggled in 2016 and are relying more on good production in previous seasons, and could drop in the rankings if they don't bounce back this year. With Chubb, the big question is how well he'll recover from his injury). There is a larger batch of RBs who have shown some promise, but whose numbers weren't at a level where they would have looked very promising prospects if they had been in this year's draft class (unless they had better-than-expected numbers at the combine): Mike Weber (Ohio State), Ty Johnson (Maryland), Rashaad Penny (SDSU), Benjamin Snell, Jr. (Kentucky), Kerryon Johnson (Auburn), James Butler (Nevada), Damien Harris (Alabama), Ray Lawry (ODU), Damarea Crockett (Missouri), Rawleigh Williams III (Arkansas), Lavon Coleman (Washington), Jarvion Franklin (W Mich), Kalen Ballage (Ariz St), Bo Scarbrough (Alabama), Phillip Lindsay (Colorado), Kyle Hicks (TCU), Ito Smith (USM), Myles Gaskin (Washington).

QB: Baker Mayfield (Oklahoma), Sam Darnold (USC), and Logan Woodside (Toledo) all had elite production last year. Elite production is no guarantee of NFL success, or even of being worth a high draft pick, but they have shown enough in terms of production so that if NFL evaluators like them then I probably will too. Some other QB prospects had pretty good production this year, at a level that might be enough for me to approve of a player as a 2nd round NFL prospect, but I'll need to see an improvement to be that high on any of them: Mike White (Western Ky), Jake Browning (Washington), Deondre Francois (FSU), Mason Rudolph (Okla St), and Austin Allen (Arkansas), Brett Rypien (Boise St), and Lamar Jackson (Louisville). Notable names who missed the cut: Josh Allen (Wyoming) and Josh Rosen (UCLA).

Edge Rushers: Harold Landry (BC), Duke Ejiofor (Wake Forest), Arden Key (LSU), Bradley Chubb (NC State), Dorance Armstrong Jr. (Kansas), Marquis Haynes (Miss), and Ja'Von Rolland-Jones (Ark St) have the strongest combination of production and estimated size/speed.

Biabreakable · May 6, 2017

Awsome work with the rankings ZWK.

Makes me realize I may be a bit too low on Kamara and Jamaal Williams just because I don't like playing roulette with NO RB and I don't like Packers. To name a couple differences where I may be wrong. I had Aaron Jones higher than Jamaal Williams in pre draft rankings which makes me wonder if he will be limited to a COP role or if he could win this job? The draft position definitely favors Williams, and so I rank him higher than Jones because of that, but i have them a bit closer together than you do. It is somewhat reminiscent of when they drafted Lacy and Franklin. Ty Montgommery still in the mix which if they do have some defined roles for the RB, might be in more direct competition with Jones for opportunity than Williams.

Also nice to see where some of the players slot with the overall rankings, something I haven't really attempted to do yet. I need to do projections for every team before I can do that.

ZWK · May 6, 2017

Biabreakable said:
Awsome work with the rankings ZWK.

Makes me realize I may be a bit too low on Kamara and Jamaal Williams just because I don't like playing roulette with NO RB and I don't like Packers. To name a couple differences where I may be wrong. I had Aaron Jones higher than Jamaal Williams in pre draft rankings which makes me wonder if he will be limited to a COP role or if he could win this job? The draft position definitely favors Williams, and so I rank him higher than Jones because of that, but i have them a bit closer together than you do. It is somewhat reminiscent of when they drafted Lacy and Franklin. Ty Montgommery still in the mix which if they do have some defined roles for the RB, might be in more direct competition with Jones for opportunity than Williams.

Also nice to see where some of the players slot with the overall rankings, something I haven't really attempted to do yet. I need to do projections for every team before I can do that.

Thanks!

I like GB and especially NO as landing spots for RBs. Better offenses tend to create more fantasy value for their RBs, and the Saints throw a ton of passes to their RBs. New Orleans seems like an amazing fit for Kamara, because 1) Kamara looks really good as a receiving back and New Orleans makes heavy use of their receiving backs and 2) one of the biggest knocks on Kamara is questions about his ability to carry a heavy workload, and a receiving back in NO doesn't need a huge rushing workload in order to have fantasy value. Sproles, Bush, and Pierre Thomas were consistently fantasy starters, at least in PPR, even when they had to share the backfield with other RBs (or with each other). Sometimes they were RB1s. Realistic upside for Kamara is something like Pierre Thomas as a runner & Darren Sproles as a receiver, 10 carries and 5 receptions each game.

I also had Aaron Jones ahead of Jamaal Williams pre-draft, and deferred to draft position. There are lots of different ways that things could wind up shaking out in GB, and a year from now it might all look completely different from how it does now. There are definitely a lot of fantasy points to be had there, if someone can emerge the way that Lacy and Grant did in the past.

ZWK · Jun 1, 2017

ZWK said:
Matt Harmon has published Reception Perception stats on several more WRs, and I have added a stretch of schedule adjustment (based on average opponent DSRS in the games that Harmon charted). Here is what I have so far for adjusted success rate:

82.8%   Carlos Henderson
80.6%   Isaiah Ford
78.3%   Chris Godwin
75.2%   Mike Williams
74.9%   Taywan Taylor
74.1%   Ryan Switzer
73.5%   Corey Davis
73.5%   John Ross
72.8%   Ishmael Zamora
70.8%   Chad Hansen
70.6%   Zay Jones
(69.2%    2016 average)
67.5%   JuJu Smith-Schuster
61.9%   Cooper Kupp

The full set of Reception Perception data has finally been released, as part of a draft guide that they sell. It has numbers on 19 WRs - these 13 plus Josh Reynolds, Dede Westbrook, and 4 more who didn't get individual articles: ArDarius Stewart, Josh Malone, Amara Darboh, and Malachi Dupre. Reynolds is up there with Mike Williams, Stewart & Malone are just below average near Smith-Schuster, Westbrook & Darboh are down there with Cooper Kupp, and Dupre is on his own at the bottom of the list. (These numbers are adjusted success rate - on what fraction of your routes did you get open - based on Harmon's charting for various route types and my calculations to combine them into a single number.)

Harmon did not do charting on Curtis Samuel, Kenny Golladay, or various other mid-to-late-round WRs.

ZWK · Jun 6, 2017

Another interesting stat from Harmon's data (which I also mentioned in my more general dynasty thread): how often each receiver was double covered. Among NFL receivers, the guys who get double covered the most are the elite prototypical WR1s. Among college receivers, the guys who were double covered the most in the past 2 draft classes (in the games in Harmon's sample) are:

John Ross
Taywan Taylor

Corey Davis

Chris Godwin
Cooper Kupp
Carlos Henderson
Rashard Higgins
Zay Jones
JuJu Smith-Schuster
Mike Williams

This is interesting both because it's a sign of who defenses were most worried about, and because it's a partial excuse for why guys like John Ross and Chris Godwin didn't have better raw production.

JFS171 · Aug 28, 2017

@ZWK - has the preseason altered your rookie rankings at all?

Bronco Billy · Aug 28, 2017

ZWK said:
Another interesting stat from Harmon's data (which I also mentioned in my more general dynasty thread): how often each receiver was double covered. Among NFL receivers, the guys who get double covered the most are the elite prototypical WR1s. Among college receivers, the guys who were double covered the most in the past 2 draft classes (in the games in Harmon's sample) are:

John Ross
Taywan Taylor

Corey Davis

Chris Godwin
Cooper Kupp
Carlos Henderson
Rashard Higgins
Zay Jones
JuJu Smith-Schuster
Mike Williams

This is interesting both because it's a sign of who defenses were most worried about, and because it's a partial excuse for why guys like John Ross and Chris Godwin didn't have better raw production.

Just dropped Higgins a couple of weeks ago. He's not gaining any traction at all despite plenty of opportunity. I used to be quite a proponent of his.

ZWK · Aug 28, 2017

@JFS171 Here's what I have. Some of these haven't been fully updated to take the 3rd week of preseason into account.

Ovr shows the player's within-position rank (e.g., Fournette is RB5 behind DJ, Bell, Zeke, and Gurley). Prev Pos Rk shows where I had the player ranked within-position when I posted my last update to my Dynasty Rankings thread in May (e.g., I had Fournette at RB4 on May 2).

Rk Ovr    Player    Tm          (Prev Pos Rk)

1   RB5   Leonard Fournette JAX   (4)
2   RB6   Christian McCaffrey CAR   (6)

3   RB9   Joe Mixon CIN   (9)
4   WR16   Corey Davis TEN   (16)
5   RB12   Dalvin Cook MIN   (11)

6   RB13   Alvin Kamara NO   (15)
7   WR20   Mike Williams LAC   (19)
8   WR22   John Ross CIN   (21)
9   RB19   Kareem Hunt KC   (23)
10   TE5   Evan Engram NYG   (5)
11   TE6   O.J. Howard TB   (6)
12   TE7   David Njoku CLE   (7)

13   RB31   Marlon Mack IND   (42)
14   QB12   Mitchell Trubisky CHI   (10)
15   RB38   Samaje Perine WAS   (35)
16   RB39   D'Onta Foreman HOU   (38)
17   QB13   Patrick Mahomes KC   (11)
18    WR43   JuJu Smith-Schuster PIT   (44)
19    WR44   Zay Jones BUF   (45)
20    QB16   Deshaun Watson HOU   (15)
21   WR46   Taywan Taylor TEN   (48)
22   WR48   Carlos Henderson DEN   (47)
23   TE11   Gerald Everett RAM   (11)
24   WR52   Curtis Samuel CAR   (43)
25   RB49   Jamaal Williams GB   (46)
26   WR54   Chris Godwin TB   (54)
27   WR56   Kenny Golladay DET   (74)
28   WR59   Cooper Kupp RAM   (71)

29   TE15   Adam Shaheen CHI   (15)
30   RB52   Wayne Gallman NYG   (47)
31   RB53   James Conner PIT   (49)
32   RB57   Tarik Cohen CHI   (72)
33   RB62   DeAngelo Henderson DEN   (93)
34   RB63   Aaron Jones GB   (66)
35   WR73   ArDarius Stewart NYJ   (70)
36   QB22   DeShone Kizer CLE   (29)
37   WR74   Chad Williams ARI   (81)
38   RB68   Chris Carson SEA   (101)
39   WR75   Dede Westbrook JAX   (72)
40   TE23   Jonnu Smith TEN   (19)

41   RB71   Jeremy McNichols TB   (62)
42   TE26   George Kittle SF   (44)
43   TE27   Rico Gathers DAL   unr
44   WR89   Mack Hollins PHI   (90)
45   RB73   Donnel Pumphrey PHI   (73)
46   WR90   DeAngelo Yancey GB   (82)
47   WR92   Josh Reynolds RAM   (84)
48   RB78   Brian Hill ATL   (79)
49   RB79   Matt Breida SF   unr
50   RB81   Elijah McGuire NYJ   (85)
51   RB85   Joe Williams SF   (61)
52   WR98   Josh Malone CIN   (91)
53   RB88   Devante Mays GB   unr
54   WR103   Tanner Gentry CHI   unr
55   WR105   Amara Darboh SEA   (85)
56   WR106   Chad Hansen NYJ   (99)
57   TE46   Bucky Hodges MIN   (40)
58   TE47   Jake Butt DEN   (41)
59   QB35   C.J. Beathard SF   (38)
60   TE49   Eric Saubert ATL   (45)

Hoh · Oct 9, 2018

What a class this has ended up being. I was in complete rebuild mode (dynasty) and between the draft and pre/early season moves I loaded up on this class last year just hoping something would stick. It ALL stuck. It’s been a long time since that has happened. Currently rostering Mahomes and Watson at QB, Mixon and Aaron Jones at RB, Golladay, JuJu, Godwin, Kupp, Taywan Taylor at WR, and Kittle at TE. Just a deep, deep class.

ZWK's 2017 Prospect Analysis (1 Viewer)

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