Dinsy Ejotuz
Footballguy
About 18 months ago I read the Football Prospectus article on developing an objective measure of talent for 1st and 2nd round QBs coming out of college. It made me curious about whether something similar could be done for other fantasy football relevant players, i.e. skill positions. I posted a first go at the RBs last August and will be updating that research with some minor improvements and simplifications soon.
In the meantime, here are the summary findings for the WRs.
The first important point is that in my opinion it's impossible to accurately predict WRs not drafted early in the first round. NFL scouts whiff on about half of the WRs they deem worth spending a top-21 pick on. And after that, it's a back alley crapshoot. If they can't do it, and there's no after-the-fact way to sort them into categories I don't think it can be done - with one exception, which I'll post below.
What I think can be done is to sort the WRs chosen in the early 1st round into pools.
As I said above, if a WR isn't taken in the first 21 picks I'm not trying to rate them. So that eliminates the majority of WRs taken each year. In addition, I'm not trying to account for WRs who aren't one of the 1st four off the board or those who attended a non-BCS conference. That's based on my findings - it's not arbitrary - but those extra criteria only eliminate the following WRs from what I'm calling the prospect pool (top 21 pick who are also one of the first four WRs picked):
Michael Clayton - 5th WR taken
Kevin Dyson - non-BCS conference
Ashley Lelie - non-BCS conference
Sylvester Morris - non-BCS conference
Given Clayton's performance in his rookie year, eliminating guys who manage to get drafted in the 1st 21 picks, but not as one of the first four WRs may be arbitrary. So you can include him in the results below if you want to. I confess that I just liked how clean the elite pool was without him.
After eliminating all the guys I don't believe can be rated, here's the prospect pool:
Andre Johnson
Braylon Edwards
Bryant Johnson
Calvin Johnson
Charles Johnson
Charles Rogers
David Boston
David Terrell
Donte' Stallworth
Eddie Kennison
Ike Hilliard
J.J. Stokes
Javon Walker
Joey Galloway
Johnnie Morton
Keyshawn Johnson
Koren Robinson
Larry Fitzgerald
Lee Evans
Marvin Harrison
Matt Jones
Michael Westbrook
Mike Williams
Peter Warrick
Plaxico Burress
Randy Moss
Reggie Williams
Rod Gardner
Roy Williams
Santana Moss
Tedd Ginn
Terry Glenn
Torry Holt
Travis Taylor
Troy Williamson
Yatil Green
All of those players, plus the four I've already cut, were deemed worthy of a very valuable draft pick by at least one NFL team. Roughly half of them failed to justify that pick under any criteria. But if you look at only those taken in the first eight picks the hit rate gets better, thirteen of seventeen developed into at least solid starters. So credit where it's due I guess.
(For what it's worth...I almost didn't post either of my findings because I doubted I could be right about something that a multi-billion dollar industry hadn't figured out. But after playing with the data for long enough I'm pretty sure I'm onto something. Granted that I have the major advantage of knowing where a player was drafted, but in today's NFL there aren't many surprises and I'm pretty sure that most of the time you know roughly which WRs will go in the early part of the first round. So now I just think they should have done better.)
Enough preliminaries, I guess. The main thing I found is that a highly-drafted WR's success is largely driven by simple physics: weight and Body Mass Index.
Light WR = <190 pounds
Medium WR = 191-209 pounds
Heavy WR = 210+ pounds
Slight WR = BMI of <25.7
Average BMI = BMI of 25.8 to 27.9
Thick WR = BMI of 28.0+
So, using only weight, BMI, draft position and major-conference program, here are my findings:
Slight Receivers (any weight):
Roy Williams
Torry Holt
Tedd Ginn
Marvin Harrison
Randy Moss
Thick Receivers (any weight):
Calvin Johnson
Andre Johnson
Lee Evans
Larry Fitzgerald
Light Receivers (average BMI):
Santana Moss
Terry Glenn
Joey Galloway
Heavy Receivers, 1st or 2nd WR taken (average BMI):
Michael Westbrook
Keyshawn Johnson
Braylon Edwards
David Terrell
Plaxico Burress
Koren Robinson
David Boston
Everyone Else
Mike Williams
Reggie Williams
J.J. Stokes
Rod Gardner
Javon Walker
Bryant Johnson
Matt Jones
Yatil Green
Troy Williamson
Charles Rogers
Eddie Kennison
Travis Taylor
Ike Hilliard
Donte' Stallworth
Charles Johnson
Peter Warrick
Johnnie Morton
To summarize: I'd call the Thick and Slight guys in the first 21 picks the truly elite prospects. The Light WRs and the Heavy WRs that are the 1st or 2nd WR picked are good bets, but as a group not as good as the ones with the desirable BMIs.
A couple disclaimers...
Finding accurate weights is tricky, and I was planning to go back and try to standardize the sources I used. But I've been sitting on this for six months messing with the RB findings and I'm not sure when I'll do that now. I am worried though that some of the weights I'm using are playing weights, rather than combine weights (i.e. those that would be available at the time of the draft).
Randy Moss technically shouldn't qualify since he went to Marshall. But he was recruited to a major school (Florida State). You're on your own judging whether character issues are enough to nix a guy.
Ted Ginn was a really tough call. He fits the slight profile perfectly, but many people felt the Dolphins reached for him (i.e. that he wouldn't have been drafted in the first 21 picks if they hadn't done it) and there's only one other WR in the prospect pool that is also both slight and weighs less than 190 - Marvin Harrison.
Something that I noticed with RBs is that the NFL is in love with BIG players. There's a bias against guys who are perfectly qualified, but smaller by NFL standards. You see it here with the average BMI WRs who weigh more than 210 pounds. Some of the guys that fit that profile who were taken as the 1st or 2nd WR washed out, and almost all the 210+ average BMI guys who were taken as the 3rd or 4th WR busted.
Finally, there's one notable exception to my belief that WRs not in my prospect pool above can't be predicted. Major conference guys taken until the middle of the 3rd round (or so) who have a BMI of 28.0 or greater are worth a shot. They include:
Anquan Boldin
Chris Chambers
Deion Branch
Dez White
Jerry Porter
Darrell Jackson
Other than that there's not much you can do with the later drafted guys except to focus on those who have at least one desirable attribute (thick or slight or light) who land in good situations.
I'm not sure why these criteria matter, but I strongly suspect it has something to do with ability to get open. The thick/heavy guys can get off the jam and use their body for position, while the slight/light guys can make stronger cuts and get separation.
I'll try and answer any questions, but am not sure I can say much more than I've got here. Again, I want to repeat that there's on big caveat to this - if a player's playing weights differs from his weight at the combine this falls apart to some degree in terms of looking ahead. But even then it should still provide some guidance and, in my opinion at least, goes a long way towards explaining why some highly-rated receivers succeed while others, rated just as highly, fail.
In the meantime, here are the summary findings for the WRs.
The first important point is that in my opinion it's impossible to accurately predict WRs not drafted early in the first round. NFL scouts whiff on about half of the WRs they deem worth spending a top-21 pick on. And after that, it's a back alley crapshoot. If they can't do it, and there's no after-the-fact way to sort them into categories I don't think it can be done - with one exception, which I'll post below.
What I think can be done is to sort the WRs chosen in the early 1st round into pools.
As I said above, if a WR isn't taken in the first 21 picks I'm not trying to rate them. So that eliminates the majority of WRs taken each year. In addition, I'm not trying to account for WRs who aren't one of the 1st four off the board or those who attended a non-BCS conference. That's based on my findings - it's not arbitrary - but those extra criteria only eliminate the following WRs from what I'm calling the prospect pool (top 21 pick who are also one of the first four WRs picked):
Michael Clayton - 5th WR taken
Kevin Dyson - non-BCS conference
Ashley Lelie - non-BCS conference
Sylvester Morris - non-BCS conference
Given Clayton's performance in his rookie year, eliminating guys who manage to get drafted in the 1st 21 picks, but not as one of the first four WRs may be arbitrary. So you can include him in the results below if you want to. I confess that I just liked how clean the elite pool was without him.
After eliminating all the guys I don't believe can be rated, here's the prospect pool:
Andre Johnson
Braylon Edwards
Bryant Johnson
Calvin Johnson
Charles Johnson
Charles Rogers
David Boston
David Terrell
Donte' Stallworth
Eddie Kennison
Ike Hilliard
J.J. Stokes
Javon Walker
Joey Galloway
Johnnie Morton
Keyshawn Johnson
Koren Robinson
Larry Fitzgerald
Lee Evans
Marvin Harrison
Matt Jones
Michael Westbrook
Mike Williams
Peter Warrick
Plaxico Burress
Randy Moss
Reggie Williams
Rod Gardner
Roy Williams
Santana Moss
Tedd Ginn
Terry Glenn
Torry Holt
Travis Taylor
Troy Williamson
Yatil Green
All of those players, plus the four I've already cut, were deemed worthy of a very valuable draft pick by at least one NFL team. Roughly half of them failed to justify that pick under any criteria. But if you look at only those taken in the first eight picks the hit rate gets better, thirteen of seventeen developed into at least solid starters. So credit where it's due I guess.
(For what it's worth...I almost didn't post either of my findings because I doubted I could be right about something that a multi-billion dollar industry hadn't figured out. But after playing with the data for long enough I'm pretty sure I'm onto something. Granted that I have the major advantage of knowing where a player was drafted, but in today's NFL there aren't many surprises and I'm pretty sure that most of the time you know roughly which WRs will go in the early part of the first round. So now I just think they should have done better.)
Enough preliminaries, I guess. The main thing I found is that a highly-drafted WR's success is largely driven by simple physics: weight and Body Mass Index.
Light WR = <190 pounds
Medium WR = 191-209 pounds
Heavy WR = 210+ pounds
Slight WR = BMI of <25.7
Average BMI = BMI of 25.8 to 27.9
Thick WR = BMI of 28.0+
So, using only weight, BMI, draft position and major-conference program, here are my findings:
Slight Receivers (any weight):
Roy Williams
Torry Holt
Tedd Ginn
Marvin Harrison
Randy Moss
Thick Receivers (any weight):
Calvin Johnson
Andre Johnson
Lee Evans
Larry Fitzgerald
Light Receivers (average BMI):
Santana Moss
Terry Glenn
Joey Galloway
Heavy Receivers, 1st or 2nd WR taken (average BMI):
Michael Westbrook
Keyshawn Johnson
Braylon Edwards
David Terrell
Plaxico Burress
Koren Robinson
David Boston
Everyone Else
Mike Williams
Reggie Williams
J.J. Stokes
Rod Gardner
Javon Walker
Bryant Johnson
Matt Jones
Yatil Green
Troy Williamson
Charles Rogers
Eddie Kennison
Travis Taylor
Ike Hilliard
Donte' Stallworth
Charles Johnson
Peter Warrick
Johnnie Morton
To summarize: I'd call the Thick and Slight guys in the first 21 picks the truly elite prospects. The Light WRs and the Heavy WRs that are the 1st or 2nd WR picked are good bets, but as a group not as good as the ones with the desirable BMIs.
A couple disclaimers...
Finding accurate weights is tricky, and I was planning to go back and try to standardize the sources I used. But I've been sitting on this for six months messing with the RB findings and I'm not sure when I'll do that now. I am worried though that some of the weights I'm using are playing weights, rather than combine weights (i.e. those that would be available at the time of the draft).
Randy Moss technically shouldn't qualify since he went to Marshall. But he was recruited to a major school (Florida State). You're on your own judging whether character issues are enough to nix a guy.
Ted Ginn was a really tough call. He fits the slight profile perfectly, but many people felt the Dolphins reached for him (i.e. that he wouldn't have been drafted in the first 21 picks if they hadn't done it) and there's only one other WR in the prospect pool that is also both slight and weighs less than 190 - Marvin Harrison.
Something that I noticed with RBs is that the NFL is in love with BIG players. There's a bias against guys who are perfectly qualified, but smaller by NFL standards. You see it here with the average BMI WRs who weigh more than 210 pounds. Some of the guys that fit that profile who were taken as the 1st or 2nd WR washed out, and almost all the 210+ average BMI guys who were taken as the 3rd or 4th WR busted.
Finally, there's one notable exception to my belief that WRs not in my prospect pool above can't be predicted. Major conference guys taken until the middle of the 3rd round (or so) who have a BMI of 28.0 or greater are worth a shot. They include:
Anquan Boldin
Chris Chambers
Deion Branch
Dez White
Jerry Porter
Darrell Jackson
Other than that there's not much you can do with the later drafted guys except to focus on those who have at least one desirable attribute (thick or slight or light) who land in good situations.
I'm not sure why these criteria matter, but I strongly suspect it has something to do with ability to get open. The thick/heavy guys can get off the jam and use their body for position, while the slight/light guys can make stronger cuts and get separation.
I'll try and answer any questions, but am not sure I can say much more than I've got here. Again, I want to repeat that there's on big caveat to this - if a player's playing weights differs from his weight at the combine this falls apart to some degree in terms of looking ahead. But even then it should still provide some guidance and, in my opinion at least, goes a long way towards explaining why some highly-rated receivers succeed while others, rated just as highly, fail.
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material.
