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WR/TE JJ Arcega-Whiteside, SEA (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Faust
- Start date
Faust
MVP
August 28, 2018:
2019 NFL Draft: Bryce Love, monster WR JJ Arcega-Whiteside will shine for Stanford
Excerpt:
2019 NFL Draft: Bryce Love, monster WR JJ Arcega-Whiteside will shine for Stanford
Excerpt:
Ilov80s
Footballguy
I really like this years WR class. It has everything from big guys to little speedsters and everything inbetween.
The more I read, the more I think there are a good and deep group of wrs. Might be a good time to have multiple mid-late 1sts.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
The big shake-up will come when they get drafted. Who are the poor soulds relegated to Buffalo, Baltimore and Oakland?
Ilov80s
Footballguy
I see him as similar to Harmon- maybe Harmon-light. Does he do anything other than catch jump balls in the RZ?
Zyphros
Footballguy
Probably a little better than Harmon at body'ing up a DB, but I don't see the kind of effort, versatility or speed that Harmon offers. I can see how they'd be viewed similarly. Just one guys opinion though.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Definitely Harmon. I see similar strengths but JJ has more weaknesses from my untrained eye.
BigTex
Don't mess with Texas
BigTex
Don't mess with Texas
He won’t be a sleeper by the time the draft rolls around. Hell, don’t be shocked if he’s draft in the top 3 WR maybe even the 1st off the board! Seriously.
Tex
Zyphros
Footballguy
Whoever says the combine doesn't matter is just plain and simply wrong. You just need to look at the right things. I put very little stock in the 40 unless they run like molasses. Everything other than the 40 has real application to an NFL player, some more than others (Bench press more for RB's than WR's for example). Mostly I look for explosiveness in the drills, shuttle and 3cone. If they don't run those then I use what I've seen when I watched them. The 40, for all the hype it gets is rather useless though.
I look for the things my eyes have seen to match the athleticism. If the athleticism is there but the production isn't and my eyes call him "an awakward athlete" then he's more athlete than football player. Not my kind of player usually. But if the athleticism matches the production and the smoothness of what I've seen when I watched them, that matches and stands out to me.
BigTex
Don't mess with Texas
For certain positions and certain Combine activities the Combine has shown no correlation to NFL succes this is a documented fact. I’ve sent the documents to several posters last year a few of those poster actually posted them in one of these threads somewhere. I may have to find it but WR was the main position. I real the findings years ago and have been keeping track on it’s findings and i’m In agreement. If you like a WR before the Combine then you draft him. The Combine has no direct correlation to NFL success for a WR. Not one single event, not the 40, 3 cone drill, etc......
There we’re certain Combine metrics that did show some correlations but it was with CB, OL, DL, TE, and two or three events for RB but I don’t remember which.
Tex
BigTex
Don't mess with Texas
Z, forty times are fun to look at and while I agree that we (including myself) like explosive guys. Give me the guy that “plays” explosive but struggle to run an explosive forty. I can name several that fit that category. K Hunt comes to mind, after his 4.6 forty nearly everyone was doubting him. Nearly everyone passed on him even though his on the field metrics and performance was great many put more stock in the Combine than on the field performance and that’s the mistake.
Tex
ZWK
Footballguy
Combine results are related to NFL success for WRs. When I looked at it a couple years ago, on average WRs who wind up being successful in the NFL were around the 60th percentile (compared to all WRs at the combine) in 40 time, vertical, broad jump, and BMI. And a bit higher on the whole if we're stricter as which WRs count as "successful".
Biabreakable
Footballguy
I believe the study that Tex is referencing is this oneZWK said:
This study is using AV which in my view is a condensed stat that loosely follows player performance, but also gives a lot of weight to players just starting as a success. I know you are familiar with it. It also only looks at the AV of players in their first 3 seasons in the league. As we know some players break out later in their careers, although I think the majority usually show their worth within their first 3 seasons in the league.
To me when evaluating rookie prospects, it makes sense to look at what they do early on in their NFL career, as I think the more time that passes in between the point of origin (NFL combine) the less likely the production is related to the measurement. Players change over time. Some get better some get worse. The situation around the player can be an even bigger factor of how a player performs. Look at Damien Williams right now for example. Say he ends up being the starter in KC for the next 3 years and ends up being a 100 VBD player. Do you think that combine measurements for him would matter that much 5 years after the fact?
Your study used 100 career VBD so I am seeing why you would get different results. I know some swear by their findings of correlation of combine metrics and NFL performance. However these folks tend to partition players into very narrow groups of metrics, which helps their predictive analysis "fit" their conclusion of certain metrics being statistically significant for players of a specific size profile.
I know NFL teams have even more advanced analysis of combine data and what it means for them. However most GMs will say they make their decision primarily based on watching the players and that combine metrics only reinforce their opinions, and rarely cause them to change their valuation on the player.
If I understand the results of your study, you basically found that WR should be in the top 40% of all WR in their metrics, and players below those thresholds are ones to be more wary about becoming successful. I think that makes sense. However you are also kind of distilling this evaluation to a coin flip. Either the player is in the top 40% or they aren't.
That does not strike me as being very predictive, although I do appreciate you looking at each metric to find which ones were more predictive than others.
ZWK
Footballguy
One tricky thing about trying to predict "NFL success" is that most outcome measures have a weird, skewed distribution. A few receivers have a great career with tons of receiving yards / VBD / etc., some are kinda useful, a bunch do just a little in the NFL, and some don't even catch a pass.
I dealt with that issue by making "NFL success" binary: either a player was a successful fantasy WR in the NFL or he wasn't. Then I looked at the traits of the ones who did succeed. (And I used the cutoff of 100 career VBD at the time of analysis.)
The study that you linked instead turned NFL success into percentiles, so that the outcome had to be evenly distributed between 0% and 100%. I think that's a bad way of doing it, because it cares more about the difference between the 5th percentile and the 70th percentile than it does about the difference between 70th percentile and the 95th percentile.
For example, if we take "career receiving yards so far" as the main measure (which is not what I or that study did, but which is a convenient way to simplify things for the point I'm trying to make), the player at the 95th percentile among the 2015 draft class is Stefon Diggs, the player at the 70th percentile is Dorial Green-Beckham, and the player at the 5th percentile is someone like Vince Mayle who has never caught a pass. The statistical analysis in your link cares more about the question "what's the difference between DGB and Mayle that led to DGB being more successful" than it does about the question "what's the difference between Diggs & DGB that led to Diggs being more successful." DGB vs. Mayle is not that interesting a question (neither of them have been that useful), and it's also not that surprising that combine stats don't help us much in sorting it out. I'm more interested in the question of what sets apart the top few WRs in that draft class (Cooper, Diggs, maybe Lockett) from everyone else.
You can come up with your own way to define which WRs have been "successful" in the NFL. As long as whatever you come up with is just picking out a few WRs each year who are actually good, rather than a huge bucket of guys who have been not totally useless, I expect you'll get similar results to what I did about the predictiveness of the combine.
I do think that WR is a position where college production matters much more than combine athleticism, and that there is some value in finding ways to combine different angles on college WRs. But if the basic question is just "are WR 40 times, jumps, etc. totally useless or do they tell us something" the answer seems to be "they tell us something." Another way to see this is to just look at a list of WRs sorted by 40 time (such as this one, though I recommend picking your own years rather than relying on me to do it) and see if the fastest 20% of the list generated a stronger group of NFL WRs than the slowest 20% of the list.
I dealt with that issue by making "NFL success" binary: either a player was a successful fantasy WR in the NFL or he wasn't. Then I looked at the traits of the ones who did succeed. (And I used the cutoff of 100 career VBD at the time of analysis.)
The study that you linked instead turned NFL success into percentiles, so that the outcome had to be evenly distributed between 0% and 100%. I think that's a bad way of doing it, because it cares more about the difference between the 5th percentile and the 70th percentile than it does about the difference between 70th percentile and the 95th percentile.
For example, if we take "career receiving yards so far" as the main measure (which is not what I or that study did, but which is a convenient way to simplify things for the point I'm trying to make), the player at the 95th percentile among the 2015 draft class is Stefon Diggs, the player at the 70th percentile is Dorial Green-Beckham, and the player at the 5th percentile is someone like Vince Mayle who has never caught a pass. The statistical analysis in your link cares more about the question "what's the difference between DGB and Mayle that led to DGB being more successful" than it does about the question "what's the difference between Diggs & DGB that led to Diggs being more successful." DGB vs. Mayle is not that interesting a question (neither of them have been that useful), and it's also not that surprising that combine stats don't help us much in sorting it out. I'm more interested in the question of what sets apart the top few WRs in that draft class (Cooper, Diggs, maybe Lockett) from everyone else.
You can come up with your own way to define which WRs have been "successful" in the NFL. As long as whatever you come up with is just picking out a few WRs each year who are actually good, rather than a huge bucket of guys who have been not totally useless, I expect you'll get similar results to what I did about the predictiveness of the combine.
I do think that WR is a position where college production matters much more than combine athleticism, and that there is some value in finding ways to combine different angles on college WRs. But if the basic question is just "are WR 40 times, jumps, etc. totally useless or do they tell us something" the answer seems to be "they tell us something." Another way to see this is to just look at a list of WRs sorted by 40 time (such as this one, though I recommend picking your own years rather than relying on me to do it) and see if the fastest 20% of the list generated a stronger group of NFL WRs than the slowest 20% of the list.
Biabreakable
Footballguy
Yeah I don't claim to understand all the math behind the article I linked, which is old now, but still very interesting to me because of how predictive the combine was for many positions, but not for WR specifically.
100 VBD is a good cut off line as most of the compilers won't be able to reach that threshold without at least one top 12 type season along the way (40VBD). As you say, trying to identify the upper crust of the population, rather than the whole population.
I was more just pointing out that the method of study was different, and thus different results.
I think if you have two otherwise equal players that of course you would prefer to have the one who is more athletic.
What I find very interesting that you have found the college statistical performance to be more predictive than the combine metrics, and I agree that using all information available is better than only using some things and not others. I never really know how much weight each thing should have relative to something else though.
If the college production is more predictive than the combine data, how much more predictive is it?
I get the sense from your work that you are asking that question and that the relative importance of each metric being applied based on that?
As far as what is a success is important as you point out. For fantasy football we are looking for players who can make an impact to our starting lineups and VBD is a better target than AV which is something most of do not get fantasy points for.
100 VBD is a good cut off line as most of the compilers won't be able to reach that threshold without at least one top 12 type season along the way (40VBD). As you say, trying to identify the upper crust of the population, rather than the whole population.
I was more just pointing out that the method of study was different, and thus different results.
I think if you have two otherwise equal players that of course you would prefer to have the one who is more athletic.
What I find very interesting that you have found the college statistical performance to be more predictive than the combine metrics, and I agree that using all information available is better than only using some things and not others. I never really know how much weight each thing should have relative to something else though.
If the college production is more predictive than the combine data, how much more predictive is it?
I get the sense from your work that you are asking that question and that the relative importance of each metric being applied based on that?
Dinsy Ejotuz
Footballguy
It's only true if you try to use the raw combine numbers and apply them to every prospect equally.
Interseptopus
Footballguy
JJAW is intriguing to me. He is under the radar now, but he has potential to be one of the top 3 picks in rookie drafts. Guy is incredible but is losing out to Metcalfs hype. Hes like a Metcalf-lite but has the college stats to back it up. Why hes not getting similar hype (or more) is beyond me.
smbkrypt24
Footballguy
Interseptopus
Footballguy
Can one really say Metcalf "broke out?" he certainly broke... but I don't know about the "out" part
smbkrypt24
Footballguy
Yeah, I would say he was breaking out even though he didn't put a full season together.
Interseptopus
Footballguy
He was on pace for 45/975/8
If that qualifies for breaking out, then a case could be made that JJAW broke out in 2017, at the same age as Metcalf: He was on pace for a 12 game season to have 52/852/10
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smbkrypt24
Footballguy
45/975/8.6 at 21.9 per catch
vs.
48/781/9 at 16.3 per catch
Similar and I think we would all prefer Metcalf's stats with 100 more yards and a better per catch rate by 5 yards, but I suppose you could make a case.
vs.
48/781/9 at 16.3 per catch
Similar and I think we would all prefer Metcalf's stats with 100 more yards and a better per catch rate by 5 yards, but I suppose you could make a case.
Interseptopus
Footballguy
12 games to 11 games. When you put JJAWs games out to 12 their stats are much more similar. YPC is in Metcalf's advantage but that's about it. Yet most people are looking at JJAW as a late 1st potentially. That is crazy value.
Guy is going to shoot up draft boards of he can show a good combine, however too much stock is put into that to begin with.
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I'm going to have to watch him closely at the combine, because this is the #1 way to get a prospect off my call sheet. Production in college is great, but I've been burned too many times by guys who can't get open in the NFL.
bicycle_seat_sniffer
Smells like chicken
Did this guy sit out all the drills?
Ilov80s
Footballguy
kittenmittens
Footballguy
Why no drills? Injury?
Maybe he knows from training and current mocks that performing at the combine can only hurt his draft stock?
Maybe he knows from training and current mocks that performing at the combine can only hurt his draft stock?
Chicken or egg type question for me. If he knows his results will be poor, DNP to not hurt his stock. But if you are a scout/GM, you probably realize he isn't participating because his numbers wouldn't be good if he did. How much does participating hurt vs. not participating?
