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RB Javonte Williams, DEN (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter Zyphros
- Start date
King of the Jungle
Footballguy
The more I look at these running backs I have a hard time not putting Javonte in the top spot. Love watching him run the ball. Great burst, great contact balance, good feet, can catch and make plays down the field, aggressive finishes....
Shawnky
Footballguy
Yep. As an owner of the #2 pick, I hope he doesn't go #1. Of course, the NFL draft could change that.
JohnnyU
Footballguy
ffmail4me
Footballguy
<--- so is this guy
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Blick
Footballguy
I just can't shake the feeling that a lot of William/Carter's success came from the system.
barackdhouse
Footballguy
That's plenty fast and explosive. 22 reps on bench is elite. These are all solid marks for me. Now hoping FF community bumps him down.
JohnnyU
Footballguy
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Depends on if you buy into the fact that pro day times are historically faster than combine times. That would put Williams at more like 4.6-4.63 which is sketchy. It seems to be there is something to the pro day times being faster given the number of players we've seen post really eye popping 40 times this year.
Andy Dufresne
Footballguy
Dalvin Cook ran a 4.49 at the combine and ran twice at his pro day — once in the mid-4.4s and once in the low 4.5 range.
4.5's are just fine for a guy his size.
4.5's are just fine for a guy his size.
barackdhouse
Footballguy
Yes I've heard of this phenomenon. Maybe 20,000 times. You can't cross the street in FF articles/forums this time of year and not see this idea mentioned. Lather rinse repeat.Ilov80s said:
It's plenty fast. But I usually don't get into these combine/pro day rabbit holes. This is more the time for me to pull the Homer Simpson meme where he disappears into the bushes. And just sort of watch and listen.
JohnnyU
Footballguy
His time is fine for his size. Besides, long speed isn't his game. He isn’t a homerun threat, but he’s fast enough to get through holes quickly. He will not make guys miss with elusive moves. Instead, he makes one cut and relies on his power and balance to get through arm tackles for tough yards. Plus he's a good receiver out of the back field. Anyone that puts a red flag on Williams because he runs a 4.5 are just looking for reasons mot to draft him. I'm not one of those people. I love his profile for the NFL.
JohnnyU
Footballguy
I care just as much on vertical and 3 cone for RB's as I do the 40. It's only a problem with me when all 3 of those numbers are bad. Williams and Carter were both average across the board in the key numbers I look at for RB's. Nothing they did today moved the meter for me one way or another, across the board average.
Off top of my head I can't think of a RB workout yet that moved the needle for me but it's not been so easy for me gathering all these pro day numbers.
Off top of my head I can't think of a RB workout yet that moved the needle for me but it's not been so easy for me gathering all these pro day numbers.
And? I mean there is a reason he's under consideration for RB1, this is all kind of obvious to me.
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Ilov80s
Footballguy
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JohnnyU
Footballguy
Yes there is. Let's not lose perspective here. You have what you're looking for in a RB and I have mine. The tape and numbers don't lie He's not your break a 70 yard run type of back. Not saying he doesn't have enough speed to do that, but that's not his game. His yards after contact are unreal, he blocks well, and he catches passes well. He's a 3 down back pure and simple. You can't say that about ETN.
ETA: This just popped into my head and I could be completely wrong, but he reminds me of a more controlled Marshawn Lynch, not as violent, that is better in the passing game. I believe some have compared him to Steven Jackson and that is fair I suppose.
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rockaction
Footballguy
I want to see his speed score calculated and his burst score. That's what I'll be using. A 4.58 pro day (where you can add about .5 to it) is a potential strike against him, declarations from others to the contrary. My criticism has always been he looks slow and has no long speed on tape. That held true today. So we got something out of pro day. Is he still up there? Sure. Is he RB1 or 2? Likely not now. Not for me.
And thus it was.
rockaction
Footballguy
Bump Trey Sermon is what I'm saying. Matt Waldman alluded to Williams's lack of speed when they were talking about Rhamondre Stevenson two weeks ago, and I agree.
At least Williams is big, I guess.
At least Williams is big, I guess.
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JohnnyU
Footballguy
rockaction
Footballguy
Sure I do. That was a rueful comment from someone who hoped he tested well. It was for linguistic and dramatic effect, partially. I have no interest in him being bad. In my main draft, I pick fourth from an acquired pick and then follow up with a fifth (it was an orphaned team before last year). That's right there where Williams lands in a lot of mocks. Chase, Etienne, Harris, Williams is how it seemed to be shaping up for a lot of people. He just fell out of top three contention today, best I can see it. That's just an observation of the likely group think. If you have him higher, you've still got him higher and nothing I say should deter that. Believe if you believe.
I don't love guys in the 4.6 range, but I may have to get used to the reality of that this year. Looks like the WRs just got bumped, too.
rockaction
Footballguy
Just saw this pop up in my Twitter feed.
Weight-adjusted 3-cone is a better indicator of rookie RB success than weight-adjusted 40-time. Food for thought.
David Zach
@DavidZach16
That's good news. He's the guy that does the Z-scores on prospects, which has been correlated with their rookie success (his Z score being about the third best indicator of such, IIRC) the past 5 years.
Weight-adjusted 3-cone is a better indicator of rookie RB success than weight-adjusted 40-time. Food for thought.
David Zach
@DavidZach16
That's good news. He's the guy that does the Z-scores on prospects, which has been correlated with their rookie success (his Z score being about the third best indicator of such, IIRC) the past 5 years.
barackdhouse
Footballguy
Sorry, I didn't mean to direct that at you. I was pretty surly this morning. It's a discussion I avoid like the plague. Your comment was benign and totally on point but I chose to jump in with it mostly because I think the "pro day vs combine" thing is funny. There is plenty of documented truth to it and I don't even dispute it. But I don't care about middle of the bell curve 40 times in the first place. So *that* is why I tend to stay away. Because when this time of year rolls around people rally to their corners on this subject. It's fun for me to watch but it really wasn't anything to do with what you said, so my apologies if I was rough there.
rockaction
Footballguy
I'll jump into this. Ilov is a solid football guy.
As for everything else, I have no corner, personally. I haven't been doing this fifteen years, so I'm too new to this to have cemented my feet yet. But if you can statistically prove that the forty times mean nothing, I'll be fine with it. As it is, speed and burst score and other measurements seem to be predictive ones, best to what I can gather so far. If that's a corner, that's fine. If it's game film people trust, all the better for me, because like everyone else, I think I'm just the best at it.
rockaction
Footballguy
Marshawn Lynch ran a 4.46 at his height and weight, which was 5'11, 215. He had an 88th percentile speed score. That's a ways beyond even what a guy like D'Andre Swift did. Lynch is an incomparable runner given his speed and ability to break tackles. Lynch should have been a HoF guy but for those years in Buffalo and the subsequent mediocrity/suck years that Seattle was when he first got there.
I'm not hanging my hat on anyone or getting rid of anyone based on this alone. Just cleaning up the comparisons.
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barackdhouse
Footballguy
This rabbit hole is fraught with peril. For many reasons. The first being that I never suggested the bolded. It's not that they mean nothing, and they may in fact mean something, but it is the sketchy at best interpretation of statistical noise within what is a pretty wide bell curve that I have an issue with. Not saying you or anyone else is doing that.I'll jump into this. Ilov is a solid football guy.
As for everything else, I have no corner, personally. I haven't been doing this fifteen years, so I'm too new to this to have cemented my feet yet. But if you can statistically prove that the forty times mean nothing, I'll be fine with it. As it is, speed and burst score and other measurements seem to be predictive ones, best to what I can gather so far. If that's a corner, that's fine. If it's game film people trust, all the better for me, because like everyone else, I think I'm just the best at it.
Put another way, when a prospect is particularly fast or particularly slow, then *that* is worth noting. But when they fall in the middle of the bell curve it is silly to put much (if any) stock in it other than to acknowledge that the middle is the elite of the elite of the elite that have earned an invitation to this step of the process.
The population of prospects that have taken part in combines/pro days over the years is an *amazingly* narrow list of the best of the best athletes in the country/world. What separates the guys that can play and be relevant from the ones that can't (in the NFL) are the football IQ things IMO, reading defenses, assignments, adjustments, and more subtle RB traits like vision, patience (or decisiveness), using angles to leverage spacing (which often trumps speed), etc. Otherwise the Usain Bolts of the world would dominate the NFL and they just don't. I can find you 1000 world class athletes tomorrow to crush those tests. But can they tell which backer(s) is/are blitzing? Can they beat press coverage (WR tangent)? That is why the NFL draft results >>>>>> combine/pro day results when it comes to our community FF analysis, because *usually* the athletic traits are going to be incredibly similar to one another within a wide bell curve range that is itself within an incredibly narrow population of Greek Gods. In other words they are all unbelievably incredible athletes and *usually* there isn't a lot of separation in that regard.
However, when those desirable football traits are there *and* they are a positive athletic outlier, then yes we want to know who those guys are and target them. And if someone stinks it up they should be avoided.
TLDR the middle of the bell curve among these prospects is some of the most rarified air any athlete could ever find themselves in. It is a perversion of statistical analysis to suggest that the middle of the curve (here) is somehow a bad thing.
I won't get into a statistical argument to prove they mean nothing, I just now that over the past 7-8 years I've tracked top fantasy performers and real life NFL performers at RB and WR and I'm personally not seeing a fast 40 as being very predictive. Now you might want to start getting more detailed with stuff like factoring in size with the 40 but the 40 just by itself does not seem that big of an indicator to me based on my research.
I had this same discussion somewhere last year, but saying I don't need a RB to run a fast 40 is not exactly the same thing as saying I'm ok with a really slow 40. I've used 4.65 as the range I need, thought last season that would have been slower then any top 10 fantasy RB. Also I'm big on seeing one positive key trait, like when Kamara and CEH came out their vertical was a key positive for me but I'm getting off track.
For fantasy purposes, and this is not one year anomaly, here are the 40 times for the top 10 RB's:
4.56, 4.49, 4.54, 4.63, 4.56, 4.39,4.64, 4.64, 4.47 and 4.62. I believe that puts average at 4.554 which is very much in range as past years. If you toss out the high and low it's 4.56, again pretty standard to what I'm seeing.
And the 4.47 was Elliots and I bet he don't run that anymore but ok.
I used total points but if we used average it won't change much. Can look at this as top 10, top 15, forget fantasy and look at top rushers, go back a few years, etc, etc, etc. The numbers only change a little and it's similar for WR's.
So again I'm not going to argue the 40 means NOTHING, I just don't think it's that big of a factor either when taken just by itself.
Andy Dufresne
Footballguy
I'd rather have a Nick Chubb that runs a 4.52 (combine time) at his size than a Tarik Cohen that runs a 4.42.
Even Christian McCaffrey only ran a 4.49.
Even Christian McCaffrey only ran a 4.49.
massraider
Footballguy
Kamara was 4.56, I think.
To me, this isn't a Zach Moss speed discussion, where you wonder if he hits the minimum. Javonte is fine at that speed.
What will the rest of that running back room look like when he's drafted? Will they use him in the passing game? If so, game on. Gotta figure he's goalline guy, if he's getting targets too, then sweet.
To me, this isn't a Zach Moss speed discussion, where you wonder if he hits the minimum. Javonte is fine at that speed.
What will the rest of that running back room look like when he's drafted? Will they use him in the passing game? If so, game on. Gotta figure he's goalline guy, if he's getting targets too, then sweet.
jtd13
Footballguy
My only issue with this is Williams isn't Chubb's size. I'm surprised Williams' 4.6ish 40 is getting more attention than his actual weigh in. Him being 5'9.5 212 instead of his listed 5'10 220 is a bit concerning. 212 is fine for a RB, but for his playing style I would have liked him about 10 lbs. heavier. Can he win as a bowling ball at that size in the NFL?
Andy Dufresne
Footballguy
I wasn't necessarily comparing him to Chubb but point taken.
Ideally, I'll take Bo Jackson who is big and fast. But he was a freak. I just mean I'd rather have a bigger guy that doesn't run as fast as a little guy than the little fast guy.
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rockaction
Footballguy
Right. When I look at forty times, I'm not looking at raw 40s. Like massraider pointed out, I'm looking at speed relative to size. Speed score as a statistic is inherently is size-driven. That's why Williams's 4.63 (4.58 + .05) needs to be looked at in the context of his size.
I should say that barackdhouse, massraider, and meno all raise good points about baselines, bell curves, and averages. I should state that I'm not looking too hard at 4.52 vs. 4.42. What I am looking at is a wide range of things that go along with that such as size, burst, vision, etc. But especially @massraider's point about baselines in the other thread. That's something I'm looking at well, as well as the fine average/performance non-disparity within a range arguments that @barackdhouseand @menobrown are talking about.
JohnnyU
Footballguy
He didn't run a 4.63. Just because I said I don't trust pro-day 40 times doesn't mean we can arbitrarily add time to it. I don't think it works that way. What it does mean to me is I don't even take it into account. Even still, long speed isn't his game. He has burst through the hole to go along with the best tackle breaking ability of anyone in the class and he's good in the receiving game.
rockaction
Footballguy
I'm not arbitrarily adding time to anything. It's pretty standard that you add .05 to a pro day. That's what Player Profiler is doing for the guys, and they're pretty thorough. Anybody saying you don't adjust for a pro day has their head in the sand. Look, you like your guy. I say he has red flags. That's about it. Typing as an advocate is not going to change his measurements. They're a little below what people would have hoped for, especially his smaller stature and his speed. The top three picks in the draft just got more solidified by consensus. Fantasy Pros has Williams as a "loser" because of his pro day. I'm not alone here.
