|
03-12-2014, 12:32 PM | |
__
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Springpatch
Casino cash: $4183447
|
Donte Moncrief, metric all star.
http://www.rotoworld.com/articles/cf...metric-allstar
Donte Moncrief: Metric AllStar Raymond Summerlin Wednesday, March 05, 2014 In the burgeoning war between the “numbers never lie” and “real football is on film” factions of the football community, I find myself rooting for both sides of the struggle. It is undeniable how important properly constructed statistics can be in expanding our understanding of football. The work that sites like ProFootballFocus and Football Outsiders do is stellar, and it doesn’t take statistical expertise to appreciate their analyses. They are useful regardless of your math skills. However, assuming one can learn everything about this odd little game by staring at an excel spreadsheet would be a mistake. Players can struggle for a variety of reasons that have little to do with their talent, and conversely players can succeed spectacularly in spite of their relatively poor ability, when put in a position to excel. It is important to understand, then, as I begin the journey to use Combine numbers alone to identify potential NFL standouts, that I do not feel numbers are the be-all and end-all, but rather one set of tools among many. At least 90% of a player’s evaluation has to be tape based, but a tool that uses Combine information to better identify players whose skills will translate to the next level would be very useful. So, with that out of the way, let’s get started. My goal when I started filling spreadsheet after spreadsheet with every player’s performance at the Combine since 1999 was to find a metric that was predictive in any way of NFL success. To be brutally honest, I failed miserably at first. If you take any Combine drill for any position and plot it against NFL success, you end up with a scatter plot that resembles the range target of a Bond villain. There are simply too many ways to succeed in the NFL and plenty of players who were relatively slow or possessed lesser physical attributes have statues in the Hall of Fame. It was extremely disappointing not to find obvious correlations of note, but while delving deeper into the wide receiver numbers, I found something noteworthy and potentially applicable. The three drills that are widely considered the most important for a wideout are the 40-yard dash, the broad jump and the vertical jump. The 40 measures a player’s acceleration and long speed, while the jumps are a great indication of a player’s explosiveness. All three traits are important to be a successful NFL receiver. Despite their importance, by themselves these stats are not predictive in any way. Only one wideout, Mike Wallace, has had a 1,000-yard yard receiving season after running a sub-4.3 40, for instance. Putting them together, however, yielded an interesting result. By adding together a player’s vertical and broad jump distances in inches and then dividing out his 40 time, I ended up with a number that I am calling the Explosiveness Index (EI). Unsurprisingly, the physical freak that is Calvin Johnson ended up at the top of this list, but the rest of the list is fascinating. Only 13 players since 1999 have scored better than 39 on the index. Of that list, four wide receivers became Pro Bowl level players, two more were solid NFL contributors at some point in their career, and five more are young players with varying hopes of success. There are only two, perhaps three depending on Stephen Hill’s career track, players on this list that you would consider busts. If Justin Hunter becomes the player many think he can be, there could be five Pro Bowlers out of 13 players. In addition, I love Chris Owusu’s potential and am quite interested in seeing Marquise Goodwin’s development. Unfortunately, no player at the 2014 Combine scored above 39 on the index. But two came very close. Ole Miss wide receiver Donte Moncrief scored 38.97, and Baylor's Tevin Reese scored 38.78. No other player even broke 37. Of the two, Moncrief is by far my favorite. His size and strength is magnified by his smooth route running and athleticism, and he has a real chance to be a big-time player at the next level. I could have just left this here, but I thought there had to be something more I could do with these numbers. A 25% Pro Bowl success rate is pretty good, but there had to be something better. After trying several different combinations, I finally arrived at a metric I am calling the Adjusted Explosiveness Index. This Index takes the same three numbers, vertical, broad and 40 time, but adds height measured in inches and weight to the vertical and broad before dividing out the 40. The results were stunning. Unsurprisingly, Calvin Johnson was far and away the high scorer on this metric. More importantly, of the five players who have scored better than 107 in this metric since 1999, four are Pro Bowlers, two are almost certainly on their way to the Hall of Fame, and Julio Jones could make it three if he continues his current pace. Even Stephen Hill has a shot to be a solid NFL wide receiver. He has certainly shown flashes of big-time ability, and one can only imagine what type of wide receiver he could become in a competent offense with a competent quarterback. A player scoring above a 107 in this metric seems to signal a highly elevated chance at NFL success. Donte Moncrief did not quite reach that plateau, but his 106.02 is the ninth highest score since 1999. Of the three other players that have cracked the 106 mark, Chris Chambers was a Pro Bowler, Tyrone Calico was a player I always loved, and Mark Harrison missed his rookie 2013 campaign with a foot injury. More importantly, Moncrief scored a full three points better than any other player in the 2014 wide receiver class. It is important to note that neither of these metrics is truly predictive in that poor performance does not guarantee failure. Chad Johnson had an amazing career but only scored a 30.8 on the Explosiveness Index and an 88.8 on the Adjusted Explosiveness Index. High scores in both, however, highlight a player with the requisite skill set to be a top-flight NFL wide receiver, and combining these metrics with tape study should enhance our ability to identify players poised to be Pro Bowl level superstars in the NFL. Looking at the numbers, it is fairly clear Donte Moncrief is one such player. |
Posts: 59,314
|
03-13-2014, 12:40 AM | #16 | |
MVP
Join Date: Sep 2013
Casino cash: $10035212
|
Quote:
|
|
Posts: 12,727
|
03-13-2014, 12:54 AM | #17 |
Special Teams ACE!!!
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Where the hell is SNR
Casino cash: $2060208
|
|
Posts: 90,679
|
03-13-2014, 09:05 AM | #18 |
__
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Springpatch
Casino cash: $4183447
|
|
Posts: 59,314
|
03-13-2014, 10:11 AM | #19 |
Special Teams ACE!!!
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Where the hell is SNR
Casino cash: $2060208
|
Oldschool has absolutely zero right to bitch about our receivers not being open. Ever again.
Not with opinions like that. Landry over Moncrief. And why? Because he thinks Landry catches a higher percentage of passes thrown his way based on an easily correctable technique. He's the worst kind of Chiefs fan. He was probably one of the fat mulleted guys in that true fan gif. Offensive line, offensive line, and more offensive line. And if the Chiefs lose it's because of drops! Always with drops! Nothing else. Drops lost us the game. Drops drops drops. Drops. Drops. |
Posts: 90,679
|
03-13-2014, 11:06 AM | #20 |
MVP
Join Date: Sep 2013
Casino cash: $10035212
|
|
Posts: 12,727
|
03-13-2014, 11:07 AM | #21 | |
MVP
Join Date: Sep 2013
Casino cash: $10035212
|
Quote:
|
|
Posts: 12,727
|
03-13-2014, 11:14 AM | #22 |
MVP
Join Date: Sep 2013
Casino cash: $10035212
|
I'd love to see this again.
|
Posts: 12,727
|
03-13-2014, 11:47 AM | #23 | |
Banned
Join Date: Mar 2014
Casino cash: $10004900
|
Quote:
|
|
Posts: 210
|
03-13-2014, 12:29 PM | #24 |
__
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Springpatch
Casino cash: $4183447
|
|
Posts: 59,314
|
03-13-2014, 10:21 PM | #25 |
Kindness in words...
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Zion
Casino cash: $10025483
|
We've already got Jarvis Landry on this team. A bigger version of Jarvis Landry actually. He's called Junior Hemmingway. There is absolutely nobody on this team who can just bust off a line. Jenkins and Avery are fast. They aren't receivers though. Bowe is molasses. Hemmingway is like a '71 Cadillac El Dorado with a V16. He'll get moving, but it takes time to get there. Moncrief absolutely explodes off the line, blows through press coverage and separates with the ball in his hands. Yeah, he's a bit of a body catcher. But, I'll tell you the truth, when you are 6'2", 230 lb. and can run a 4.40 40 with a 40" vertical and legs like tree trunks enabling you to power through shitty little defensive backs, I'm not really all that concerned with the body catch. If he makes the catch, he makes the catch, and Moncrief has made a lot of catches over his career. Once you get into the 20's in the first round, I think he's a steal. When you look at his college production and his measurable, he's an absolute monster. He's just not a combine freak, he's a very solid receiver. He's a fast Andre Johnson. A fast and good route running Dwayne Bowe. He's on that level at the same stage. No shit. |
Posts: 15,450
|
03-13-2014, 11:23 PM | #26 |
Veteran
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: New York
Casino cash: $10005817
|
Moncrief would be perfect for Alex. Gets separation and can take a 10 yard crossing pattern to the house.
|
Posts: 4,848
|
03-13-2014, 11:41 PM | #27 |
SuperBowl or bust
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: BF Iowa
Casino cash: $1594088
|
If we draft Moncrief at 23, I'll probably go to jail.
|
Posts: 47,169
|
03-14-2014, 12:49 AM | #28 |
MVP
Join Date: Sep 2013
Casino cash: $10035212
|
|
Posts: 12,727
|
03-14-2014, 07:27 AM | #29 | |
Still Got The Blues (For You)
Join Date: May 2013
Casino cash: $10014178
|
Trade back a dozen spots (if possible), and then draft Moncrief.
#success
__________________
Quote:
|
|
Posts: 16,482
|
03-14-2014, 09:29 AM | #30 |
MVP
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Helena, MT
Casino cash: $3388849
|
If I were the chiefs, I would seriously consider trading up to about 15 or back about 10 spots. I think that's where the value sweet spots sit in this draft.
|
Posts: 18,569
|
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|