Archive for May, 2009
How to Build a Championship Team
About 8 months ago, I was sitting at my work computer thinking “why are the Detroit Lions so incredibly bad?”
This question led me to two more fundamental questions: “how do the great front office executives draft? Do they draft certain positions at certain times, and how frequently do they draft those positions?”
Little did I know that these seemingly simple questions would lead me to create this blog!
So, I identified men who built great teams, both past and present, and came up with this list of eight names:
- Bill Polian, former executive of Buffalo Bills, Carolina Panthers. Current president of Indianapolis Colts.
- Bill Parcells, former head coach of New York Giants, New York Jets, New England Patriots, Dallas Cowboys. Current executive for Miami Dolphins.
- Bill Walsh, former head coach of San Francisco 49ers.
- Bill Belichick, current head coach of New England Patriots
- Ted Thompson, current GM for Green Bay Packers
- A.J. Smith, current GM of San Diego Chargers
- Kevin Colbert, current GM for Pittsburgh Steelers
- Ozzie Newsome, current GM of Baltimore Ravens
I broke down every draft pick by round and player position, and put it onto a series of Excel spreadsheets. I used NFL.com’s draft history section to help with this study.
Today, I have Bill Polian’s draft history, which will begin the Draft Blueprint series.
For those of you who might be unfamiliar with Polian, here is an excerpt from Wikipedia on him:
Bill Polian is the President of the Indianapolis Colts NFL team. He rose to league prominence as the General Manager of the Buffalo Bills, building a team that participated in four straight Super Bowls. Following his stint in Buffalo, Polian went on to become the General Manager of the expansion Carolina Panthers, where his initial success in building what was arguably the most rapidly successful expansion team in NFL history led to his moving on to the Colts. He has won the NFL’s Executive of the Year award 5 times (1988, 1991, 1995, 1996, and 1999).
I hope you enjoy the series!
Who Will Rise to the Top?
I hoped you enjoyed reading about the study of the Rivals100 prospect rankings. But I would be remiss if I didn’t take that information and make some future predictions with it. After all, one of the best reasons to study the past is so we can venture to foretell the future.
Before we delve into a bit of new data, I want to set the mood, or paint a mental image, if you will. Now, let’s imagine that we are sitting in on the first day of class at the Gridiron University.
[Bell rings]
The aged professor sets his briefcase on a desk, then goes over to a computer, squinting through his black, thick-rimmed glasses to pull up his Powerpoint slides. After several minutes, he looks up, and with a loud voice we hear “good morning, class. Welcome to Football 101.”
[Teaching assistant passes out syllabus]
Time passes slowly, and just as you start to nod off to sleep, you hear:
“If you would please turn to page 4 of your syllabus, I would like to go over the grade distribution for this course.”
“The grade scale is relative. Based on previous years, I have given an average of 32% A’s, 22% of which have been an A+. After that, 4% have been B’s. The rest were failing grades. I expect that your grades will follow that trend.”
Having heard this, you suddenly have the urge to look at around the classroom. You find that all the students are glancing at each other, sizing up their competition. At this time, you realize a surly-looking group of 10 oversized guys sitting in the corner of the room. Their names are as follows (complete with 2008 statistics):
1. Jimmy Clausen (6’3, 217 lbs) (QB, Notre Dame): 60.9% completion, 25 touchdowns/17 interceptions, 3100 passing yards, 132 QB rating
2. Joe McKnight (6’0, 200 lbs) (HB, Southern Cal): 659 rush yards, 7.4 yards per carry, 2 rushing TD’s
3. Eric Berry (5’11, 203 lbs) (DB, Tennessee): 72 tackles, 3 sacks, 7 interceptions
4. Ryan Mallett (6’7, 248 lbs) (QB, Arkansas-transfer from Michigan): Sat out last season because he transferred schools.
5. Carlos Dunlap ( 6’6, 290 lbs) (DE, Florida): 9.5 sacks, 13.5 tackles for loss, 39 tackles, started 2 games
6. Everson Griffen (6’3, 265 lbs) (DE, Southern Cal): 4.5 sacks in 3 starts, 18 tackles
7. Marvin Austin (6’2, 305 lbs) (DT, North Carolina): 35 tackles, 1 sack (had 4 sacks in ’07)
8. Ronald Johnson (6’1, 185 lbs) (WR, Southern Cal): 550 receiving yards, 8 TD’s
9. Torrey Davis (DT, Florida): Left school
10. Josh Oglesby (6’7, 330 lbs) (OL, Wisconsin): 3 starts at Right Tackle
[A hint for you, those 10 names are the 2007 Rivals top 10. They will all be juniors this year, and therefore have the option to enter the NFL Draft at season's end.]
If a grade of A+ was the equivalent of a being a top 10 pick in the NFL Draft, an A was equivalent to 1st round status (after the top 10), a B equaled 2nd round status, and anything later than that was a F, then who would pass and who would fail?
Here is my best guess at answering that question:
-Top 10 draft picks will be Carlos Dunlap and Eric Berry. Dunlap has the build to make scouts drool, and his production based on number of starts is astounding. Berry is a fixture on a tough Tennessee defense. He also has ideal size to play in the NFL, and his great production shows he has a nose for the football.
-The other first round selection should be either Jimmy Clausen or Joe McKnight. My study showed Rivals has 80% accuracy rate when predicting 1st round potential for the top 2 picks in their rankings. Although, I think Clausen in extremely over-hyped, he has shown growth in his two seasons at Notre Dame. If you throw in the terrible offensive line play, he hasn’t done too badly. However, I am not sure he has demonstrated the decision making ability and maturity to lead an NFL team. No doubt, he will have to show those skills to become the elite QB he is supposed to be.
Joe McKnight has awesome athleticism, but will have to put on more weight for NFL teams to feel comfortable with him as a workhorse running back.
That’s my best guess right now…but you were in the classroom watching with me. Who do you think will succeed in this group?
In the last article, Before They Were NFL Stars, we examined which players from the Rivals100 list ended up being chosen in the first day of the NFL Draft between 2006-2009. Those 68 players became the basis of this analysis.
I wanted to know how many of these elite high school athletes become highly sought after in the National Football League. Furthermore, I wanted to test my hypothesis that the top 10 Rivals100 players should be more likely to land in the NFL than the next 10 players, and so on so forth. Basically, of all the Rivals100, the top 10 should produce the greatest number of NFL draft picks, while the players at the bottom 10 of the list should have the least chance. Not only should the top Rivals players have the greatest frequency of being drafted, but they should be chosen higher than their peers, as well.
Methods
The pool of players in this study includes 5 years worth of Rivals100 lists ( a total of 500 players). As mentioned before, I examined how many Rivals players were selected in round 1 or 2 of the Draft. To evaluate the relationship between Rivals100 status and draft value, the Rivals100 is broken down into 10 groups of 50 players. So, this means that over the 5 years of the study, each group of 10 in the Rivals100 (1-10, 11-20, 21-20, etc) will have a total of 50 players.
How to Read the Tables
Each table below presents exactly the same data, only the first uses raw numbers, and the second uses percentages. To make sure you read the tables correctly, here is how the first line of table 1 reads:
“Of the 50 players ranked 1-10 in Rivals100, 2 of them became 2nd rounders, 16 were 1st rounders, and of those 16 1st rounders, 11 of them were top 10 picks.”
The second table reads like so:
“Of the 50 players ranked 1-10 in Rivals100, 4% of them became 2nd rounders, 32% were 1st rounders, and 22% of the 50 players were top 10 picks.”
[TABLE=8]
[TABLE=9]
Results
Of all the classes of 10, the top 10 players in the Rivals100 were over than three times more likely to become first round draft choices (32%), and over five times more likely to become top 10 draft selections (22%). But overall, my hypothesis was ultimately incorrect. Each respective group of 10 did not yield fewer and fewer NFL draftees. In fact, the bottom 10 produced more 1st rounders than 11-20.
Here are a few final observations from the data:
-in all but one year, the top 2 players in the Rivals100 became 1st round picks. The only time where that was not true happened to be in 2006. Derrick Williams (Penn State) and Patrick Turner (USC) were drafted, but not in the top two rounds.
-Rivals100 completely overlooked certain players such as Jake Long (LT from Michigan, who became the number 1 pick in the 2008 draft.
It is worth noting that a handful of players did not appear in this study because they were not chosen in the top 2 rounds. One prime example was Eric Winston (OG for the Texans), who happens to be one of the best at his position.
*To see enlarged versions of the two graphs above, just click on them!
Conclusion
I have to say that the main conclusion from this study is that the Rivals does a good job at predicting future success of their top 10 Rivals100 players. But outside of that, the correlation weakens considerably.
Rivals’ Top 100: A look back
There is a saying that goes something like this: “To know where you’re going, you have to know where you’ve been.” Isn’t that nice? That quote nicely sums up the subject of today’s piece. I got to thinking about the new NFL rookies, wondering how highly regarded they were coming out of high school. Were the 1st round draft picks at the top of their recruiting classes (which essentially are the college version of the Draft), or did they become great only during college. Additionally, I wanted to know how accurately talent scouts can predict long-term potential at the high school level?
Naturally, I set out to find the answers to these questions by going to Rivals.com, one of the most respected scouting websites that I know. I went to their list of the top recruits (affectionately called the Rivals100) from their earliest record (2002) up to 2006, which happens to be last class where any players were eligible for the NFL Draft.
Originally, I thought maybe there should be a direct correlation between the Rivals100 and their NFL Draft value. However, there are many reasons why a player may or may not be drafted high, if at all. The main explanation for this is the relationship between the college game and the pro game. Some player’s talent translates well to pro schemes, while certain high school athletes may have potential in schemes that the NFL may deem “gimicky.”
The other significant factor in play considers the maturity, experience level, and amount of quality coaching that a player has received while in high school. Some players are very raw entering college, and will not be as highly regarded as more polished players. For example, the 1st overall of the 2008 NFL Draft was Michigan LT Jake Long. Surprisingly, he wasn’t on the Rivals100. The only ways to explain such a gaff are to say either he developed significantly in college, or Rivals made a major mistake in evaluating him. Of course, this is an even more imperfect science than the NFL Draft.
Listed below are the players from the Rivals100 that were selected in the first or second round of the 2006- 2009 NFL Drafts:
[TABLE=2]
[TABLE=3]
[TABLE=4]
[TABLE=5]
[TABLE=6]
[TABLE=7]
Key: * denotes graduated after 3 years of eligibility
**denotes 5th year senior status
Next post will be a report on the findings of this data. In the meantime, let all this information mull over inside your brains for a day or two. If you notice any trends, I’d be more than happy to hear them (and post them, if you wish).
