Dominator Rating, Height-adjusted Speed Score, and the 2013 Receiver Class

  By Shawn Siegele | April 24, 2013 - 3:51 am | ,
8 Comments

Yesterday, I published the Banana Stand’s Contrarian Running Back Rankings, using the full body of statistical models available to give the most accurate projections and comps you’ll see anywhere. Today, we have the much-anticipated Wide Receiver rankings employing the Dominator Rating and Height-adjusted Speed Score.

For a quick refresher, the Dominator Rating is a combined market share metric. It represents the percentage of receiving yards and touchdowns a player had on his college team. A wealth of documentation suggests similar methods are more accurate than scouting reports or raw stats. The Height-adjusted Speed Score (HaSS) uses the same basic principles that created the Speed Score for running backs. The stat is set so that 100 represents an average mark for receivers invited to the Combine. Calvin Johnson’s 143 is the highest recorded mark. Anything over 120 is elite. (For a fuller explanation of the methodology, check out the 2012 article.)

The 2013 class lacks top end performers but is very deep. Savvy teams will land similar prospects in the fourth and fifth rounds as those available in the first. I’ve provided what I see as appropriate values and contrasted those with their likely draft spots this weekend. For most of the notable players, I’ve also given comps that endeavor to match a player with not only similar guys in terms of DR and HaSS but specific physical profiles.

These are reality rankings. RotoViz has the best 2013 rookie dynasty ranks on the web.

The Rankings

1. Charles Johnson – DR .50, HaSS 113

Jon Moore put me on to Johnson’s existence. Ranking Johnson No. 1 will be seen in most quarters as purely for shock effect, but in fact ranking him anywhere else would be to ignore the methodology. Johnson’s Height-adjusted Speed Score is at the same level of Cordarrelle Patterson, and he jumped better in both the vertical and broad categories. I always add .05 to Pro Day 40 times, but if you take Johnson’s 40 at face value, his HaSS jumps to 118 and puts him close to the superstar range. Moreover, his Dominator Rating impresses even with defenses relentlessly scheming to take him away. Johnson’s DR is right in line with previous small school stars like Vincent Jackson, Miles Austin, and Pierre Garcon who have emerged as forces in the NFL. Even if you adjust Johnson’s DR pretty dramatically because of concerns about his competition at Grand Valley State, he still comes out as the top prospect – basically Brian Quick with a lot better athleticism. The red flags with Johnson are more about his age than his DII status. Johnson began college way back in 2007 and bounced all over the place. Age does have an important impact in draft value, and if this is your reason for demoting Johnson, that’s understandable. Johnson’s projected selection in the draft covers an incredible range. He could be picked as early as the late second round by a team like the Patriots or he could come close to falling all the way out of the draft.

Comps: Miles Austin, Pierre Garcon

Value: 15-32  Projected: Late Second to Seventh

2. Stedman Bailey – DR .49, HaSS 86

Bailey tore the lid off the Big 12 last season and was utterly dominant scoring all over the field. His numbers absolutely dwarf those of more heralded teammate Tavon Austin. Here’s the thing I don’t get. The scouts are always talking about the tape and how it doesn’t lie, and yet Austin is a trendy first round pick with Bailey projected in the third. It’s impossible to watch West Virginia and not see how much better Bailey is than Austin. The diminutive speedster almost never catches a ball more than 5 yards beyond the line of scrimmage, but Bailey is dynamic at all depths. Unfortunately, Bailey lacks both size and speed. He profiles most similarly to guys like Greg Jennings and Antonio Brown. Matthew Freedman has demonstrated that second round receivers with Bailey’s production numbers frequently go on to be superstars. Don’t be surprised if he has the biggest rookie season.

Comps: Antonio Brown, Deion Branch, Brandon Lloyd, Randall Cobb, Kendall Wright

Value: 30-60 Projected: 45-90

3. DeAndre Hopkins DR .40, HaSS 98

I continually go back and forth between Bailey and Hopkins for the No. 2 slot. Because of height and age, Hopkins is a better bet to emerge as a No. 1 wide receiver. The Clemson product destroyed SEC competition as a junior and absolutely dominated in the highest leverage situations. Unfortunately, like Bailey he lacks first round athleticism. At 6’1”, you just have to run faster than 4.57. On the optimistic side, he’s a slightly weaker version of Hakeem Nicks.

Comps: Dwayne Bowe, Justin Blackmon, Rashaun Woods, David Givens

Value: 30-45 Projected: 20-30

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Contrarian RB Rankings for the 2013 NFL Draft

  By Shawn Siegele | April 23, 2013 - 12:37 am | ,
3 Comments

In the same way that the Banana Stand has been using Dominator Rating and Height-adjusted Speed Score to help improve the evaluations for wide receivers, I’ve been using Agility Scores to help develop the evaluation matrix for running backs. A year ago I debuted the Agility Score concept for Pro Football Focus. I explained some of the more recent motivation for the work in a piece illustrating why Le’Veon Bell is massively underrated.

It’s important to note that Agility Score is only one aspect, and not necessarily the most important one, as I explain in developing what I see as the Three Draftable NFL Profiles for RotoViz.

One final note before the rankings themselves: When most pundits give you comparable players, they’re trying to spin the scouting report in the direction that fits with their observations, often by citing an unrealistic upside player or intentionally depressing bust. I have given both positive and negative comps in this piece, and the players listed are very, very close to the prospect in terms of production, size, speed, and agility. I’m sure I’m as biased as the next person, but those biases are met with a wealth of easily verifiable data in these rankings.

These are reality rankings. If you’re looking for a projection of these backs to your fantasy squad, RotoViz just published its set of composite dynasty rankings.

 

1. Christine Michael

 

Name  Yds YPC TD Rec Weight 40 Vert Agility
Christine Michael 2791 5.3 34 44 220 4.54 43 10.71

* College numbers represent career statistics.

Character concerns make it a very close call at No. 1, but Michael’s athleticism separates from his classmates to such a degree that the risk is worth the reward (assuming background checks don’t turn up even more discouraging info). Michael’s vertical leap and Agility Score make him a threat to eventually be among the ten best backs in the NFL, perhaps similar to another supposed character risk. He’s comps are incredible.

Positive Comps: Doug Martin, Matt Forte            Negative Comps: Roy Helu, Alex Green

Projected Value: Second Round                                Expected Selection: Late Second to Third

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Cracking the Geno Code

  By Shawn Siegele | April 2, 2013 - 1:00 am | ,
4 Comments

Last week for RotoViz, I examined the statistical profiles of the current NFL starting quarterbacks to get a baseline for evaluating college passers. That led me to believe Colin Kaepernick was a better prospect than Blaine Gabbert all along. It also generated a simple hypothesis for the 2013 NFL Draft: select Geno Smith and E.J. Manuel. Avoid everyone else.

Of course, that simple and relatively straightforward analysis doesn’t eliminate all of the scouting concerns about Geno Smith. After all, Akili Smith put up good numbers in college. So did Matt Leinart. In this article, I’ll look at the biggest red flags the scouts have elocuted and try to determine whether any appear valid.

1. Mel Kiper has a date Wednesday

When the Kansas City Star asked Mel Kiper why Smith shouldn’t be in play for the Chiefs at No. 1, he explained that Smith was the “product of West Virginia’s system that created space and didn’t require throws into tight windows,” while also citing some “dropped interceptions.”

Naysayers tend to overestimate the prevalence of system quarterbacks at the BCS level. In fact, it’s fairly self-evident that putting up Madden numbers in a major conference is very, very difficult regardless of system. If it were easy, everybody would do it.

If we make a quick digression from the stats to the tape, we see all the features of a college spread offense, but we also see stick throws at the goal line against Texas and perfectly lofted bombs against Oklahoma. Kiper’s evaluation would appear to be drawn out of thin air.

His suggestion that there were dropped interceptions is laughable. Smith attempted 518 passes and threw 6 interceptions. He finished with a 7-1 TD/INT ratio. Among current NFL starters who played at BCS colleges, the only one with a better TD/INT ratio his final year in college was Russell Wilson. Smith’s TD/INT ratio is roughly twice as good as that posted by his NFL peers. (more…)

Colin Kaepernick, Tactlenecks, and QB Predictiveness

  By Shawn Siegele | March 28, 2013 - 1:39 am |
5 Comments

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When not showing off the Christian tattoos, Colin Kaepernick is probably rocking the tactleneck.

 

In an unusual detour from our normal practice, this is a choose your own adventure post where you can read the more esoteric parts of an overly long RotoViz article here but need to go over there to read the rest. Let me know what you think in the comments, or just throw in some bizarre links to stuff I don’t understand. The spam filter won’t catch all of them.

Drafting well is about risk management. . .

Of course, it is also about reward management. One of the debates this offseason has centered on the question: Can you wait to draft a quarterback? A parallel question might be: Is that really the risk-averse strategy if you have a high rating on a QB?

The value the Seahawks and 49ers accrued by selecting Colin Kaepernick and Russell Wilson far outweighs concerns about risk. It appears they both have franchise superstars to build around for a decade. If they’d had any sense of what types of quarterbacks they were drafting, it would have been insane to incur the risk inherent in waiting to select them. Any number of teams could have picked their guy before they had the chance.

Of course, it’s only a risk if the amazing performance was actually predictable. Psychological overconfidence tends to create the impression that we can isolate these types of players much more often than we really can. One of the key points in the battle between scouts and analysts is that analysts tend to be less confident even though the numbers suggest we’re also more accurate. Even if we weren’t more accurate, having less confidence would probably lead to a better allocation of draft resources.

Anyway, that’s a long way of introducing the concept we’re hearing a lot about this year: waiting until the second or third round to take a flyer on your franchise quarterback.

Is NFL Success Predictable at the QB Position?

While simple WR projection algorithms can be shown to dominate scouting-generated rankings, the QB position is not quite so simple. (That said, Jon Moore does an excellent job breaking down Ryan Nassib and explaining how analysts would have pulled the trigger much earlier on Tom Brady.)

Many analyst-generated models for quarterback projection haven’t held up particularly well. For those of us who like stats there’s the temptation to make things complicated, but that’s often a questionable instinct. Karl Popper’s interpretation of Occam’s Razor suggests the simpler the model, the greater the empirical content and the easier to falsify. Many current statistical projection models probably describe noise instead of underlying principles. (Others assign ridiculous leverage to stats that amount to nothing more than historical artifact – Total QBR, please stand up.)

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Alex Smith Superstar

  By Shawn Siegele | February 28, 2013 - 1:03 am | ,
1 Comment

Now that an Alex Smith trade to Kansas City appears a fait accompli, long-suffering Chiefs fans are wondering what to make of the former No. 1 draft pick turned bust turned redemption project turned Wally Pipp.

I have to admit, the news doesn’t particularly excite the emotions. Everyone who knows anything knows Smith is a game manager masquerading as a viable starting quarterback due to the brilliant machinations of one Jim Harbaugh.

Kansas City hasn’t attempted to draft a franchise savior since they used the No. 7 overall pick in 1983 to select Todd Blackledge with Dan Marino on the board. They haven’t tried it again for thirty years, instead opting for a long series of retreads that includes Steve DeBerg, Dave Krieg, Joe Montana, Steve Bono, Elvis Grbac, Trent Green, and Matt Cassel. An entire generation of fans has known nothing but castoffs.

It’s hard to handle the idea of the Chiefs with the No. 1 overall pick and trading for Smith instead of selecting their own Matthew Stafford or Andrew Luck or RG3. Of course, there are supposedly no franchise quarterbacks in this draft, which has me scanning the historical archives for the what the ‘scouts’ had to say about Russell Wilson and Colin Kaepernick. Survey says: . . . Well, you never know what’s going to be on the board.

John Dorsey and Andy Reid are just joining the Chiefs, but they better understand the stakes. To go with Alex over Geno in the battle of the Smiths, they need to be absolutely certain the rookie won’t turn into a star and simultaneously have a lot more confidence in Smith than the rest of us.

Regardless, if Smith is the hand we’re dealt, let’s see what we’re likely to get.

The most accurate way to do quarterback comparisons is to use adjusted yards per attempt. We also want to get a large enough sample to even out the inherent randomness of quarterback stats. Most importantly, we want to focus on a set of years that accurately compares quarterbacks at the same level of experience and athletic development. Therefore, we’ll use three seasons worth of data and compare Smith to other quarterbacks in their age 26 to age 28 seasons.

Alex Smith Historical Comparisons Age 26 to 28

Passing
Player Cmp Att Cmp% Yds TD Int Rate Y/A AY/A Y/G W L
Tom Brady 939 1531 61.3% 11422 77 40 90.2 7.46 7.29 238.0 38 10
Donovan McNabb 786 1308 60.1% 9380 64 25 90.4 7.17 7.29 228.8 32 9
Carson Palmer 1042 1604 65.0% 12002 86 45 93.6 7.48 7.29 250.0 26 22
Mark Brunell 825 1346 61.3% 10249 57 36 87.9 7.61 7.26 238.3 28 15
Chad Pennington 706 1066 66.2% 7932 51 27 93.7 7.44 7.26 208.7 20 14
Alex Smith 630 1005 62.7% 7251 44 20 90.7 7.21 7.20 196.0 22 12
Troy Aikman* 806 1226 65.7% 9221 51 32 91.2 7.52 7.18 209.6 34 10
Marc Bulger 849 1304 65.1% 10106 57 45 88.8 7.75 7.07 273.1 22 15
Drew Brees 1119 1706 65.6% 12417 78 44 91.6 7.28 7.03 258.7 26 22
Provided by Pro-Football-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 2/27/2013.

 

The comps turn out to be shockingly good. Troy Aikman is already in the Hall of Fame and Tom Brady and Drew Brees will  be in the not too distant future. The list also includes a former Reid signal-caller in Donovan McNabb.

The comparisons also serve to undermine the major argument against Smith – namely that he’s purely a system quarterback who’s recently benefited from crafty manipulation. Brady, Brees, and McNabb had access to some of the best coaching the NFL has to offer. Aikman is in the Hall of Fame at least in part because he was the caretaker for a franchise overflowing with talent.

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Marquise Goodwin and the Hilarity of Scouting

  By Shawn Siegele | February 19, 2013 - 12:13 pm |
3 Comments

In case you’ve never heard of Marquise Goodwin, he’s a former Texas Longhorn wide receiver who goes 5’9”, 179. During his senior year in college Goodwin logged 340 yards receiving.

Now you may be thinking to yourself: a) I didn’t think short, light wide receivers project well to the NFL, and/or b) I didn’t think terrible college wide receivers project well to the NFL. And you’d be right on both counts.

But that evidently hasn’t stopped Goodwin from flying up draft boards.

Every season about this time there is a big battle between scouts and analysts. In his most recent column on Cordarrelle Patterson, Rotoworld’s Evan Silva suggests that ‘box score scouts’ will ding Patterson for essentially sucking in college. First of all, there’s no such thing as a ‘box score scout.’ The term scout implies watching the game and making a series of non-scientific observations which are essentially untestable. Scouts cannot be wrong because their observations are personal and don’t correspond to results in the real world. Any time they do reference things that exist in the real world, they’re referring to information that is freely available to anyone (for example, a 40 time).

On the other hand, box score analysts look at hard information and draw conclusions that can be judged. For example, compare two statements. A scout suggests that Goodwin has good speed in pads because he separated from corners in Senior Bowl practice. An analyst suggests that Stedman Bailey has good speed in pads because he put up 1,600 yards in the Big XII and must have separated from corners all season.

Scouting is a system of evaluating players that is that is riddled with red herrings, logical fallacies, and emotional biases. But in addition to lacking a framework for successfully projecting players to the NFL, scouts seem to know very little about what type of players are currently playing in the league.

The aforementioned Patterson acts as something of a flashpoint between scouts and analysts because he only had 778 yards receiving which left him with a .17 Dominator Rating (essentially the receiver’s market share of collegiate yards). Yet, I challenge you to find a single starting NFL receiver with a DR below .25. Most NFL No. 1 receivers had at least one year well above .40, and, most damningly, almost all previous first round picks at the bottom end of the DR spectrum went on to become busts.

The scouts love Patterson because his athleticism pops on tape, but that athleticism will be evident during the Combine next week, which gives scouts a pretty minimal advantage over those who simply turn on their DVRs. Since Patterson is 6’3”, 200, he has a good chance of turning in an excellent Height-adjusted Speed Score (HaSS), and I’d being will to take a third round flyer on a guy with a dominant HaSS even if he was as bad as Patterson in college. Unfortunately, Patterson is going to go in the first round.

But Patterson isn’t the best example of how scouts are the NFL’s incarnation of the Know Nothings. That honor goes to those who have Marquise Goodwin ranked above Stedman Bailey, a faction which includes CBSSports powered by NFLDraftScout.com.

Goodwin has a .11 Dominator Rating and is tiny. To believe he’s worth a second day pick, you basically have to believe Mack Brown is the worst coach, regardless of sport, in the history of organized athletics.

Stedman Bailey has a .46 Dominator Rating. Bailey accounted for a higher percentage of West Virginia’s receiving value than Tennessee size/speed prospects Patterson and Justin Hunter did combined. And Bailey did that despite competing for looks with supposed first round prospect Tavon Austin.

Perhaps the funniest thing about the scouts versus analysts debate – or at least the most counterintuitive – is the concept of intangibles. This is supposedly an area where scouts – guys who grind tape – separate themselves, but that’s a purely illogical declaration since intangibles, by definition, show up better in the box score than they do on tape. (If that sounds weird, think about it for a while and it’ll become obvious.) We love the mythical, grizzled scout – the TV personalities not so much – because scouts are old school and love the game, but what’s more old school than results?

Most people hate the idea of Moneyball in sports because they believe a faith in numbers undermines the potential for narrative. But does it? Or is it exactly the opposite? Considering the current predominance of scouts over analysts, who makes for the better underdog story, Patterson or Bailey? Should you be rooting for the guy who evidently turned wicked athleticism into mediocre results, or the guy who turned mediocre – or at least undervalued – athleticism into an extended stretch of brilliance?

Every season it seems inevitable that scouting will become more rational or systematic, but in many ways we seem to be going the opposite direction. Marquise Goodwin is not going to be drafted before Stedman Bailey, but the very fact that scouts can talk about the possibility with a straight face is enough to give a theater of the absurd quality to the entire endeavor.

As far as Cordarrelle Patterson? The GM who drafts him will inevitably be fired in the near future and not necessarily because of Patterson. Selecting Patterson is a gamble against the odds, but such gambles work out all the time. Clueless people constantly hit individual bets in Vegas. They inevitably leave broke. To win on a high enough percentage of bets to make money long term, you need a system for counting cards.

In the new NFL, those systems are already coming into existence. Welcome to the new breed of analysts.

 

One of the top fantasy football players in the world, Shawn Siegele has finished in the Top 10 of the NFFC’s Main Event Classic for two consecutive seasons and is one of only a handful of players to own three or more Main Event league titles.

Future of the Banana Stand

  By Shawn Siegele | February 13, 2013 - 2:57 am |
1 Comment
You remind me of someone… a man I met in a half-remembered dream. He was possessed of some radical notions. – Saito

The Banana Stand has taken some time off recently to put together a plan for future world domination. (Not unlike what Clark Hunt has done with the Kansas City Chiefs.) I’ve got an Inception-style series of articles entitled The Death of Value-Based Drafting coming up this summer. And when I say Inception, I mean Imminent Paradigm Shift. In the meantime, here are a few things I recommend.

1. Frank DuPont, author of Game Plan and the Crop Report, is striking out on a new venture called Rotoviz.com. An extension of his groundbreaking work creating viable similarity scores for NFL players, this site is literally the future of fantasy sports (and not in the “I figuratively hate people who misuse the word literally” kind of way – it’s going to be that good). As if a new fantasy douche website could actually be any better, I’m also going to be providing some content.

2. You don’t need a subscription right now to read Pro Football Focus Fantasy Gold, which means you can read my 2012 archive free gratis (or just gratis if Al has his way). This season I wrote Advanced Targets and Advanced Touches on a weekly basis. At the risk of re-using literally, these columns are guaranteed to include the most in-depth breakdowns of advanced stat splits anywhere on the internet. I heartily recommend perusing these as the start of your 2013 preparation. (If you go back to the first month, you can see me make a fool of myself by cracking on Adrian Peterson and Randall Cobb right before they explode.)

3. If my comments on Cobb and Purple Jesus start to undermine your confidence, please read my most recent column Best in the World? where I put my 2012 high stakes fantasy results on display and suggest if we could somehow generate poker-style rankings for FF, yours truly would be No. 1. In all seriousness, there’s usually nothing more tedious than reading about somebody else’s fantasy teams – other than watching most of the movies nominated for Best Picture the last ten years – but hopefully this acts as something of a strategy session.

4. The Banana Stand is going to have a handful of forward-looking columns this month, including an in-depth look at the undervaluing of Geno Smith and the ridiculous hyperbole surrounding Joe Flacco‘s contract. (I would probably trade Flacco for Smith straight up, but that’s the Banana Stand for you.)

 

Best in the World? A 2012 Postmordem

  By Shawn Siegele | February 13, 2013 - 1:50 am |
4 Comments

The objective of Money in the Banana Stand is to be the No. 1 fantasy site for contrarian viewpoints. My goal as a fantasy football player is to be the best in the world. To make either of those claims, it’s important to actually go back and grade yourself. Like anyone, I’m wrong on a lot of my individual projections, and I’m also right on some apparently bizarre takes. If you make enough crazy predictions, it’s easy to link back to the few that were correct. The key to providing value is to have a methodology for judging your ideas and strategies in a way that holds up to examination.

Before the season, I explained that the Banana Stand should be your place for fantasy football info because I actually play fantasy football. And not just a little. And not just in recreational leagues, or, for that matter, in ‘expert’ leagues (which might actually be easier than recreational leagues). I’ve played in nearly 200 leagues over the past three seasons, many of which were high stakes. During that time period, I’ve won a lot of titles and finished in the Top 10 of national contests.

At the beginning of this season I wrote about playing in many high stakes leagues again. In fact, on the final preseason weekend, I twice completed three Main Event drafts simultaneously (two on the internet while doing one over the phone). I also participated in PFF’s startup dynasty league with full IDP. (Although this is an expert league, I think its writers are some of the best in the world because they’re actually required to be well-versed in PFF’s advanced stats, not just spin platitudes. Then again, I’m obviously biased.)

Now that the regular season is over, it’s time to look at how the Banana Stand performed in those leagues. If my results in actual leagues are far superior to what is likely to be achieved by luck, then the crazy ideas espoused in this space may have significant value.

The National Fantasty Football Championship

The Banana Stand entered 29 teams in the various NFFC offerings. The goal was to spread around risk, continue to build experience, and create the best chance to win one of the big prizes.

For those who haven’t spent a lot of time analyzing the high stakes space, the National Fantasy Football Championship is less recreational than the FFPC. Unlike most formats, only three of the 12 teams advance to the playoffs in the two Main Events (Classic and Primetime). The Online Championship is even less forgiving with only the top two teams advancing to the playoffs. The NFFC is also more egalitarian. While head-to-head matchups matter, record only determines one of the playoff spots. This means you can finished tied for first and not be one of the qualifiers (which one of our teams accomplished). Teams who split best record and most points have a three week playoff to be crowned league champion.

Due to the format, the chances of making the playoffs across the 29 teams is approximately 20%. This season 15 of our 29 teams qualified and another squad finished 7th in the consolation out of 1,500-plus teams. All five of our teams that were forced to go extras to determine the league championship emerged victorious.*

*Banana Stand owners Shawn and Tyson Siegele have now cashed more than 25 times in the NFFC and count among only a handful of participants to have ever won three or more Main Event league titles.

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Stupidity, Custer, and Peyton Manning as MVP

  By Shawn Siegele | December 16, 2012 - 1:27 am |
9 Comments

“For outright stupidity, the whole f—— trial goes shoulder to shoulder with that c——— Custer’s thinking when he went over that ridge.” -Al Swearengen, Deadwood

 

Evidently Peyton Manning is going to win this MVP thing by acclamation. Which, in case Al’s thinking on the matter wasn’t clear enough for you, or you’re not a history buff, is outright stupidity.

We’re going to put Manning’s MVP prospects on trial, but before we get into the quarterback comparisons, it’s worth noting that this would be a great year for a non-quarterback to win. In the modern era, only four players have rushed for at least 1000 yards and averaged 6.0 yards per carry. Those players make up a Who’s Who List of the Greatest of All Time: Jim Brown, Jamaal Charles, O.J. Simpson, and Barry Sanders. Adrian Peterson stands to join that list with a couple more good games. Moreover, the value of Peterson’s rushing prowess has been shocking. He’s doing the impossible, at least in the contemporary NFL. He’s carrying a team from the running back position. If the Vikings make the playoffs, it will be on his shoulders. And if they do, he should be the MVP.

Calvin Johnson is on pace to break Jerry Rice’s receiving yardage record, and while he’s done it on an epic number of pass routes, he’s not getting much help. The Lions have no running game and no other receivers. On the strength of Megatron’s brilliance, they rank No. 1 in the NFL in passing offense and second in total offense. They’ve also done it against the ninth toughest schedule according to FO. There’s a huge disparity in schedule strength this year and the slate of opposing defenses should be taken into consideration. Johnson won’t get many votes due to the Lions’ record, which is unfortunate since he’s not responsible for the series of backbreaking coaching gaffes that have cost Detroit game after game. FO ranks the Lions as the NFL’s 13th best team on per play basis, and they wouldn’t be in the Top 25 without Megatron. That’s the very definition of valuable. (more…)

Early Look 2013 Draft – WR Rankings

  By Jon Moore | November 13, 2012 - 1:30 am |
4 Comments
Editor’s Note: Money in the Banana Stand focuses on the NFL during football season, but it’s never too early to start looking at the 2013 Draft. In order to give you a sneak peak at the WR position, we’re bringing you an early look by a true college football expert, Jon Moore. I first heard from Jon after posting about the Dominator Rating and Height-adjusted Speed Score for 2012 Draft prospects. Although we employ slightly different models, both of us believe in the use of two central concepts: market share of receiver production over raw numbers and a 40 score that incorporates height and weight elements. Jon’s current methodology results in a wide receiver projection system with an r^2 value near .5, an incredibly high number for this type of project. We won’t have the athletic variables until after the Combine – so this is only the earliest iteration of the rankings – but it’s never too early to look at how players are performing on the field. I give you the College Football Experiment’s mid-season look at the wide receiver position with numbers through Nov. 8.

 

The 2012 College Football season has reached November, which means it’s time to start zeroing in on the top performers.  Most teams have at least three games left (plus conference championship and bowl games) so you still have plenty of time to scout these players for yourself before NFL Draft season gets here.  It’s easy to watch highlight reels and get excited; it’s another to watch games as they’re unfolding to see who stands out in the moment.

Methodology

College offenses are very diverse.  Some will throw for 40 touchdowns over a season, some will throw for 20.  We must keep things in perspective relative to the offense in which the player exists. In evaluating college wide receivers, we need to see which players achieve a ‘hurdle rate’ of production within the context of their offense.  For us, we want them to have accounted for about 30% of their teams receiving yards and about 30% of their teams touchdowns.  Add them together, that gives you 60%, or just 60, for the sake of simple numbers.  We’ll call this their ‘productivity grade.’  60 is the hurdle.  Higher numbers are better.

Next, we want to see a player that has continually gotten better within the context over their offense across two season, but preferably three.  THIS is where ‘upside’ is relevant.  To see a players production level off over their final two college seasons is to assume they’ve hit their ceiling.  To see their numbers continue to grow means that they’re evolving.  Evolution is good.

Finally, we will check a player’s performance within the context of their program and their conference.  If a player meets the above requirements and is also historically dominant within the context of his school or his conference, we might be onto something.

1) Terrance Williams, SR, Baylor  (6’2”  205lbs)

Draftability Comparison: Justin Blackmon, Mohamed Sanu

81 productivity grade

#1 in last decade of Baylor

#14 in last decade of Big12

Improved in 8 of 9 metrics from 2011 to 2012

Williams might be the most dominant wide out in college football this year.  He has at least 130 receiving yards in every game but one.  Consider his averages: 8.9 catches–167 yards–1.25 TDs.  To find some historical Big 12 comparisons, one would have to look at Dez Bryant, Danario Alexander, and Justin Blackmon.  Don’t believe me?  See for yourself when Baylor faces Kansas State next week. (more…)