Boombear's College Football Analysis: Draft

Showing posts with label Draft. Show all posts

Friday, April 30, 2021

Fourth Annual Who's Screwed NFL Supply and Demand Analysis for 2021 - End of Day 2

Heading Into Day 3...Who's Screwed?

With Day 2 in the books there was a lot of movement in Supply of player prospects and the Demand for them from talent hungry NFL teams. Also a big factor was the priority of need for each position is different for each team. So how does Day 3 look for your favorite team?

For those of you new to this exercise, if you find yourself confused go back to the Pre-Draft article here which provides a solid overview of the concepts discussed here.

Supply and Demand Table

Shortage/Surplus

Well...bye... - The supply of QB and TE based on the top 160 NFL.com prospects had run out despite there still being demand for those positions.
Coming Up Short- Positions with shortages are CB, LB and S.
Extra, Extra - The positions with surplus availability are RB, OL and WR.
Stuck in the Middle - DL has enough for everyone.

Avg Need (Priority)

Big Uglies - When it comes to priority, OL has the highest average scoring 4.00 (out of 5)
No Respect - Many fans don't value the RB position and now it seems teams don't given their Avg Need is only 1.50 (out of 5). Pobrecitos!
Not So Safe - Despite being a shortage position, S is a low priority need at 2.18 avg.

Criticality

No Sweat - If you need a RB, S or WR, no problem. At this point there are either so many that you will get one in the Top 160 or the need for the position is not really a priority.
Moving Fast - If you need an other position, you need to get it fast since supplies and running low and competition is high starting with CBs who are the positions with the lowest criticality making them the most urgent position.

So...who's screwed? Glad you asked.

The table above is descending from worst position to best.

Over - At the bottom of the table above are TB and MIN, both of whom have no Critical Positions left to draft...for now. Of course, based on how the draft picks fall there could be a shift but for now, they can relax as they have completed their Critical Positions shopping.
And Out - BUF and LVR still have Critical Positions open but, barring a trade up, they won't have any remaining Top 160 picks left and won't be filling those needs from the first 160 draftees, which is the whole point of this exercise.

Vegas only has 1 low priority position unfilled so that's not an issue.
BUF has it's second and third highest priority position unfilled so their War Room team had better be good at this drafting stuff.

Safe: Teams with Critical Coverage of at least 0% have enough draft capital to pick up all their Critical Positions with the draft capital they have remaining through pick 160.
Screwed: These teams have more Critical Positions needed then draft capital at pick 160 or better:

One Pick Short

Two Picks Short

Three Picks Short

Here is the same list sorted Alphabetically:

Of course, as the Critical Positions can shift based on the way the picks fall.

An entire wrap up of the draft looking at how teams did or did not fill their Critical Positions will be posted after the draft.

Enjoy Day 3!

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The Fifth Annual All-DraftTwitter Top 100 NFL Prospects List!

Some of Twitter's most opinionated evaluators come together for the annual aggregated list of prospects for the 2021 NFL draft. Check it out and see if you agree with our composite list!

NFL Draft 2021 - Who's Screwed Day 2 Update

Supply and Demand Updated Numbers

OK, it was an exciting Day 1 of the 2021 NFL Draft so let's jump right into how the opening round of the draft impacted Player Supply and Team Demand when it comes to priority position needs.

If it's your first time here and you find yourself confused go back to the Pre-Draft article here which provides a solid overview of the concepts discussed here.

No major changes in Shortage/Surplus Z over Day 1.
Avg Priority (based on position needs for that team) saw QB improve dramatically as all the teams with high priority need at the QB position got those needs filled.
The biggest Criticality move was in QB, as expected with the top 5 candidates being selected in Round 1.
There are still a ton of RBs available with no real demand. Will be interesting to see how that will play out.

Here is the updated table breaking out Critical items (excess picks to meet Critical Positions needed) and Criticality measures which tries to present the urgent need for a position based on weighted priority along with supply and demand.

Looking Good

MIA - While they have a need at the high Criticality OL position, their Critical Coverage is 250% and they have the 4th pick of Round 2. They remain in the best position to cover their needs.
HOU - Yes, Houston. Something finally goes right for the team with no first pick until 67 but they have 4 picks remaining through 160 with solid Coverage of 100%.
MIN - Positive Cumulative Criticality as their two lowest priority critical positions are QB and LB; they also enjoy 300% Critical Coverage with 8 of the remaining Top 160 picks.
NYJ - Starting out tied for worst position with JAX, the Jets cleared out two of their top 3 Critical Positions and dropped down closer to the middle of the pack even after trading way a pair of 3rd rounders in a trade up package to get.

Screwed (for now...)

LAR - Their top 3 Priorities have the worst Criticality and their ADP remaining is 20th out of 32 teams. With no picks in the first round and quality players flying off the board, the Rams could only sit around in their beach house and watch their situation worsen as they begin Day 2 with the lowest Criticality.
SEA - Not only is their cumulative Criticality is the 2nd lowest after Day 1, but they currently have negative Coverage meaning they have three needs of high Criticality with just two top 160 picks.
PIT - Their first rounder was spent on the position with the highest Criticality (RB) so they missed out on a more potentially scarce position. Will a starting caliber OL be there when they pick at 55? They were second overall at the start of Day 1 but end the day third from the bottom.
PHI - They went Best Player Available in a position that had high Criticality (that is, supply was greater than demand and priority was not incredibly urgent) and now they need to find solid CB and OL, the most impacted positions at this point of the draft. with selections 37 and 70. Good luck.
DAL - Blocked from the two premier CB, Jerruh has to deal with picking up a second tier (at best) CB and also an OL.
IND - Three Critical Positions, two picks remaining in the top 160 with negative Coverage.

Thoughts for Day 2

We'll see how many CB and OL fly off the board early in Round 2 as those positions have the lowest Criticality (largest shortfalls in supply vs demand and large number of teams with these priority needs.
The top players available based on NFL.com grades in the remaining top 160

Jeremiah Owusu-Korahmoah - 6.82 grade which had him as the #7 player overall. A steal for a team that can utilize him.
Christian Barmore - 6.70 grade put him at #25.
Azeez Ojulari - 6.39 grade has him at #28.
Tyson Campbell - 6.37 grade puts him at #31.

There will be a lot more change in the measurements at the end of day 2 since there will be many more draft picks to shake things up. Make sure to check out the update tomorrow before watching Day 3!

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Don't forget to check out the DraftTwitter Top 100 NFL Draft Prospects list for 2021!

Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Review of Explosiveness for NFL Draft 2021 Prospects

BOOM!

One of my favorite books from my Sports Management Worldwide (SMWW) NFL GM and Scouting course was "Take Your Eye off the Ball 2.0" by Pat Kirwan. For those of you who might not know Pat, his resume is impressive. Prior to embarking on a successful career as a football journalist, he worked in coaching and front office management at all levels, working his way up to Director of Player Administration for the NY Jets. His book is a vital teaching tool for anyone who scouts for a hobby or is looking for a career in this vocation.

Explosiveness

In his book, Pat gives the formula for desirable player explosiveness based on Combine numbers:

Bench Press Reps + Vertical Jump (Inches) +Broad Jump (Feet) > 70

This formula was designed to identify explosiveness for players in the defensive front seven and offensive line. His track record in using this method has been pretty successful in his experience. For the purposed of monitoring this metric, I'll call it the Kirwan Explosiveness Number and refer to it as "KEN".

Who rose to the occasion during Pro Days this year?

Offensive Line/Defensive Front Seven

BMI Pos Z represents the Z score for the position group for the qualifiers listed here only. Small sample so take it for what it's worth.
These are all the players who exceeded the KEN threshold of 70 this draft cycle; if you don't see a player's name he likely fell short.

Green highlights note exceptional numbers

Milton Williams of LA Tech won the Pro Day competition with a total KEN of 83.1 fueled by stand out performances in Vertical and Broad jumps for the DL group.
Kwity Paye of Michigan had an impressive showing on the bench with 36 reps while Penn State's Jayson Oweh and Joseph Ossai of Texas showed out in the jumping evaluations.
Jamin Davis of Kentucky had the best broad jump of the top KEN Linebackers.

Yellow highlights reflect numbers that are out of pattern with the group on the downside.

Oweh and his teammate Shaka Toney join Williams as having lower than average BMI relative to their position groups (based on the KEN finishers here, only).
Williams, Ossai and Davis all performed below their peers in the bench while Sooner Creed Humphrey holds the bottom spot of all OL qualifiers.

I'm no scientist, but all four of the above also have below average BMI.

Stanford's Drew Dalman trailed his peer group in the broad jump having the lowest measure for that metric of all KEN qualifiers.

While Williams has the highest total KEN score, Paye has a 5.7 point lead over the #2 at his position (Williams' lead is only 1.3 points and there is one more competitor right next to him).
The OL-T position is most consistent in terms of KEN with just a 3.8 point variance between the top and bottom.
Big Boy shout out to Trojan Alijah Vera-Tucker who led his peer group with the largest BMI of all KEN qualifiers regardless of position.

If you are like me, you've found a couple of new, interesting names here for further consideration.

Non-OL/Front Seven Players

Although Kirwan only considers this metric for the OL/Front Seven, we can figure out the weight of the bench component for qualifiers for the overall KEN metric for 2021 results, and strip it out to leave just the jumping components. To ensure we get the best performers, I've settled on a Vertical plus Broad threshold of 47 for non-Front Seven players (which is around 10% higher than the raw number I calculated when stripping out bench).

*This is just for illustrative purposes; I'm not equating this in any way to Kirwan's work.

Total = Vertical plus Broad jumps.

Bench Exp = Total plus Bench

Although Total greater than 47 qualifies for the list, the highlighted metrics reflect players whose KEN exceeds 70.

It will be interesting to see how the qualifying players are drafted and perform.

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If you like the post above, please check out some other recent articles:

Does Size Really Matter?

We have the medicals on Devonta Smith and Tutu Atwell and know their actual heights and weights. But does it matter in today's NFL? We took a look at every receiver who measured at the NFL combine since 2000 to see how the big guys compared to the small guys. Click the link above to see the results.

Threading the Needle

How have the top NFL QB Draft Prospects performed in terms of accuracy? Glad you asked! Click the link above to check out the details on QB accuracy and average depth of target (ADOT).

Friday, April 23, 2021

Fourth Annual Who's Screwed 2021 NFL Draft Supply and Demand Analysis

NFL Draft is Just Days Away And Some Teams are Going to be Screwed

We are a week away from the NFL Player Draft and just as I have the last couple of years, let's take a look at which teams are in the best position to cover "need" positions and which teams are most likely to screwed when the talent runs out.

Determining Need - Easy enough! Looking at the NFL.com analysis of top five needs for each team gives us our first set of data. The needs are rated from "5" for most critical to "1" for least critical position need. (Note: BAL is listed with only 4 needs).
Determining the Average Draft Position and Average Grade of Each Position - Again sourcing NFL.com, we use their player grades to determine the Average Draft Position (ADP) and Average Grade for each position. Since we are looking at the top 5 needs for 32 teams, our prospects to fill the team needs are the 160 highest graded players according to NFL.com.
Critical Positions - Even if a position group has a large percentage of highly rated players, if the demand outstrips the supply, your team might be out of luck. So we note the number of players for each position group in the top 160 and compare to the number needed by the NFL teams to determine if there is a shortfall or a surplus at each position.
Draft Picks - The number of picks a team has in the first 160 selections in relation to the number of Critical Positions of high need is the crux of this exercise.

This entire analysis discusses Draft "Need" positions based on NFL.com projections. It's understood that the projected needs may have absolutely nothing to do with the areas each team decides to address based on their own internal priority. But it's fun to see which teams draft more inline with these projected "Needs" and which one's do not.

Based on the info sourced above, let's take a look at the first table outlining Supply and Demand.

Supply and Demand

What does all that stuff mean?

Pos = Player Position
Supply = The number of players available at each position included in NFL.com Top 160.
Demand = The numbers needed at each position based on the NFL.com Needs for each team (rated 5 for most critical need down to 1 for least critical need of the Top 5 needs).
(Shortage)/ Surplus = Supply/Demand - 100%
Z Scores = The number of standard deviations from the mean.
Avg Need = The aggregate Needs score for each position divided by the number of teams with that Position Need. For example, 29 of 32 teams have a need at OL and their aggregate Need scores is 109 which represents an average Need score of 3.76, the highest of any position.
Criticality = Shortage/Surplus Z Score less the Avg Need Z Score give us a raw score to represent overall need at each position. The higher the better.
ADP = The Average Draft Position for each player based on NFL.Com player grades.
NFL.Com Grade = The average grade for each player position per NFL.Com

Observations

Before the first pick is selected, we see Quarterbacks have the worst Criticality which means their 20% shortfall in Top 160 Supply to meet the Demand, coupled with their high Avg Need, this is the position to target first for teams in need of a signal caller. If you look at their NFL grade, QBs are the second highest rated position as a whole. So, taking all this into account, we should see the trade ups we have been expecting from the media hype to pull top tier QBs off the Board before the end of the first round.
Running Backs live up to their "don't draft in the first round" billing. With a pre-Draft 75% surplus and the lowest Average Need position of 1.75 (no team has a RB Position Need of 5; please see the table below) there is no rush for a rusher.

Deficit Position Table and Criticality

This table shows the Supply/Demand info based on the order of each team's 1st pick in the Draft and Criticality Rank.

By Criticality

Let's go through an example of what all this means reading left to right:

1st Pick is simply the number of the first pick the team has in the draft. JAX has the first pick, as we all know. HOU is not scheduled to pick until 67.
Top 160 Picks represents the number of picks the team has in the Top 160 picks. JAX, NYJ and MIN each have 8 while SEA only has 2.
First 5 Avg Pick is just that, the average of the first five picks each team has to draft their top 5 Need Positions.
Team - you can figure that out.
Criticality/Position/Position Need Urgency represents the data in the middle of the table in declining order: The numbers represent the Criticality calculated (in the first table above) for each player Position, below. The number below the position in the Team row represents the Position Need Urgency based on NFL.com as discussed above (with 5 being most urgent need, and 1 being least).

The Yellow highlighted columns represent Positions with negative Criticality - Critical Positions that you will not want your team to have high Position Need Urgency numbers. THIS WILL CHANGE WITH EACH DRAFT PICK! So at the end of each day of the Draft, the Supply and Demand numbers will change and so Criticality will be recalculated based on the needs teams filled.

Critical Positions represent the number of Positions with Negative Criticality for the respective team at the beginning of each Draft day.
Critical Coverage represents the excess coverage of Top 160 Picks to Critical Positions. MIA has just two Critical Positions before the Draft (OL and LB) but they have 8 Top 160 Picks to get them (250%). SEA has three Critical Positions but just 2 Top 160 Picks so they are in the worst position at -33%.
Criticality Cumulative factors in the Criticality and Position Urgency of all positions to present a measure of how difficult it should be for a team to gain the best projected talent to fill their Top 5 Needs - the higher the number, the better. The Z-Score for the Criticality Cumulative follows.

Observations

JAX and NYJ, who choose 1 and 2 in this year's Draft are tied for worst in terms of Criticality. They each have their top 3 needs in the worst Criticality positions: Their greatest Position Need (QB) is Grade 5 with the worst Criticality, their Grade 4 Need (CB) has the next worse and their third Need (OL), the third worst. They only get a break because DL is Grade 2 and Positive. Their final need, TE is also negative but the talent pool is strong (based on NFL.com grades).

The good news is they both have 100% Critical Coverage (at least pre-Draft) so they should be able to get all their needs covered.

MIA would have to pull a LAC Day 3 move (see last year's Who's Screwed Recap for the 2020 NFL Draft) to somehow mess this up. They have a Criticality Z Score that is greater than 2 standard deviations from the mean with their top 2 Needs in Positive Criticality positions (WR and DL) with their Grade 2 in the low stress RB position. Their Critical Positions are only for their Grade 3 and Grade 1 needs.
Teams with Critical Coverage of 0% or negative need to really hit on their first pick and hope the Supply and Demand numbers shift in their favor so their positions of need shift out of negative Criticality.

SF (Pick 3 overall) has a Grade 5 need for QB and it's pretty clear they are going that route after their blockbuster trade.
CHI does not pick until number 20 and they also have a Grade 5 need for QB. Given the Board may not fall their way, will they pick an OL for their first pick since there should be better graded players? Mel Kiper in his last mock has them taking OT Tevin Jenkins.
SEA does not pick until 56 overall and so they will have to consider who is on the Board for their top need of CB or their next most urgent position of OL. Given their next and final Top 160 pick is 129, not sure it really matters. I hope they have a great scout dept.
IND might be looking OL at 21 which is their Grade 5 need. Coming right after CHI, we might see a run on OL. Mel Kiper has them taking DE Jaelan Phillips, which would fulfill their Grade 4 position but not a position of urgency. By the time they get back around to their next pick at 57, they will be hoping the remaining OL prospects will be decent.
BUF is a team that is in a great position from a personnel perspective. With the 30th overall pick, their top need is DL but that is not a position of urgency from our analysis. The table points to CB for them but Kiper has DL/OLB Azeez Ojulari becoming the newest member of the Buffalo Bills.

But Wait, There's More!

As soon as the draft begins and Trevor Lawrence is off the Board, all the information above will change. With every pick, the numbers will shift as positions with surplus talent become depleted and overall player needs change and with all that, will change the Criticality numbers. That's why I will be providing updates after Day 1 and Day 2, with a recap of how each team did in terms of covering their "Position Needs" after completion of the draft.

If this has been interesting to you at all, I hope you will swing back for the update posts as the Draft proceeds into the weekend.

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If you like the post above, please check out some other recent articles:

The Fifth Annual People's Top 100 NFL Draft Prospects for 2021 NEEDS YOU!

I need all Big Boards to include in my Top 100 aggregation to find out how you, the People, feel about this draft class. If you are a regular gal or guy and you have a Top 100, I'd love to see it. Email me by Sunday April 25th at Boombearfootball@gmail.com for your link to an easy to use web based survey ballot. Be heard! Check out last year's Fourth Annual results here!

Does Size Really Matter?

Threading the Needle

How have the top NFL QB Draft Prospects performed in terms of accuracy? Glad you asked! Click the link above to check out the details on QB accuracy and average depth of target (ADOT).

Saturday, March 6, 2021

NFL Draft QB Prospect - Unforced Errors

Own Worst Enemy

Recently, I looked at how some of the prospects in the upcoming NFL draft responded to pressure (see the post right here). With defenders in their faces, we looked at who was able to overcome the pressure and put up numbers. Performing well under pressure is a desirable characteristic but let's not forget how critical it is to limit one's own mistakes in a clean pocket. But which players were most prone to making unforced errors? Let's take a look.

The Data

Data for this analysis is pulled from PFF.com. For this exercise, Unforced Errors are:

Interceptions
Sacks
Batted Passes
Turnover Worthy Plays which are a PFF metric defined as "a pass that has a high percentage chance to be intercepted or a poor job of taking care of the ball and fumbling".

It is acknowledged that all of the above can be debated as potentially being "forced errors". However, given the QB is ultimately responsible for making the decision of where to go with ball we consider the above errors "unforced".

The Unforced Error numbers for Total Plays and Pressure Plays were compiled to calculate the Unforced Errors percentage ([Total Plays Unforced Errors minus Pressure Plays Unforced Errors] divided by Total Plays Unforced Errors). The Z-score (representing the number of standard deviations from the mean) is also calculated.

Here are the results:

Comments

Table is sorted by 2020 performance and includes 2019 numbers.
Trey Lance is offset from the rest of the table because he had just one start in 2020 which reflect horrible numbers; his 2019 numbers looked good.
Sam Ehlinger had the lowest Unforced Error % and showed improvement of 9.7% over 2019.
Mac Jones, who had the best numbers under pressure from my prior analysis, is pretty abysmal when it comes to avoiding unforced errors with 2/3 of his tracked errors coming with no pressure.
Justin Fields increased the most on a percentage basis (by 13.0% year over year) however, he still remained above average in terms of Z score.
Ian Book improved the most reducing his forced errors by 23.3%.
Presumptive QB1 Trevor Lawrence and QB2 Zach Wilson are at the wrong end of the the unforced errors table with both below average based on the criteria.

Lawrence also had below average performance numbers for my QB pressure article, so perhaps these areas could be a point of emphasis for his coaching staff during his rookie season in Jacksonville.

Kyle Trask, who could be QB6 coming off the board, was very consistent with performance well above average both here and in the pressure performance article.

Final Thoughts

Of course, the table above is not a ranking nor is it a prognostication for the order the QBs who will be picked this April. It is not as an attempt to "win' an argument with some random numbers, but this exercise as a whole should be used a tool to help when watching game footage to see what is causing these unforced errors to accumulate or if the errors are even of a magnitude to be included in any scouting evaluation. You can be the judge of that.

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Don't Stop Now, You Quitter! Other Posts To Read

Comparing Free Agency Spending with Performance over 10 Years - Looking for Free Agency trends that to see how they impact winning.

https://boombearfootball.blogspot.com/2021/03/comparing-nfl-free-agency-dollars-spent.html

QB Prospect Response to Pressure Analysis - 2020 - Taking a look at the NFL Draft Prospects for 2021 when the heat is on . https://boombearfootball.blogspot.com/2021/02/qb-prospect-response-to-pressure.html

Jets Reset Part II - The Elephant in the Room - Part II of my look at my NY Jets and this time we have to attack head on the issue of the quarterback. https://boombearfootball.blogspot.com/2021/02/jets-reset-part-ii-elephant-in-room.html

Wednesday, March 3, 2021

Comparing NFL Free Agency Dollars Spent to Win Totals 2011-2020

A Mystery as Old as Time Itself

In the NFL, there are just two ways to bring new players onto your team - draft them into the league or offer free agent contracts. The former is fairly simple - all new prospects register for the player draft and teams engage in an orderly selection process. The latter is a bit more tricky as teams must make competitive contract offers in hopes of the targeted players agreeing to their terms. While the draft salaries are fixed based on the union contract, free agent contracts have only a minimum. So, a team's management must really be thoughtful in its approach to spending because the long term impact of free agent contracts is evident even after the player has moved on.

Given the two ways to integrate new players, the age old argument comes up every off season...should my team focus on the draft or free agency? And if free agency is the focus, how much money should they spend? While that will always be up for debate, I wanted to look back at the numbers to see how teams that spent the most free agency money performed in terms of wins compared to the prior season.

Let's take a look:

The Data - Using Spotrac.com, I compiled the annual Free Agency spending data from 2011-2020 and determined each team's the average free agency expense per free agent for each year. In the table below you will find the following:

Div - NFL Division
Avg $/FA Z Score - The 10 year average Z Score for each teams' annual free agent contract values/the number of free agency players acquired.
Wins over the Last 10 Year - Total Number and Z score of the total wins between 2011 and 2020.
10 Yr Division Place - The average and Z score for the last to divisional finishes.
Total GMs - Number of different GMs over the ten year period observed.

If we go with the hypothesis that the lower a team's average FA contract expense, the higher their win total over a ten year period, here is a breakout of the data:

Observations

The table above is sorted first by Division and second by Avg $/FA Z Score.

From here, we can see how Wins and Divisional Place relate to Average Value of Free Agency contracts written.

Looking at the AFC East (AE), New England has historically spent the least in terms of average Free Agency contract which is well below the mean (Z Score of -0.66 standard deviations).

They have accumulated the most regular season wins in the league over the measurement period.

They have an average final divisional position of 1.20 over the last 10 years.

Conversely, the NY Jet spent more than the mean in terms of FA contracts (Z Score of 0.30) and have the fewest wins in the division as well as the worst average placing at 3.2
For the entire league you will see that generally, as the teams spent more money in free agency on a per contract basis their average win total and division placing worsened.

Big Spenders:

Jacksonville has been heavy handed with FA spending at 2.00 standard deviations over the mean over the last 10 years! The return has been a league low 44 wins.
Cleveland comes in second with spending 1.10 standard deviations above the mean. The Browns have the distinct honor of having the worst annual divisional placement of 3.7 on average over the last 10 years.

What Can We Infer?

Lower per player average Free Agent contracts tends to drive win total in the NFL. From the above table, the team with the most wins in each division is the team that has spent the LEAST in free agency in terms of average FA player contracts with the exception of the NFL North where the Packers have the most wins but they trail the Bear's division leading $/FA Z Score is just 2 basis points. There is a -75% correlation between Avg $/FA Z Score and Divisional Wins over the 10 year period.

General Managers - While there is much work to figure out what is going on here, if you look at the number of GMs each team has employed over the 10 year period, it's easy to see that having one GM is a goal but two of the three teams who have had 4 GMs are 31st and 32nd in the league in terms of wins over the measurement period. Consistency seems to be the key.

Teams with one GM spend the least per contract in free agency and have more wins and better Division Placing than teams with more than one GM over the last 10 years.
Teams with four GMs spend the most in F/A and had the worst performance.

Final Thoughts

While the above is interesting, it's really nothing new. Spend wisely, not like a drunken sailor. Nothing earth shattering about that. What is interesting is I have a workbook with lots of details that can lead to better insight into what is really driving the decisions leading to the numbers. Looking forward to digging into the free agency trends and tendencies of each team over the past 10 years to get a better handle on the industry as a whole. Hope you will check back for updates.

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Don't Stop Now, You Quitter! Other Posts To Read

The Nut Doesn't Fall Far from the Coaching Tree - Looking at the lineages of some of the NFL head coaching prospects for 2021. Boombear's College Football Analysis: Strong Roots: NFL Head Coaching Vacancies and Coaching Trees (boombearfootball.blogspot.com)

Saturday, February 27, 2021

QB Prospect Response to Pressure Analysis - 2020

Pressure Makes Diamonds

We love to look at the highlight reels of QBs making pretty plays but the reality is football is all about making a QB uncomfortable to force him into errors. Let's take a look at how the top QB prospects for this coming NFL Player Draft responded to pressure in the 2020-21 season.

The Data

I started with PFF.com's statistics for QB performance with pressure. The data was compiled for the following 2021 NFL Draft eligible FBS prospects:

Sam Ehlinger, Texas
Mac Jones, Alabama
Trevor Lawrence, Clemson
Kyle Trask, Florida
Kellen Mond, Texas A&M
Brady White, Memphis
Justin Fields, Ohio State
Zach Wilson, Brigham Young
Ian Book, Notre Dame
Desmond Ridder, Cincinnati
K.J. Costello, Mississippi State
Zac Thomas, Appalachian State
Shane Buechele, Southern Methodist
Jarrett Guarantano, Tennessee
Davis Mils, Stanford

Their data for certain metrics were analyzed:

Dropback % - Percentage of Dropbacks under pressure
Hit % - Dropbacks where QB was hit
Sack % - Percentage of dropbacks resulting in a sack
Comp % - Percentage of Completions to Attempts under pressure
Accuracy % - Percentage of Accurate Passes under pressure per PFF.com
TD/INT - Touchdowns under pressure divided by Interceptions under pressure

Grading is based on Z-Score which represents the number of standard deviations from the mean for each metric; in our analysis, a higher score is better (less pressure, higher accuracy, etc).

The color coding is as follows:

Observations:

The table above is sorted by Z score for Dropback %, the higher the score the less pressure the prospect faced. As you can see, White and Jones faced the least pressure, while Ehlinger, Book, Guarantano and Costello were under fire the most.
When we compare Hit% to Dropback% Book, despite having to deal with pressure more than most, is near the tops in Hit%, meaning he is avoiding contact at a ridiculous rate.

Near consensus #1 overall pick, Lawrence has dealt with less pressure than average but he dropped two grade levels showing the worst Hit% of the group.It will be interesting to review his footage to see what caused him to take so many hits when he faced less pressure than average.
Everyone else is pretty much in line with where you would expect (White is tops in least pressure and has the fewest hits, Costello has the most pressure and is number 2 in hits).

Using the same lens for Sack %, White faced the least pressure but fell two grade levels in terms of Sack% under pressure.

Mond saw more pressure than average but did an outstanding job in avoiding sacks.

Regarding Completion %, White dropped below average here again compared to his Dropback %.

Ridder went from bad (falling two grades compared to his Dropback %), to worse dropping to the basement in Comp % under pressure.
Despite facing the most pressure, Costello had the second highest Completion %.

Varying most from their Dropback % when it comes to Accuracy% were White and Ridder, who both declined, and Book, who had the greatest accuracy under pressure of the sample.
The best performance under pressure in terms of TD/INT ratio goes to Jones who was two standard deviations above the mean on this metric.

Ehlinger and Book continue to show they have grace under pressure by having top TD/INT scores.

Let's look at the table resorted based on the averages of the five pressure response metrics used above:

Jones faced the least pressure and in those situations, he performed well. In fact, he had one of the tops scores in each metric giving him the only average score greater than 1 standard deviation above the mean.
Book and Costello faced tremendous pressure but their averages were two grade levels above their respective Dropback % so it will be interesting to see if this will have any impact on their draft statuses.
White started strong out of the gate, but overall his response to pressure will need attention at the next level.

The Big Five

When talking about QB prospects, the five FBS QBs I hear about most are Trask, Jones, Lawrence, Wilson and Fields. The table below has their pressure response metrics side by side:

Jones, Wilson and Trask all faced less than average pressure and had above average performance.
Fields had to deal with far more pressure than the others in this group and his results were below average.
From the above either (1) the more pressure one has to experience, the more likely they are to make mistakes over time or (2) the aggregate impact of pressure does not have any impact and players are performing to their capabilities.

Who Could Have Foreseen This?

The big surprise is presumed #1 overall QB Trevor Lawrence's results which were markedly average across the board.

His three out of five metrics were below average with his Hit% two grades below his baseline Dropback % resulting in his overall Impact Avg (average of the five pressure response metrics) being below average.

Teams will want to look at his response to pressure historically to ensure this strange season may have been an anomaly in this respect.

Final Thought

Regarding correlations (not causation, right?) there is no correlation between Pressure Dropback% and any of the Pressure Response metrics.

There seems to be a real correlation between Accuracy under pressure and Completion % under pressure, but that's not really very surprising.

In the end, the numbers stand on their own - some guys have mastered dealing with pressure while others struggle. It remains to be seen if the complexity or simplicity of each players' system has any impact on these results; the questions about Fields' "slow" processing have been answered with the response that the complexity of the system he is asked to run is a factor. The best analogy I've heard is Fields is learning to drive stick (a more complex pro style offense) and others are driving automatics. The average viewer sees Fields stall and assumes he is a bad driver with no regards for the fundamental differences between stick and automatic. This and other potential factors should be thoroughly considered in pre-draft evaluations.

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