A Metrics Study of Undervalued Draft Prospects

Here's a few players I think are underrated based on some analytics data. They range from higher picks like Stedman Bailey to guys who won't be drafted. To pick them out, I grouped about 20 prospects at each position and picked out guys who stood out from the rest of their projected peers. Jordan Hill was a really interesting case. You could tell from the metrics instantly that Richardson, Lotulelei, and Floyd were the best prospects at DT, but Jordan Hill's metrics pretty much stood up to theirs (every other DT's metrics were way worse). Now of course having good production metrics doesn't translate to NFL success, but it can help identify guys who deserve a second look.

Montel Harris, RB – Temple

Montel Harris is one of the most elusive backs in the entire draft. He had the 4[SUP]th[/SUP] most broken tackles (12) per carry despite being only 5’8” and 208lbs. His yards after contact per carry, 2.91, is the highest among the top tier of running backs, beating out statistical leaders like Jonathan Franklin and Montee Ball. All in all, his total ability to generate extra yardage ranks third in the class behind Franklin, Eddie Lacy, and Giovani Bernard.

Stedman Bailey, WR – West Virginia

Expected to go in the third round, Bailey isn’t the perfect definition of a draft sleeper. However, it seems like he often gets ignored for his explosive teammate, Tavon Austin. Bailey, despite his diminutive size at 5’10”, 193lbs, generates superb yards after the catch. Averaging 6.2 yards after the catch, he is almost as good after the catch as the highly ranked Cordarrelle Patterson (6.4 yards/ catch). His drop rate of 5% ranks his hands near the top of this class.

Ryan Griffin, TE - Connecticut

Some critics of Griffin have noted his lack of ability after the catch, the statistics couldn’t disagree more. At 7.2 yards after the catch, the big TE has the second highest YAC in the entire class only behind Travis Kelce (10 yards/ catch) and ahead of consensus number one TE , Tyler Eifert. Per STATS ICE, Griffin didn’t drop a single ball this year – showing excellent hands. His strong hands and YAC allowed him to convert 72.4% of his receptions into first downs or touchdowns for the Huskies.

Brennan Williams, OT – North Carolina

While everyone focuses on the big three OTs and athletic specimens like Menelik Watson, Brennan Williams had a very quiet 2012 season (in a good way). Williams only allowed 5 combined pressures the entire season at UNC, less than all of the big three OTs. He may be underrated or underappreciated in the media, but expect teams to take note of his quality pass blocking.

Meshak Williams, DE/OLB – Kansas State

Meshak is probably the least discussed prospect out of this entire group. He had really solid production at Kansas State, racking up 10 sacks in 2012, but turning out extremely poor numbers at his pro-day at only at 245lbs. However, his production in college wasn’t just limited to sacks – Williams had 30 combined pressures in college to complement those sacks. When you divide by the number of pass rushing snaps – his Snaps Per Pressure (SPP) is around 8.6 or very similar to Bjoern Werner’s. While college production isn’t guaranteed to translate to NFL production, his pass rush efficiency shouldn’t be ignored for a potential late round pick or UDFA.

Jordan Hill, DT – Penn State

While big names like Sharif Floyd and Star Lotulelei dominate the discussion about defensive tackles, Jordan Hill deserves to be discussed based on his stats alone. As a pass rushing DT, Hill grades out with a Snaps Per Pressure (SPP) of 13.3, which makes him the most efficient pass rusher of the DTs (slightly ahead of Sheldon Richardson) and more efficient than some pass rushing DEs like Datone Jones. Hill also had the most combined tackles in the backfield and 1-2 yards from the LOS (25 tackles), more than any defensive tackle. Based on these metrics alone, Hill should be considered solid all-around DT to be picked earlier than the 4[SUP]th[/SUP]-5[SUP]th[/SUP] round he’s projected in.

Josh Johnson , CB – Purdue

Defensive backs in general are a bit tricky to apply statistics too, but there are some things we can look at to evaluate their play quality in college. Two of my favorite stats are pass defensed per target and how often a player was beaten on their targets. With 19 passes defensed on 86 targets in 2012, Johnson had the best ability to knock down balls on a per target basis amongst late round CBs. He also was burned on only 44% of his targets, which is to say 37 passes thrown in his area were completed. That burn rate is lower than every CB expected to be picked after round 3 and equivalent to some CBs like Johnthan Banks and Darius Slay. To see Johnson’s penchant for knocking down passes (and generating pass interference penalties) see his play against Tyler Eifert.

Josh Evans, S – Florida

While teammate Matt Elam drew most of the attention at Florida, Josh Evans did an excellent job in coverage for the Gators. Evans’ burn rate was 35%, one of the lowest in the entire NCAA last year. Often times playing deep safety, Evans was only targeted 20 times the entire season. On those 20, he defensed 6 passes – the same amount as Kenny Vaccaro on far more targets. While he didn’t make many impact tackles, he did a solid job at tackling with 11 missed tackles in total, about average for this safety class. Evans may not be the complete package as a safety right now, but certainly has potential as a starting FS with his coverage skills.

Here's the permanent link: http://thesidelineview.com/columns/nfl/metrics-study-undervalued-draft-prospects

Honorable Mentions: Cory Grissom - USF, Terry Hawthorne - Illinois, George Winn - Cinci, Trevardo Williams - UConn, Brandon McGee - Miami

 

Evans is really interesting. One of my main questions about him is why he was targeted so little. The average number of targets for pretty much every draftable safety in this draft was around 32 over the entire year. Matt Elam was targeted the most at 42 times. Evans was only targeted 20 times. It's most likely due to the fact that Elam played in the box often and Evans played single high coverage. Will he break more in the NFL when thrown at more? Or will he thrive. The good thing is he already has the experience playing deep coverage, as compared to someone like Vaccaro.

Out of this list, the guy I was most intrigued by was Jordan Hill from Penn State. In every metric category, he held his own against the top three DTs in the draft. The best pass rusher out of all of them, had a sizeable number of impact tackles, only missed about 2 tackles all year. Of course his size doesn't make him an ideal 3 tech at all times, but if you like Sheldon Richardson and have a plan to use him at DE/DT or as a 5 tech, I don't see how Jordan Hill couldn't fill that role as well. CBS Sports has him as a 4th-5th rounder, I could see value higher than that. Kawann Short from Purdue was also a pretty productive pass rusher (14.9 SPP), but given that people are talking about him 1st/2nd, you can't really call him underrated.

 

There's some interesting stuff people are doing with calculating physical scores. Right now I'm focusing on evaluating game tape statistics as an addendum to film evaluation, but there's certainly more work to be done on physical characteristics as well.

Ryan Riddle from BR has a spreadsheet that deals partially with measurables: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ao4Uo4d8uAnhdC03Ti1jeGhGTEd6NlYtbkgtSUNZUEE&gid=0

Some guy on Twitter put this spreadsheet together: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0At971K6SRxFLdEFPUFJHMnFVSTZfX2doQXdMck9OZVE#gid=0
(I don't know how legit his calculations are, his "burst" calculation is (last 20yds of the 40 yard dash + last 30yds + (20-10)yds),so take that for what it's worth.

Here's something from FO called SackSEER which takes into account "explosion scores", passes defensed, position switches, and other things. It's a bit convoluted (at least to me), but spits out a projection for DE success at the end: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-analysis/2013/sackseer-2013

It's really low on Tank Carradine and Alex Okafor, which is the total opposite of what I've found/ seen - so I don't know.

 

Another guy I'll throw in here - Corey Fuller from Virginia Tech. He averaged 8.2 yards after the catch (exactly what Tavon averaged). Had a really good drop rate of 4.4%. Made a catch for a first down or touchdown on 84% of his receptions. Averaged 19 YPC and 12 YPA. Just saw these stats, so now I'm going to go look through some VTech games.

 

First off, I should preface what I'm going to say by noting (to myself) that those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. I more than anyone realize statistics can be imperfect, and applaud people that are using them to try to project draft picks.

Now let's look at why SackSEER doesn't like Tank. First off, they don't have 3 cone, 40 times, vertical and broad jumps for Carradine, so they're assuming he's average at all those traits. They also incorporate passes defensed into their rankings and Tank had 0 passes defensed last year. I personally don't believe passes defensed has ANYTHING to do with your pass rushing ability (which is partially why they have Ansah ranked so high).

Their SRAM which measures production (in only sacks) apparently takes all years into account. There's certainly something to be said for having the ability to generate sacks over multiple years, but their SRAM measures have Sam Montgomery as more productive than Tank Carradine. That will naturally penalize Tank for spending time in JUCO (although they somehow adjust for position changes, injuries, transfers, etc). As someone who has done a fair bit of work on pass rushers, I can assure you it's possible to say Montgomery was more productive over his entire career, but laughable to think that he was more productive than Carradine in their senior (and most important year). The same for Alex Okafor. All in all, I wouldn't be too worried about Tank due to SackSEER, trust your gut on tape and everything you know up until this point.

It also lists Trevardo Williams with like an 80% SackSEER projection. I can understand that because his production in college was out of this world. By my measure of Snaps Per Pressure, Williams would have been one of the most efficient pass rushers in this draft. SackSEER also likes his athleticism. That's all nice, but pop on some tape of him against Justin Pugh and Syracuse and it feels like he can't rush the passer to save his life (he didn't have a single pressure or sack against Syracuse at all). That's why SOS is important, and something they don't incorporate either directly into their formula or tangentially.

There's merit to marrying combine numbers and production, I certainly haven't even delved into that. However, I think SackSEER tries to go too far and ends up muddling things too much. I'm more of a fan of taking raw statistics, transforming them a bit but leaving them in a semi-original state so they can complement tape rather than try to make projections. Who knows, maybe I'll be really wrong in a few years, but I'm pretty confident Sam Montgomery and Trevardo Williams are not going to be better pass rushers than Tank Carradine.

 

The numbers (which I was solely basing this on) don't like Stills that much. Average of 3 yards after the catch (rough). Drop % of 7.8% which isn't bad, but isn't good either. If you want to hang your hat on something, 16.9% of his receptions were in the red zone (the average for guys like Allen, Patterson, Hunter, Austin is around 8%)

Interestingly, 18.4% of Stedman Bailey's receptions were in the red zone.

 

Ask and you shall receive. Spence's SPP is 46.4. He had 4 total pressures on the year and .5 sacks on 209 snaps. On a positive note, he had 20.5 tackles behind or 1-2 yards in front of the LOS which is consistent with some of the upper tier DTs (and a few other guys like Cory Grissom and Bennie Logan)

 

Lance Zierlein does the rankings there, I think he did them about 3 weeks ago - so probably why they're off on DJ Hayden, I'm just going to have to disagree with him on Bailey.

Here was my rankings of WRs posted to FH on January 22nd:

You know what, aside from maybe moving Keenan Allen down 2 slots, I'm still pretty confident in that. I don't buy into the whole Justin Hunter athleticism hype. He drops too many balls for me and doesn't do a good job after the catch for someone with his athleticism. Robert Woods is solid, but unspectacular - a nice WR. Wheaton's hands worry me a bit (I thought he even displayed some drop issues at the combine too), but he'd probably be moving up into 6/7 range with Allen dropping down.

With Boomer's assertion in another thread that the Dolphins are still looking at WRs, I'm pretty confident in my rankings and would certainly enjoy if the Dolphins picked any of the guys in my top 3.

(I think of Tavon Austin in a different category, for those wondering)

 

One more sleeper that could be a nice fit for Miami is Nwachukwu from A&M. Has the obvious connection to Sherman. He did a whole lot better with Tannehill as his QB than Manziel, so there's chemistry. He had something crazy like 8 YAC (albeit on limited catches) last year. No drops, which he fixed from the previous year. Solid amount of clutch receptions. Good hands, nice YAC, right size - seems like he'd be a perfect fit for the WCO in Miami.

 

I made a big mistake and left Jarvis Jones off my tier 1 and tier 2 pass rusher breakdowns. I never got the data for him and I just ignored him. Mistake.

I just calculated his SPP and he got to the passer every 6.1 snaps - grading out even higher than Alex Okafor (6.5) and Tank Carradine (7.6). We can count him as undervalued, because that's pretty amazing and he may drop into the late 1st/ 2nd. Whether that will translate to the NFL, I'm not sure - but it was superb for college. Needs to be recognized.