2018 Wide Receiver Combine Analysis: Part One
If you glance outside for any of the states in the northern half of the country it definitely looks like it is football season. Unfortunately, it is April which means we have a bit of a wait. However, the NFL Draft is a much-needed oasis that isn’t too far away. To help us prepare, it is time for my annual analysis of the wide receiver draft class.
As hard as it is to believe, this is now my sixth year writing for DLF, which makes this the sixth version of this article to come out. There are and always will be some misses, but I’m pretty happy with where the metric has gone over the years.
The original inspiration for this article was to try to quantify the NFL combine as a whole instead of just individual drills. I also wanted to compare incoming rookies to the receivers who are actually succeeding in the NFL right now. How much better is a 4.35 second time in the 40-yard dash than a 4.42 second time and does it matter? If a receiver runs a 4.57 time in the 40-yard dash but lights up the 3-cone and 20-yard shuttle drills, does it matter? I was curious, so I dove into the numbers to see what I could find out.
The process has changed over the years, but the goal has always remained the same: Try to find players who have what it takes from an athletic ability standpoint to be successful at the next level. Before I go any further, let me caution all of you. This is not meant to be a one-stop shop in terms of prospect evaluation. The easiest way to look at it is if you view this metric as a measurement of a player’s ceiling. There are far too many unquantifiable characteristics to use this as your only predictive measurement tool.
After all, there isn’t any number associated with route running ability, work ethic, character, football IQ, or any number of important skills a top receiver needs to possess. So it is possible that a bust will profile very highly in this metric. That simply means they have the physical tools to be very successful, but they might lack the mental and emotional tools.
The interesting part is when you look at it from the other direction. There are very few receivers who turn out to be highly successful (defined as an every week fantasy starter) if they have a low score by this metric. In fact, almost every highly successful receiver has scored at least a -2 on this metric. There have been a few smaller receivers, like Wes Welker and T.Y. Hilton, who have been below that, but that is largely because size is a part of the equation. If history is any indicator, anyone under a -4 has almost no chance to be a consistent producer. On the flip side, most of the great young receivers, like Odell Beckham and Mike Evans, have had positive scores.
I would suggest using this metric as a way to break ties in the earlier rounds and to help sort out your tiers. As for the later rounds, I personally use it as a way to figure out which players seem to have the best chance of being a meaningful player on my fantasy roster. After all, once we get to the third round of rookie drafts about 90 percent of them are going to flop. Why not go after someone with the best upside on the chance that they do hit? Still trust your judgment and your other resources, but hopefully, you find this metric as a valuable piece of the puzzle.
On that note, let me explain a bit about what I’ve done.
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Statistical Method
Since the goal of the combine for both NFL teams and fantasy owners alike is to try and figure out which of the incoming rookie class have what it takes to be at least a starter on an NFL team, it is important to compare them to that group. For that reason, I took the group of wide receivers who have been at least WR2s at some point over the last few seasons and used them as a baseline.
The baseline group is now 40 players including the current greats like Dez Bryant, Julio Jones, and Beckham as well as the recently great players like Larry Fitzgerald, Reggie Wayne, and Andre Johnson. I went back and pulled up all of their Combine data and calculated the mean (commonly known as average) and standard deviation for each of the various drills.
Here’s where it gets a little bit more technical. I then took the official Combine times for the various drills for the 2018 rookie class and calculated the z-score for each of those drills using the mean and standard deviation from the baseline group. The z-score, for those not familiar with it, is calculated by taking the value (in this case the time or measurement of the 2018 rookie) and subtracting the mean of the baseline group from it. That number is then divided by the standard deviation of the baseline group.
The z-score represents the number of standard deviations a value is away from the mean. In a dataset which is normally distributed, which all of the Combine drills are, 68% of all data should be between z-scores of -1 and 1, 95% of all data should be between z-scores of -2 and 2, and only 2.5% of all data greater than a z-score of 2 while an additional 2.5% of the data is less than a z-score of -2.
What does all of these mean to those who don’t really care much about statistics? It simply means the majority of all data, 68% to be exact, will be somewhere between a z-score of -1 and 1 for all of the drills. Scores between 1 and 2 or between -1 and -2 will be rarer but are not uncommon. Anything outside of that range is going to be quite rare though and the player is either severely deficient if they are on the negative end or elite if they are on the positive end.
Once the z-score was calculated for each of the drills, all of the z-scores for each individual were added together to get a composite score. Since a score of zero is the norm and the baseline group was fantasy WR2s or better, any rookie with a positive score is actually more physically gifted than the average of the baseline group. Anyone with a negative score is less physically gifted than the average of the baseline group.
Another way to look at it is those players with a positive score possess more upside than the average receiver you are currently starting on a weekly basis. On the flip side, those with a negative score possess less upside than the average starting receiver. How much more or less depends on how far their score is away from zero. Keep in mind a score of zero means they are very average when compared to the top fantasy receivers, which is still a very good thing.
Baseline Data
As mentioned previously, I used a group of veteran wide receivers, 40 in total, who have been WR2s or better in fantasy leagues over the last few years. This list of veterans included the obvious elite receivers such as Beckham, Jones, and Antonio Brown, as well as those who have faded recently but were once highly productive players such as Calvin Johnson, Roddy White, and Fitzgerald. I have even included relative newcomers who produced at that level such as Amari Cooper. The only restriction is they must have multiple seasons of WR2 or better production.
I looked at a total of nine different values for each of the veterans and each of the rookies, assuming they participated in the drill or measurement. Here are the nine I considered, why I considered them, and the mean score for the baseline group:
Height – Bigger receivers are bigger targets. If someone is 6’5”, they don’t need to run as fast or be as agile as someone who is 5’9” if they are going to get a chance in the NFL. More on this in the disclaimers section. Mean: 73.34 inches (6’1.34”)
BMI (Body mass index) – Instead of just using weight, which would largely be proportional to height, BMI is a more accurate measurement of how well built someone is, which is more important than just weight. Mean: 27.449
Hand Size – Receivers with larger hands have shown a tendency to make more sure-handed catches and to have fewer drops. Mean: 9.61 inches
Arm Length – Longer arms means a larger catch radius. Mean: 32.67 inches
40 Yard Dash – The headline act of the Combine, the 40-yard dash is all about straight line speed or long speed as it is sometimes called. Mean: 4.472 seconds
Vertical Jump – Measures lower body explosiveness and the ability of the receiver to go up and get a jump ball. Mean: 36.88 inches
Broad Jump – Another measure of explosiveness but this one is more about the ability of the receiver to push off and explode from the line of scrimmage or out of breaks in a route. Mean: 124 inches
20 Yard Shuttle – Measures the ability of the receiver to accelerate and decelerate. Mean: 4.241 seconds
Three Cone Drill – This tracks the ability of the receiver to keep their speed up while changing direction which is extremely important in route running. Mean 6.948 seconds
Disclaimers
If you are doing any kind of study or analysis, there are a few assumptions you are using in your process, and it is important for everyone to be clear on these items before continuing.
1. As I mentioned earlier, this score does not represent a complete picture of a prospect, merely a snapshot. This score reflects how well their physical size, runs and jumps compare to the baseline group. There is no attempt to neither quantify nor include extremely important items such as route running, work ethic, mental focus, or anything else of that nature. This is why the Combine is an incomplete evaluation tool. It provides a portion of the data, but there is a lot more as well.
2. A high score is not a prediction of success in the NFL. It merely means that player has physical tools that compare favorably to NFL receivers who have been at least fantasy WR2s. Similarly, a negative score does not predict failure in the NFL. It merely means that player’s physical tools are slightly below the average of the baseline group. The best way to think about it is this number is a measure of their upside or ceiling. If the number is really low, the ceiling is likely limited for that player.
3. One of the best indicators of success for an NFL receiver is being selected in the first round of the NFL draft, especially in the first five or six picks. These receivers are successful at a much, much higher rate than those taken anywhere else. Outside of the first round, draft position isn’t nearly the predictor people think it is for the wide receiver position. In fact, the success rate for second round receivers is very near the success rate of seventh-round receivers. Give those taken in the first round a little boost in your rankings once the NFL draft has unfolded.
4. My decision to make height one of the nine data points in this study has come under fire at times. After all, it does put smaller receivers are at a slight disadvantage; however, this is also an accurate reflection of the struggles they will face in the NFL. Life is more difficult as a receiver if you are a receiver under six feet tall than if you are 6’4”. You need to be faster, quicker, and more efficient because you don’t have that added cushion of size. After all, there are receivers who are drafted or bumped up draft boards just because they are bigger. It is an advantage. The recent success of smaller receivers doesn’t change this. For those of you who think height is overblown, I’ll include scores both with and without the height measurements in them. You can look at whichever score you choose, but I’ll be listing them using the height measurement as a data point.
5. All data came from the Combine and the official measurements. Sometimes players just have a bad day or get injured at the Combine and drastically improve at their pro day, but it isn’t fair to just take the best score. In order to have a level playing field for all players, only measurements from the Combine were used. This also means some players have an incomplete score due to lack of participation at the combine. Their place in this study needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
Previous Results
I don’t think there has ever been a statistical analysis of anything in the history of man which has ever been 100 percent correct. There are always going to be varying degrees of success with any study. However, some definitely accomplish their task much better than others. I like to believe that my method does a better job than most. Of course, it is difficult to measure since I’m just talking about how high their ceiling can be, but here are some of the scores over the last few years for the better receivers to come out of the draft. Hopefully, this will help you get a better idea of how this metric works. The first number is with the height included, the second is without it. Keep in mind that a 0 is the exact average of the baseline group, which are WR2s or better.
Odell Beckham: 5.512 (6.303)
Donte Moncrief: 2.912 (2.686)
Brandin Cooks: 2.593 (5.584)
Josh Doctson: 2.522 (2.909)
Mike Evans: 2.451 (-1.528)
Amari Cooper: 2.323 (3.457)
Allen Robinson: 1.917 (2.021)
Jordan Matthews: 1.707 (0.268)
Kevin White: 1.542 (0.867)
Mike Thomas 1.163 (0.907)
Devin Funchess: 0.234 (-1.607)
Sammy Watkins: -0.529 (0.023)
DeVante Parker: -0.771 (-1.969)
Kelvin Benjamin: -1.649 (-5.408)
Nelson Agholor: -1.718 (-0.779)
John Brown: -5.026 (-1.816)
Stefon Diggs: -5.213 (-3.437)
If you look at the list, a few things definitely stand out. First of all, most of the receivers you would rank highly are near the top of this list. Now, it isn’t perfect by any means, but you can probably agree with the general feel of the list. However, it is very important to remember this only measures upside. Moncrief isn’t a better receiver than Evans nor Cooper. It isn’t even a contest, even though he scored slightly higher in this metric. So what’s the difference? Both Evans and Cooper are much more complete and much more polished receivers. They run better routes, have better hands, have largely avoided injury, etc. From a purely physical standpoint, Moncrief is slightly ahead of them, but as a total picture, they surpass him. That can and will happen each and every year.
Another thing I want to point out is the disparity between the first number and the second number for a few players. Diggs climbed up about two points if we ignore his height. What this means is he is a solid athlete, but he is undersized. Benjamin is the exact opposite. He dropped almost four points when height is removed. This means Benjamin has a lot of size, but his athletic ability is severely lacking. Pay attention to these disparities. Most players will be within a point. If the second number is larger, it means undersized but athletic. If the second is smaller, it means big target with relatively limited athleticism.
The third point I want to mention goes back to at Stefon Diggs. There are some receivers, typically shorter or very slimly built receivers, who the metric just doesn’t like. Sometimes they just had a bad combine, but other times the metric just doesn’t agree with them. T.Y. Hilton is another example of a smaller receiver who the metric just didn’t like. If you have a smaller receiver you like, but the metric is fairly harsh on them, don’t be overly discouraged.
The final important item to remember is that zero is the average. Watkins might be the best example of this, especially without height factored in. He’s very average, but this isn’t a bad thing by any means because you need to remember how the baseline was established. He’s the average of players who have been top 24 receivers in fantasy over the last several years. In other words, his ceiling is in the top 10-15 range of wide receivers. His chances of being a top-five receiver are very slim, but he’s likely to be a back-end end WR1 or high-end WR2 if all goes well in a given year. That is definitely nothing to complain about.
Now that you have an idea of what the metric is, how it was created and how to use it, we can turn our attention towards the 2018 draft class. I’ll be back with future parts as I break down the 2018 draft class. There are so many questions, and I’ll be doing my best to answer them. Come back for the next few parts!
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- Final 2021 Pre-Draft Rookie Mock: Round Three - April 28, 2021
- Final 2021 Pre-Draft Rookie Mock: Round Two - April 26, 2021
- Final 2021 Pre-Draft Rookie Mock: Round One - April 25, 2021
