Article on draft grades based on athleticsm likes Giants

Yes I know this is a pro NYG article, but I'd rather draft good football players over good athletes. The NFL is full of good athletes. Good football players tho make for good football teams.

I guess he doesn't

Good football player vs good athlete is not either/or.

Football players that are the best athletes have the highest ceiling......is what he trying to say.

OBJ is a perfect example.....a good football player, elite athlete.....

To validate the methodology, he would have to do some kind of regression testing on data from previous draft classes and adjust his formula for each position accordingly. I don't see much evidence that he's done that. This just looks like something he threw together in a spreadsheet and published as clickbait. I guess this analysis might provide a bit of insight into each team's draft philosophy. But it's a stretch to say the Giants were looking for superior athletes, based largely on the velocity of Davis Webb's fastball.

It does seem, if you take this view, that Webb made sense for the Giants. The numbers speak to his upside, and the team has time to develop his potential.

Of recent memory were due largely because we were drafting athletes over football players. Let's hope it's not the same for this draft class.

Played like Jane.

In comment 13483087 Carl in CT said:

Quote:

Played like Jane.

Dorsey was huge, but he did not move well, IIRC.

But not sure one can put much value in it. I'm glad they believe Webb has a high ceiling as I was on the Webb wagon long before the draft and was thrilled that he fell in our lap. I believe he will become a franchise QB and quite possibly the steal of the draft.

However, I find it also interesting that Tomlinson graded out the lowest of all our picks and they have the Eagle's 6th rd pick, DT Elijah Qualls graded considerably higher. Tomlinson is a three time state champ in wrestling, combined with the leader of Alabama's defensive line which was considered tops in the SEC, would probably pin Qualls in less than 8 seconds on a mat.

Regardless, makes for a fun read and it does throw a bone to the Giants. I agree with the above comment that "athleticism and football players are NOT mutually exclusive". I know that some nonathletic players have been great football players and some very athletic players have been horrible football players. But an athletic "football player" can be a star.

But he was not terrible by any means. He was a useful 2-gap LDE, which was all he had to be on that team.

a little premature to be calling Davis Webb a perennial Pro Bowler.

but how many great players aren't good athletes?

and the only elite athletes who failed in 6 years were David Wilson (who got hurt and certainly didn't have bust written on him when he did) Jerrell Jernigan and Prince (who I don't think is all that elite of an athelete as opposed to football player).

Having trouble finding support for the Reese gets in trouble drafting athletes over football players statement.

Here's an article that shows a correlation between athleticism and production for running backs

RAS_to_success

and another that correlates athleticism to sack production

RAS_to_sacks

You can't teach instincts, that first step. A guy like say MLB Chris Spielman of the Lions years ago; well, he wasn't fast but his first step always took him in the right direction and despite great athleticism he diagnosed very well and had a superb career, even a probowl or two I believe. He is the exception.

I firmly believe that our last four drafts coupled with a great 2016 UFA haul will lead us to the promised land in 2017 and possibly well beyond. Our first round picks have lived up to potential for the last five years with the exception maybe of LT Flowers who again is only 23 and was "raw" coming out of college. We maybe put too high of an expectation on him BUT I think he finally puts it together this year due to his hard-working off-season, year #2 with Solari.

Justin Pugh, OBJ, Flowers, Apple, Engram - all talented. yes, the jury is still out on our last 3 guys but the raw talent is there. Would anyone be shocked if all of these guys made probowls during their career? I wouldn't be. That is solid drafting.

#2's Richburg, Collins, Shepard and Tomlinson look good too, though again thee jury is out on Tomlinson and a little bit with Shepard regarding how much upside he truly has.

This year we added athletes and DE Taylor for depth. I also have a sneaky suspicion that OL Fluker gives RG J. Jerry a run for his money. At worst, Fluker could become the short yardage, goal line RG. He is huge and has raw talent but just never seemed to put it together in San Diego. What a story if he won the RG job and had a superb season for us.

This team is athletic, fast (OBJ, Engram have speed we never had) and talented. A SB run is in order so long as we stay healthy and the youth develop.

Go Giants.

It is all that can be empirically measured now. IMO - Giants "bad" drafts seemed to happen when we "stole" players in later rounds because they had been injured in college thinking they would not get injured in pros. turned out they either got injured again, were not the same, or were simply too rusty.

IMO general criteria should be:
Height Weight etc... Deal breaker if not there at min standards or better
Athletic (Speed, agility, strength) - Must meet minimum standards extra points if exceeded
Film - Football instincts speed on field is size athletic from above being used on the field?
Productivity - Results matter
Personality/Work ethic/Character - Disqualify hose who don't meet minimum standards

IMO Players who cannot stay healthy in college will not stay healthy in the NFL

Using combine target numbers per position you can get a feel of athleticism by the number of combine events the player met or exceeded targets. Using the data for all NFL RBs as a guide the average came out to be 4.18. Using 4 of the 8 events as an average we can look at the Giants that scored above and below average
21 scored below average
8 scored average
28 scored above average
4 were not counted (Eli and 3 kicking squad)

In the below average scores there were only 2 elite players. Their score is given first.
1 DT Damon Harrison
3 SS Landon Collins

In the average scores there was only 1 elite player
4 C Weston Richburg

In the above average scores there were 6 elite players
7 WR Odell Beckham
7 CB Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie
6 OG Justin Pugh
6 DE Olivier Vernon
5 DE Jason Pierre-Paul
5 CB Janoris Jenkins

I did not count the rookies as elite as time will tell. Also Eli did not have combine data so not counted. Sterling Shepard fell in above average but I did not count him as elite yet.

Here are the average scores of the Giants by positions

FB 7.0
QB 5.7
CB 5.3
WR 5.0
TE 4.5
S 4.2
DE 4.0
RB 3.9
LB 3.3
DT 2.7
OL 2.2

It could be a coincidence but 3 of the 4 lowest averages are positions of concern - RB, LB, and OL.

Here is a link to the target numbers used
what-does-the-combine-data-mean-depends-on-your-position - ( New Window )