Success Profiler Study

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Astonishment
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Success Profiler Study

Postby Astonishment » Wed Jan 11, 2017 8:54 am

Last year about this time I came across a post from Dynasty DeLorean about his RB report. I was curious about what he was doing with his work and sent him a PM to try to see if he would share his initial process because I wanted to check it out and see what some of my take away's would be. He was more than gracious, and I started this process using with his initial format.

He was looking for a combination that only sure fire studs would have and I went took my study a different route. Instead of looking for a top tier only, I wanted to see if there were certain characteristics that successful RB's had, with the theory being that if you found a player with more traits that lead to successful RB's then you could better determine which RB's had the ability to succeed in the NFL and which did not. With that basis, we went very different routes with calculating the numbers - to use his description his "model is more to predict studs while (my) model is more to predict which RB's will become a starter in some form or fashion at some point in their career". While I disagree slightly with that statement, it does show some of our difference in process. I also ended up expanding my study to both WR and TE as well. I do not know him and we have not worked on this together, but I want to make sure to give him credit for helping me start this study. While I am doing this long term (want to re-evalute the scoring setup after 3 years to see what needs to be tweaked) I am posting it this year because the scoring ended up holding shockingly consistent when I entered the results from this NFL season (varying no more than 3%). I welcome any feedback and criticism about how it is done, because my goal is not be "be right", but to hopefully put all the measurable information in a usable context.

To provide more context for my study and the scores I will post, I want to share some of the process. Initially I used the measurables that DD had used, but kept hearing about this number that mattered or that number that matter and kept trying to find what actually did matter. As I compiled everything it just lead to a jumbled mess, so I had to figure out what actually was potentially predictive and what was not. So I came up with the idea of using a "hit rate", meaning there was a benchmark that when a player got to in their career (a single season benchmark, and if they got it at any point in their career they always had it) it was counted as a "hit" and they were considered a "hit" in the NFL.

I did not want my benchmarks to chase fantasy scores that fluctuate year to year, but rather see who was actually beneficial in the NFL for their team, because the thought was that would more likely indicate future usage (and hopefully future success) for that player and I was looking for just that, future indications of success. Again for the sake of transparency here are the benchmarks I settled on: 1,000 total yards for RB, 600 yards and 45 receptions for WR, and 400 yards for TE. This led to roughly 30 RB's per year (with no false peaks due to high TD rates), 80-90 WR per year (no TD for the same reason), and 20 TE's per year. These ranges were purposeful as they roughly represent the "starting" NFL skill position (1 starting RB per team, 2 outside WR plus a slot for most teams, and just under a starting TE per team as not every team uses their TE in the passing game). If a player put up startable levels of production, that was enough for them to be considered to be included in the players that we wanted to isolate successful attributes from.

After entering all the measurables that were said to be important, and going back to 2005 with the numbers of all players drafted 6th round or earlier or currently in the NFL (as of last year), I compiled a "hit" rate for all three positions. They came in for all players charted at 26.7% for RB's, 28.4% for WR's, and 30.3% for TE's. From there I had something to measure all these marks that claimed to be predictive against. The measurables I charted were the following: height, weight, 10 yard split, 40 yard dash, vertical, broad jump, 3 cone, 20 yard short shuttle, final year start age, speed score, height adjusted speed score, burst score, agility score, BMI, college dominator, and round drafted. I then compared them to 11 previous years of successful hits data.

Some claimed to be important measurable numbers didn't stand up, but that seemed to be overlooked did. As expected round drafted was easily the highest indicator of success. I analyzed each metric verses the average hit rate, and selected the ones that showed a marked and consistent progression and/or regression from the average for each position. I gave every 6% increase or decrease a value of 0.5 points. That number was used because it represented the roughly equal steps to reach a max of +3 or -3 for the most influential of all metrics used except draft position (not every mark fell on that 0.5 scale, so some did fall on other increments).

I want to touch on draft position separately because that is one thing I have read people say "nothing is better than it so why use anything else". First this isn't intended to replace anyone's individual way of doing things or to try to be better than the NFL at drafting (I am not payed enough to have to live up to that). The only intent here is to try to find the skill position players that have the most positive attributes that lead to success and to put some of those measurable numbers in perspective (what does a 3 cone time actually mean for this player).

That said I was pleasantly surprised at how well the success profiler scoring ended up holding up to draft position. I made the choice to account draft position at half value and capping it at 3 up or down like every other metric for a couple reasons - 1) because draft position already includes valuations on all the other metrics included but adds in scouting so I did not want to double up on any metrics by overvaluing draft position while still including the professional scouting 2) because at full value draft position would have mitigated all other metrics and made the rest of the study pointless. In the end when I compared the total players drafted at a position each round to the same sample size based on the success profiler scoring here is how they measured up based on hit rates (Draft position/SP score hit rates):

RB 1st round - 96.2%/80.8%, 2nd round - 40.0%/60.0%, 3rd round - 35.7%/28.6%, 4th round - 24.2%/24.2%, 5th round - 14.2%/23.1%, 6th round - 11.4%/11.4%, 7th round - 12.5%/16.7%, undrafted - 10.1%/7.6%
WR 1st round - 71.7%/76.1%, 2nd round - 54.9%/60.8%, 3rd round - 37.3%/32.2%, 4th round - 21.6%/23.5%, 5th round - 19.5%/24.4%, 6th round - 8.0%/0.0%, 7th round - 17.4%/21.7%, undrafted - 13.2%/10.7%
TE 1st round - 100.0%/87.5%, 2nd round - 63.2%/63.2%, 3rd round - 46.2%/50.0%, 4th round - 37.5%/37.5%, 5th round - 18.5%/37.0%, 6th round - 37.5%/18.8%, 7th round - 0.0%/7.1%, undrafted - 9.4%/3.8%

Simply being higher or lower than the draft position hit rate is neither good nor bad. Ideally I would want higher top end hit rates and lower bottom end hit rates to try to create bigger gaps from players making decisions easier, but this is simply to show how it lines up with draft position. What I learned is that 1st round RB's will get enough usage to count as HIT's even if they aren't good long term (I'm looking at you Donald Brown, Felix Jones, and Cedric Benson), and that if a TE gets drafted in the 1st, throw all other scouting away and draft him (not a large sample size, but 100.0% hit rate is impressive).

I also will include a pre-draft position hit rate to find both sleepers and players that may be over drafted. We will get into those more in future posts.

To be continued...
12 Team, 21 players, 4 man TS, 21 keepers, .5 PPR, 6 pt passing TD, .04 return yards, 4 round rookie draft
Start 10: 1 QB / 1-3 RB / 2-5 WR / 1-3 TE / 1 K / 1 Def

QB- Wilson, Dalton, Bradford
RB- Howard, Henry, Kamara, Abdullah, Foreman, Breida
WR- Cooper, Green, Robinson(IR), Diggs, Cobb, Sheppard, Treadwell, Goodwin, Grant
TE - Eifert, Ertz

Astonishment
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Re: Success Profiler Study

Postby Astonishment » Wed Jan 11, 2017 9:10 am

With the preliminary information out of the way, we will get to the interesting part of the study. When I had all the hit rate data and had analyzed and selected the significant measurable numbers, I set up the spread sheet to calculate the scores for each player. I then analyzed the scores and the hit rates for tiers, where hit rates changed significantly per position. Here are those hit rates based on SP scoring:

RB hit rates: 15.0-7.0 = 84.2% hit rate (80.0% pre draft position), 6.9-4.0 = 63.2% (65.7%), 3.9-2.0 = 26.3 (27.3), 1.9-(-)2.0 = 17.9 (20.5), (-)2.1-(-)10.0 = 7.2 (7.0)
WR hit rates: 15.0-7.0 = 75.0% (na), 6.9-3.0 = 67.6% (60.8%), 2.9-0.0 = 34.4 (37.9), (-)0.1-(-)2.0 = 15.8 (15.4), (-)2.1-(-)15.0 = 10.8 (12.0)
TE hit rates: 15.0-6.0 = 83.3% (72.7), 5.9-3.0 = 53.7% (50.0%), 2.9-0.0 = 30.6 (36.1), (-)0.1-(-)2.0 = 13.8 (18.5), (-)2.1-(-)15.0 = 3.7 (6.4)

This basically put the quality type players in the top 2 tiers, and any player lower than that and I had to go back and look at them more if I rated them higher. Ultimately I should have trusted this profiler more than I did and it would have saved me from LA Mike Thomas!

I will follow up with the players from the last 3 years that were in those top 2 tiers per position and include their scoring (both pre and after draft) in my next post.
Last edited by Astonishment on Thu Jan 12, 2017 7:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
12 Team, 21 players, 4 man TS, 21 keepers, .5 PPR, 6 pt passing TD, .04 return yards, 4 round rookie draft
Start 10: 1 QB / 1-3 RB / 2-5 WR / 1-3 TE / 1 K / 1 Def

QB- Wilson, Dalton, Bradford
RB- Howard, Henry, Kamara, Abdullah, Foreman, Breida
WR- Cooper, Green, Robinson(IR), Diggs, Cobb, Sheppard, Treadwell, Goodwin, Grant
TE - Eifert, Ertz

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Re: Success Profiler Study

Postby Astonishment » Wed Jan 11, 2017 9:24 am

RB (final score/pre-draft score)
Tier 1
Todd Gurley (9.5/6.5)
Ezekiel Elliott (9.0/6.0)
Derrick Henry (7.0/5.3)

Tier 2
Tevin Coleman (6.5/5.5)
Melvin Gordon (6.3/3.3)
Tre Mason (6.3/3.3)
Bishop Sankey (6.0/4.3)
David Johnson (5.3/4.3)

WR
Tier 1
Breshad Perriman (8.7/5.7)
Amari Cooper (7.5/4.5)
Brandin Cooks (7.5/4.5)
Corey Coleman (7.2/4.2)
Sammy Watkins (7.0/4.0)

Tier 2
Kevin White (6.5/3.5)
Devin Funchess (6.3/4.5)
Allen Robinson (6.3/4.5)
Mike Evans (6.0/3.0)
Will Fuller (5.5/2.5)
Nelson Agholor (5.5/2.5)
Devante Adams (5.5/3.7
Donte Moncrief (5.5/4.5)
Odell Beckham (5.5/2.5)
Michael Thomas (Ohio State) (5.0/3.2)
DeVante Parker (5.0/2.0)
Dorial Green-Beckham (4.8/3.0)
Jordan Matthews (4.8/3.0)
Phillip Dorsett (4.5/1.5)
Paul Richardson (4.3/2.5)
Josh Doctson (4.2/1.2)
Lequon Treadwell (4.0/1.0)
Leonte Carroo (3.0/2.0)
Pharoh Cooper (3.0/3.0)
Sterling Shepard (3.0/1.2)

TE
Tier 1
Eric Ebron (6.0/3.0)

Tier 2
Maxx Williams (5.8/3.0)
Jace Amaro (5.8/3.0)
CJ Fiedorowicz (5.5/4.0)
Austin Hooper (5.3/3.8)
MyCole Pruitt (4.1/3.6)
Hunter Henry (3.8/1.0)
Troy Niklas (3.8/1.0)
12 Team, 21 players, 4 man TS, 21 keepers, .5 PPR, 6 pt passing TD, .04 return yards, 4 round rookie draft
Start 10: 1 QB / 1-3 RB / 2-5 WR / 1-3 TE / 1 K / 1 Def

QB- Wilson, Dalton, Bradford
RB- Howard, Henry, Kamara, Abdullah, Foreman, Breida
WR- Cooper, Green, Robinson(IR), Diggs, Cobb, Sheppard, Treadwell, Goodwin, Grant
TE - Eifert, Ertz

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Dynasty DeLorean
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Re: Success Profiler Study

Postby Dynasty DeLorean » Thu Jan 12, 2017 7:34 am

Awesome stuff, thanks for sharing!

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Re: Success Profiler Study

Postby DynoScout » Sat Jan 14, 2017 6:28 am

Bravo! Fun read, and thanks for posting!

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Re: Success Profiler Study

Postby Phaded » Sun Jan 15, 2017 6:36 pm

Quite interesting.

Thank you for sharing.

Will you post similar findings for incoming rookies?

Astonishment
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Re: Success Profiler Study

Postby Astonishment » Mon Jan 16, 2017 6:39 am

Absolutely - when we get all the measurable data (from the combine and pro days), I will post first the pre-draft scoring, and then follow up with a post-draft scoring update after the NFL draft.
12 Team, 21 players, 4 man TS, 21 keepers, .5 PPR, 6 pt passing TD, .04 return yards, 4 round rookie draft
Start 10: 1 QB / 1-3 RB / 2-5 WR / 1-3 TE / 1 K / 1 Def

QB- Wilson, Dalton, Bradford
RB- Howard, Henry, Kamara, Abdullah, Foreman, Breida
WR- Cooper, Green, Robinson(IR), Diggs, Cobb, Sheppard, Treadwell, Goodwin, Grant
TE - Eifert, Ertz

Astonishment
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Re: Success Profiler Study

Postby Astonishment » Mon Mar 06, 2017 10:58 am

Just to update, I have all the combine numbers entered in the spreadsheet, but I am still waiting for the 10 yard splits (which factor into the scores for the RB and TE positions). This is normal because they typically come out later than the main numbers. Once I have those I will post the results of those who participated in the combine, and then update it when we get pro day results for those who didn't.

Thanks
12 Team, 21 players, 4 man TS, 21 keepers, .5 PPR, 6 pt passing TD, .04 return yards, 4 round rookie draft
Start 10: 1 QB / 1-3 RB / 2-5 WR / 1-3 TE / 1 K / 1 Def

QB- Wilson, Dalton, Bradford
RB- Howard, Henry, Kamara, Abdullah, Foreman, Breida
WR- Cooper, Green, Robinson(IR), Diggs, Cobb, Sheppard, Treadwell, Goodwin, Grant
TE - Eifert, Ertz

Astonishment
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Re: Success Profiler Study

Postby Astonishment » Thu Mar 16, 2017 1:33 pm

Here are the results for the pre-draft scoring. I am listing only notable players and indicating if there are any missing data points that could effect scoring. If there is a player you want a score on, I will update the list with that player but to keep it somewhat concise I am posting only highlighted scoring of more well known players. I will post each position in a separate post to help keep it clean.
12 Team, 21 players, 4 man TS, 21 keepers, .5 PPR, 6 pt passing TD, .04 return yards, 4 round rookie draft
Start 10: 1 QB / 1-3 RB / 2-5 WR / 1-3 TE / 1 K / 1 Def

QB- Wilson, Dalton, Bradford
RB- Howard, Henry, Kamara, Abdullah, Foreman, Breida
WR- Cooper, Green, Robinson(IR), Diggs, Cobb, Sheppard, Treadwell, Goodwin, Grant
TE - Eifert, Ertz

Astonishment
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Re: Success Profiler Study

Postby Astonishment » Thu Mar 16, 2017 1:51 pm

2017 RB Pre-Draft Success Profiler scoring
(RB pre-draft hit rates 15.0-7.0=80%, 6.9-4.0=65.7%, 3.9-2.0=27.3%, 1.9-2.0=20.5%, 2.1-10.0=7.0%)

D'Onta Foreman - 8.0
Joe Mixon - 7.0
Christian McCaffery - 5.8
Brian Hill - 3.3
Jeremy McNichols - 3.3 (incomplete score)
Leonard Fournette - 3.0 (incomplete score)
Joe Williams - 2.3
Marlon Mack - 2.3 (incomplete score)
Dalvin Cook - 1.5
Kareem Hunt - 0.8
Corey Clement - 0.5
De'Angelo Henderson - 0.5 (incomplete score)
Jamaal Williams - 0.5
Alvin Kamara - 0.7
Boom Williams - 1.2
James Conner - 1.5
Samaje Perine - 1.5
Donnel Pumphrey - 2.0
Wayne Gallman - 2.5
Matthew Dayes - 3.0
De'Veon Smith - 7.0

Updated - 4/7/17, players with incomplete scores are not accurate, but are now listed for context.
Last edited by Astonishment on Fri Apr 07, 2017 2:16 pm, edited 4 times in total.
12 Team, 21 players, 4 man TS, 21 keepers, .5 PPR, 6 pt passing TD, .04 return yards, 4 round rookie draft
Start 10: 1 QB / 1-3 RB / 2-5 WR / 1-3 TE / 1 K / 1 Def

QB- Wilson, Dalton, Bradford
RB- Howard, Henry, Kamara, Abdullah, Foreman, Breida
WR- Cooper, Green, Robinson(IR), Diggs, Cobb, Sheppard, Treadwell, Goodwin, Grant
TE - Eifert, Ertz

Astonishment
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Re: Success Profiler Study

Postby Astonishment » Fri Mar 17, 2017 5:44 am

2017 WR Pre-Draft Success Profiler scoring
(WR pre-draft hit rates 15.0-7.0=na, 6.9-3.0=60.8%, 2.9-0.0=37.9%, 0.1-2.0=15.4%, 2.1-15.0=12.0%)

Fred Ross - 3.5
Chris Godwin - 3.2
Chad Williams - 3.0
Taywan Taylor - 3.0
KD Cannon - 2.7
Carlos Henderson - 2.5
Zay Jones - 2.5
Amba Etta-Tawo - 2.0
Jalen Robinette - 2.0
John Ross - 2.0 (incomplete score)
Josh Reynolds - 1.5
Amara Darboh - 1.0
Curtis Samuel - 1.0
Dede Westbrook - 0.5
Juju Smith-Schuster - 0.0
Malachi Dupre - 1.3
ArDarius Stewart - 1.5 (incomplete score)
Chad Hansen - 1.5
Damore'ea Stringfellow - 1.5
Mike Williams - 1.5 (incomplete score)
Stacy Coley - 1.5
Cooper Kupp - 2.0
Isaiah Ford - 2.3
Jamari Staples - 2.5
Atavis Scott - 3.0
Ryan Switzer - 3.0
Travin Dural - 3.0
Jehu Chesson - 3.5

Updated - 4/7/17, players with incomplete scores are not accurate, but are now listed for context. Corey Davis has no measurable numbers, but for context on the basis of BMI and college production has a current score of 1.5. If he does not do anything at his personal workout then he will be removed from the study to not distort any future findings.
Last edited by Astonishment on Fri Apr 07, 2017 2:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.
12 Team, 21 players, 4 man TS, 21 keepers, .5 PPR, 6 pt passing TD, .04 return yards, 4 round rookie draft
Start 10: 1 QB / 1-3 RB / 2-5 WR / 1-3 TE / 1 K / 1 Def

QB- Wilson, Dalton, Bradford
RB- Howard, Henry, Kamara, Abdullah, Foreman, Breida
WR- Cooper, Green, Robinson(IR), Diggs, Cobb, Sheppard, Treadwell, Goodwin, Grant
TE - Eifert, Ertz

Astonishment
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Re: Success Profiler Study

Postby Astonishment » Fri Mar 17, 2017 6:05 am

2017 TE Pre-Draft Success Profiler scoring
(TE pre-draft hit rates 15.0-6.0=72.7%, 5.9-3.0=50.0%, 2.9-0.0=36.1%, 0.1-2.0=13.8%, 2.1-15.0=6.4%)

Evan Engram - 5.7
Bucky Hodges - 4.8 (incomplete score)
David Njoku - 4.5
Adam Shaheen - 4.0
OJ Howard - 3.7
Gerald Everett - 3.1
Jonnu Smith - 1.6 (incomplete score)
Mike Roberts - 0.8
Jordan Leggett - 0.3
Jeremy Sprinkle - 0.3
Darrell Daniels - 0.5 (incomplete score)
Cole Hikutini - 0.7
Pharaoh Brown - 1.9
Blake Jarwin - 2.6

Updated - 4/7/17, players with incomplete scores are not accurate, but are now listed for context.
Last edited by Astonishment on Fri Apr 07, 2017 2:17 pm, edited 3 times in total.
12 Team, 21 players, 4 man TS, 21 keepers, .5 PPR, 6 pt passing TD, .04 return yards, 4 round rookie draft
Start 10: 1 QB / 1-3 RB / 2-5 WR / 1-3 TE / 1 K / 1 Def

QB- Wilson, Dalton, Bradford
RB- Howard, Henry, Kamara, Abdullah, Foreman, Breida
WR- Cooper, Green, Robinson(IR), Diggs, Cobb, Sheppard, Treadwell, Goodwin, Grant
TE - Eifert, Ertz

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Re: Success Profiler Study

Postby jomaed » Fri Mar 17, 2017 8:11 am

Beautiful. Thanks.

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Re: Success Profiler Study

Postby Astonishment » Fri Apr 07, 2017 2:15 pm

With most of the pro day numbers in, I went ahead and updated the results. As before this is not the complete list of players charted, just the highlights.

Let me know if you want the score on any player not listed. Also if you have any questions about a score, let me know and I can give you the reason a specific player scored what he did.
12 Team, 21 players, 4 man TS, 21 keepers, .5 PPR, 6 pt passing TD, .04 return yards, 4 round rookie draft
Start 10: 1 QB / 1-3 RB / 2-5 WR / 1-3 TE / 1 K / 1 Def

QB- Wilson, Dalton, Bradford
RB- Howard, Henry, Kamara, Abdullah, Foreman, Breida
WR- Cooper, Green, Robinson(IR), Diggs, Cobb, Sheppard, Treadwell, Goodwin, Grant
TE - Eifert, Ertz

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Re: Success Profiler Study

Postby bruiser » Sun Apr 09, 2017 8:28 pm

Fantastic work here! Bravo.
Just a guy who loves fantasy football - specifically defense.


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