Fun With Numbers: Size Vs Speed

[Amarok]

Not sure how helpful/enlightening this is, but I thought I'd share this with the DLF community to derive from it whatever value there is.

This whole thing was born of a conversation with my girlfriend, who has gotten into fantasy football in the past year or so. Saturday morning, I was watching some college tape/doing some research and she saw the combine numbers of Dri Archer. She asked me a pretty reasonable question for a person new to fantasy football - Why isn't he a top-level RB prospect if he's so much faster than everyone else? I explained that you need a combo of size and speed to be successful, and she asked another pretty reasonable question - How can you tell what the right combination is? This got me thinking, and I decided to play with some combine numbers.

What I sought to do was find a way to compare apples and oranges (small, lightning fast players like Archer vs players who are enormous, but slower due to their size). In practical terms, I've essentially built a faux-measurement of force - mass * speed.

Calculating speed: I approached calculating speed recognizing that there are different kinds of speed. I specifically identified three: Long range speed, short range speed, and change of direction. I picked three pretty easy combine drills to measure these: 40 yard dash, 10 yard dash, and 20 yard shuttle. To put these three drills on relatively even footing, I changed all three results into a measurement of yards per second. For the forty: 40/dash time; For the ten: 10/ten time; For the shuttle: 20/shuttle time. Then I averaged those out to get a "Speed Score" of yards/second for the three drills. A very high speed score is around a 7; A very low score is around a 6.

Calculating size: I started off considering height and weight separately, but I quickly realized that they were two sides to the same coin and you really can't consider one without the other. A WR can be 6 foot 5, but if he's rail thin it's probably not going to matter. So I ended up using a laughably simple tool to find a player's size: divide his weight by his height in inches. By using a pounds-per-inch measurement, you see how solidly built a player is.

At that point, it was a simple multiplication of the two scores, which I then multiplied by 10 to highlight the difference a bit more. I started off doing this just for receivers. To recap, the calculation is:

(((40/40 yard dash)+(10/10 yard dash)+(20/20 yard shuttle))/3*(Weights in lbs/Height in inches))*10

Quincy Enunwa 207.2707273
Jeff Janis 203.2088393
Donte Moncrief 203.1680729
Kelvin Benjamin 201.6149377
Mike Evans 199.5908674
Allen Robinson 198.7299735
Josh Huff 196.3105271
Bennie Fowler 195.8867506
Albert Wilson 195.8448294
Sammy Watkins 195.0344592
Shaq Evans 194.8126189
Cody Hoffman 193.4066452
Davante Adams 193.2108013
Bruce Ellington 192.1180593
Odell Beckham Jr. 191.0748676
Brandin Cooks 191.0673555
Jordan Matthews 190.5861048
Martavis Bryant 190.0863002
Mike Campanaro 190.0715478
Marcus Lucas 188.5751108
Jeremy Gallon 187.8314511
Robert Herron 186.6847844
Brandon Coleman 185.9758553
Matt Hazel 183.692107
Ryan Grant 182.1971944
Marqise Lee 181.2349772
Jared Abbrederis 180.9920315
Jarvis Landry 180.9689259
Isaiah Burse 179.9345741
Dri Archer 179.488304
Damian Copeland 178.6766181
Kevin Norwood 178.0970531
Devin Street 177.6631681
Willie Snead 177.4834779
Allen Hurns 177.2514081
John Brown 176.7635694
Austin Franklin 175.7001133
T.J. Jones 175.3653546
Chris Boyd 174.0383693
Walt Powell 171.1168822
L'Damian Washington 169.8177957
De'Anthony Thomas 169.6733085
Corey Brown 169.4357996
Josh Stewart 166.8425362
Paul Richardson 166.2776726
Jalen Saunders 164.6466902
Tevin Reese 157.1537749

This was interesting, but I didn't have anything to weigh it against to see what it actually meant. So I went back and pulled 3-4 WRs from every draft class since 2000 to see where those numbers lined up:

Calvin Johnson 215.1656957
Vincent Jackson 212.184711
Julio Jones 201.3160246
Mike Williams 199.5902833
Pierre Garcon 199.4825741
Dwayne Bowe 199.1272563
Darrius Heyward-Bey 198.946234
Larry Fitzgerald 197.7201265
Robert Meachem 196.402887
Jordy Nelson 194.1768795
Hakeem Nicks 193.247193
Deion Branch 192.067522
Kenny Britt 191.7742639
Torrey Smith 191.288903
Mike Wallace 191.0276614
Alshon Jeffrey 190.5481007
Marques Colston 190.4813905
Anquan Boldin 190.4024618
Julian Edelman 189.5575953
Percy Harvin 189.2627687
Terrance Williams 187.9320712
Wes Welker 187.2442634
Greg Jennings 186.8622644
A.J. Green 186.2979908
Stephen Hill 186.0804223
Kendall Wright 185.9784367
Laurent Robinson 185.1473801
Steve Johnson 184.5111094
Davone Bess 183.2882264
Markus Wheaton 182.2815007
Randall Cobb 181.78799
Jeremy Maclin 181.0367372
Emmanuel Sanders 180.5891226
Tavon Austin 179.9763265
Robert Woods 179.8545444
Denarius Moore 179.8285692
Sidney Rice 177.8964528
Laveranues Coles 177.875862
Steve Smith 177.5837968
Justin Hunter 172.9738955
Jabar Gaffney 170.9897499
DeSean Jackson 165.0133681
Titus Young 163.4588847
Mario Manningham 160.8374075

Lastly, I ran this same test for the rookie RB class:

Andre Williams 217.13
Terrance West 215.57
Isaiah Crowell 209.78
Jerick McKinnon 209.75
Jeremy Hill 209.35
Damien Williams 209.12
Tyler Gaffney 208.94
Lorenzo Taliaferro 207.88
Tre Mason 206.74
Carlos Hyde 204.42
Bishop Sankey 203.93
Antonio Andrews 200.42
David Fluellen 199.91
Devonta Freeman 199.11
Kapri Bibbs 199.04
George Atkinson 198.58
Charles Sims 198.05
James White 195.96
Alfred Blue 195.82
LaDarius Perkins 195.13
Silas Redd 194.39
Jerome Smith 194.02
Ka'Deem Carey 193.66
James Wilder 193.45
Lache Seastrunk 193.07
Jordan Lynch 192.94
Tim Cornett 192.29
Henry Josey 191.73
Timothy Flanders 188.4
Storm Johnson 188.12

I'd love to hear what thoughts, if any, you all have on that this means in a practical sense. Clearly, this isn't predictive and probably isn't even something that should weigh heavily in player evaluations. It's also a very simplistic formula. And it completely ignores intangibles and other factors that make a player successful.

But it did put a few players on my radar that otherwise weren't and offers some means of comparing players for what, ultimately, is their explosiveness - how quickly they get their weight moving and how quickly they can change direction.

[clarion contrarion]

reminds me if the time I asked a guy what time it was and taught me how to build a clock.

[teambadknees]

I think your pool of players from previous drafts is too small. What are we looking at as a good number 200 and above? Choosing only 3-4 from each draft probably will include a lot more hits than misses. For all we know there are a ton of guys posting 210 scores who sucked as a pro. If that's the case I guess you could say guys drafted in rounds 1-3 AND had scores over 200 are more likely to hit than bust. I think there may be a few metrics out there like this. I recall one using Megatron as a benchmark.

[DJB]

I find it interesting with the two top RB's listed. West and Williams are starting to gain some steam in terms of potential.

[flexcapacitor]

Like teambadknees said it seems like it needs some other kind of reference to to base it off of instead of picking random guys from the past. It might be interesting to see what the scores where from the rookie from the past few years. Then we could see how their score correlates with how their pro careers are going. But that would be a lot of work and might not yield any results. I appreciate the effort thus far.

[lifesyourcup]

20-yard shuttle times are fairly meaningless for skill players. The 3-cone is more "valuable".

Also, using 10-yard splits is unreliable because any 10-yard split time you see published anywhere is Unofficial.

[Amarok]

Thanks for the feedback thus far, everyone. Your point is well taken on needing a better point of comparison and I will try and run these tests for RBs and WR since 2000 to see what qualifies as an "elite" score for each positions. I think something important to keep in mind is this shouldn't be used as a main determining factor, but can definitely be used to supplement comparisons between players.

I find it interesting with the two top RB's listed. West and Williams are starting to gain some steam in terms of potential.

I 100% agree. I'll take it a step further and say that the top 5 listed RBs are all trending up at the moment. As far as WRs are concerned, the player that interests me more now compared to before I ran the test is Donte Moncrief - I'll definitely be checking out more tape of him before my drafts start.

[Amarok]

20-yard shuttle times are fairly meaningless for skill players. The 3-cone is more "valuable".

Also, using 10-yard splits is unreliable because any 10-yard split time you see published anywhere is Unofficial.

Interesting - A very simple tweak could use 3 cone over the 20 yard. Very simple fix. I'll update the test to include it.

[Amarok]

Alright - I ran this test (With some slight alterations to the calculations) on 441 WRs that have been in the NFL draft since 2000. Here are the top 25:

213.1941274 2003 Andre Johnson
212.184711 2005 Vincent Jackson
210.8930844 2007 Calvin Johnson
209.4975556 2012 Junior Hemingway
208.2435557 2011 Niles Paul
207.3314228 2010 Dez Bryant
207.026774 2013 Chris Harper
205.9672866 2011 Greg Little
205.0982497 2014 Quincy Enunwa
205.0236884 2013 Marcus Davis
204.4777241 2013 Mark Harrison
203.7558167 2006 Chad Jackson
203.2088393 2014 Jeff Janis
203.1680729 2014 Donte Moncrief
201.6149377 2014 Kelvin Benjamin
201.5031109 2012 Dwight Jones
201.3160246 2011 Julio Jones
201.2035732 2001 Chris Chambers
200.8438643 2011 Stephen Burton
200.6351223 2012 Gerell Robinson
200.3820827 2004 Larry Fitzgerald
199.8049657 2006 Hank Baskett
199.6855008 2013 Rodney Smith
199.5908674 2014 Mike Evans

Clearly, there are some major duds on that list, but by my count there are at least 6 stud pro WRs and a few more serviceable WRs - to say nothing of the fact that Buffalo Mike Williams, Pierre Garcon and Dwayne Bowe are all in the Top 31.

To answer what an "elite" score is, I've broken the findings down into percentiles.

Average Score: 184.6486331

Top 10% - Over 197.55
Top 20% - Over 193.14
Top 30% - Over 190.90
Top 40% - Over 187.73
Top 50% - Over 184.68
Top 60% - Over 181.80
Top 70% - Over 179.68
Top 80% - Over 176.67
Top 90% - Over 171.95
Lowest Score - 157.15

[Csl312]

I think you should add two things to your analysis. First, stratify your analysis by round of selection in the nfl draft. That will account for some of the skill aspects that combine stats can't capture. Second, what do the top 25 fantasy players score on this metric to compare to your top 25 in this metric. That could be pretty useful.

[italian_stallion21]

And maybe even add a bit of weighting to college production as that could help with the skill aspect as well.

[Amarok]

And maybe even add a bit of weighting to college production as that could help with the skill aspect as well.

If you have some suggestion on how to do that while maintaining a consistent, singular score, I'd be open to it. My concern is that including college performance introduces a lot of unseen variables - offensive system, coaching decisions, etc. My goal with this metric thus far is strictly to identify the best size vs speed combinations in players. And judging by the top 10 or so overall, it seems moderately successful at that.

Thanks for the feedback - Any suggestions you have on how to make your suggestion work is welcomed!

[italian_stallion21]

Hmm, yeah I think that would be impossible, you either would have to take college numbers at face value or not at all. Maybe you could take production and adjust based on strength of schedule, but even then it might not work very well.

[Amarok]

I think you should add two things to your analysis. First, stratify your analysis by round of selection in the nfl draft. That will account for some of the skill aspects that combine stats can't capture. Second, what do the top 25 fantasy players score on this metric to compare to your top 25 in this metric. That could be pretty useful.

These two might actually be pretty easy to put together - maybe even tonight. I'll see what I can do!

[Amarok]

Here is the average Size/Speed score by round:

1: 191.7949664
2: 185.7938862
3: 182.962993
4: 185.4518615
5: 183.0442887
6: 183.6710632
7: 185.0875628
Undrafted: 183.714536