Official/Final 2020 Rookie RB Ranks

[MEuRaH]

I just spent the last hour watching his season highlights and I'm genuinely confused. He's upright when he makes contact with defenders but he's moving the pile. He's not being asked to find many cutback lanes but he's doing it nearly perfectly when asked. He doesn't use proper technique when making defenders miss in the open field but he's making defenders miss.

WHAT THE HECK MAN!?

I don't know what to make of this. He's a completely different specimen than every other RB in the league. I'm in awe of what he's accomplished so far this year. Thankfully we get another week to see him play.

Moves like a 217lb Antonio Brown/Diontae Johnson, IMO could develop into the best route running RB in this class.

He definitely has WR moves in the open field, and he's probably already the best route runner for sure. I'm seeing a huge shift in running scheme and the kind of RBs that teams want to develop, which is good news for physical backs like Akers, who is extra special since he can do so well through the air as you've mentioned.

The system and RB have to fit and it'll work. Good for Akers and the Rams. I wonder if his career will be able to sustain the physicality of the position. It's the only possible downside I can think of.

[MEuRaH]

Good post

At the NFL level all drafted backs are going to look great. The purpose of scrutinizing is to try to find any possible reason to doubt them. I don't mind missing on a guy when I said "avoid" and he does well. It's great that Akers is doing so well and I'm 100% OK with being wrong. My fear is touting a back as a worthy early 1st rounder and he flops. That's something that'll happen eventually. I'm trying to avoid it.

[Chwf3rd]

WHAT THE HECK MAN!?

I can explain this to you. I think I already have. It’s because none of this:

I just spent the last hour watching his season highlights and I'm genuinely confused. He's upright when he makes contact with defenders but he's moving the pile. He's not being asked to find many cutback lanes but he's doing it nearly perfectly when asked. He doesn't use proper technique when making defenders miss in the open field but he's making defenders miss.

actually matters. You’ve spent spent so much time focusing on ill-defined concepts that are impossible to prove like “proper technique” that you’ve ignored Akers’ ability. He’s got feature back size and feature back speed and he plays in an offense committed to running the football. It’s the same thing with Henry, the same thing with Chubb, the same thing with Taylor, the same thing with Cook. As prospects, these guys had abilities and/or production data that clearly correlated with NFL success, and each time you ignored it because when you watched their YouTube highlights you didn’t like the way they planted their foot, or you don’t think his technique in the open field is “proper”.

You’re confused about why you missed on Akers and you’ve been wrong about these other players because you’re spending way, way too much time focusing on things that nobody has ever demonstrated to be predictive in any way. I imagine you watching a prospect finish a 60 yard touchdown run where he runs through a linebacker near the line of scrimmage and pulls away from the entire defense and being bewildered at how he could have scored because he never switched the ball to his outside arm. Try focusing on the things that matter.

He’s not the only one who falls into this trap. Waldmann is notorious for it and is the reason I don’t put much stock into his opinions. These guys actually are knowledgeable to know what they are watching technically and put in incredible amounts of hours watching film for every bit of minutia. The effort expended is truly amazing.

The problem seems to be that they are so caught up in the micro that sometimes they ignore the macro. The amalgam of less than ideal traits can add up to a product that as a whole exceeds expectations. In engineering we call those caught up in this to be suffering “analysis paralysis”. They are so wrapped up in the perfect that the expend substantial time and effort honing parts of a project when “good enough” would have moved the project forward with a perfectly acceptable outcome at much greater efficiency and much less expense.

Then on top of it, knowing that they do have technical expertise and know the exceptional effort they put in, it manifests some arrogance that they are sure their judgment is superior. They do have the courage to put their results in front of all, which is highly commendable but is also why they do what they do in the first place - to put their work on full display. They can tend to exaggerate their success despite knowing full well that their predictions have been made in sight of everyone and they can get very defensive when critiqued on incorrect assessments, which can abrade on many who follow their predictions - that can be somewhat understandable given the some who can go over the top in taking them to task on their misses.

I’ll admit that years ago I used to fall into this trap. Part of my job as a coach was to watch film in an effort to improve players by diagnosing weaknesses and trying to coach them out of flaws. I’d spend hours on game tape looking for the little things that when corrected would make players better. I carried that over in FF also. It took a little bit to realize the error of my mistakes - I would completely ignore the amalgam of a player because I was focused on the minutia. I finally realized that I did much better just trusting my eyes in reviewing overall performance rather than drilling down into the minor flaws, and as a result my outcomes ended up being much more successful.

I managed to learn from my mistakes as well as recognizing that there is just no way to create a generalized model of success when dealing with such an incredibly variant creature as a human being. Some players are nothing less than amazing in how they can adjust to their flaws internally and self correct in other ways to overcome what would appear to be flaws that would make them incapable of success. You just can’t examine and measure some intangibles, which is why some apparent sure things miss and some apparent dregs rise to the top.

My advise would be to get away from drilling down so far into the minutia and focus instead on the overall player - in other words, trust your eyes. Own your mistakes and learn from them instead of trying of trying to cover them up to inflate your alleged successes - everyone sees the results and you aren’t going to bluff your way through it without damaging your credibility severely. And grow a thick skin if you are going to make your results public because there are always a few out there who will stalk you irrationally and relentlessly for your misses - learn to ignore them and instead interact with the greater majority who do want to learn - and to help. Take your misses - and your hits - in stride and know that you’ll have plenty more of both in the future. After all, you’re trying to predict future behavior of the incredibly unpredictable in human beings. And know finally that humility is going to win over a lot more people than arrogance.

Think this is a good point -- but should not be taken to the extreme in some imaginary film vs analytics debate as evidence than film watching is a waste of time.

With Akers, it was clear that he demonstrated every important trait you look for in a RB: (1) burst, (2) contact balance, (3) toughness/violence, (4) lateral agility, (5) pass catching. And he did this is a feature back sized frame with combine testing to back it up.

He was a little raw (still is) and needed some work but all the ingredients you want were there to see and he was/is incredibly young with minimal RB experience.

[Bronco Billy]

Good post

At the NFL level all drafted backs are going to look great. The purpose of scrutinizing is to try to find any possible reason to doubt them. I don't mind missing on a guy when I said "avoid" and he does well. It's great that Akers is doing so well and I'm 100% with being wrong. My fear is touting a back as a worthy early 1st rounder and he flops. That's something that'll happen eventually. I'm trying to avoid it.

It will happen, as you acknowledge. Don’t let it get you down. You can’t put a caliper on heart and mental toughness among other things. Take it for what it is, own it and learn what you can from it, and plow ahead. Your posts help out a lot of people and generate great discussion. That’s the reward. Keep up the great work!

[OhCruelestRanter]

Good post

At the NFL level all drafted backs are going to look great. The purpose of scrutinizing is to try to find any possible reason to doubt them. I don't mind missing on a guy when I said "avoid" and he does well. It's great that Akers is doing so well and I'm 100% OK with being wrong. My fear is touting a back as a worthy early 1st rounder and he flops. That's something that'll happen eventually. I'm trying to avoid it.

That’s fine, but then it would probably make sense to structure your reports that way instead of doing rankings. It’s fundamentally flawed to rank players and basically unilaterally evaluate their flaws without considering that somebody like Taylor has vaguely Kryptonian traits.

The other thing is you should also probably consider evaluating these guys based on factors that are actually predictive of busting- things like poor size-speed ratios and earning a smaller percentage of the touches on their college offense.

[Pac_Eddy]

Might just be me, but this feud going on the last couple of days is a real drag. I'm enjoying this forum less as half of the new posts is just a cat fight.

Someone needs to man up and stop responding. Let it die.

Edit: this may have been a misdirected lash out. Just drained by some recent threads that devolved into unproductive flaming and people calling each other out. I'll do better next time.

[OhCruelestRanter]

Might just be me, but this feud going on the last couple of days is a real drag. I'm enjoying this forum less as half of the new posts is just a cat fight.

Someone needs to man up and stop responding. Let it die.

Edit: this may have been a misdirected lash out. Just drained by some recent threads that devolved into unproductive flaming and people calling each other out. I'll do better next time.

I was actually trying to be helpful in this one, honest.

[CGW]

Might just be me, but this feud going on the last couple of days is a real drag. I'm enjoying this forum less as half of the new posts is just a cat fight.

Someone needs to man up and stop responding. Let it die.

Edit: this may have been a misdirected lash out. Just drained by some recent threads that devolved into unproductive flaming and people calling each other out. I'll do better next time.

You aren't the only one thinking it and I agree. I'd rather watch the policital circus than read this garbage. The personal attacks are a bit much in a game that is almost purely guessing/luck. Get over yourselves. This whole website is speculations and opinion...if someone doesn't agree with you, who cares.

[Dynasty DeLorean]

He’s not the only one who falls into this trap. Waldmann is notorious for it and is the reason I don’t put much stock into his opinions. These guys actually are knowledgeable to know what they are watching technically and put in incredible amounts of hours watching film for every bit of minutia. The effort expended is truly amazing.

The problem seems to be that they are so caught up in the micro that sometimes they ignore the macro. The amalgam of less than ideal traits can add up to a product that as a whole exceeds expectations.

"Can't see the forest through the trees". I remember scouting Godwin and being really high on him. Then I watched a Waldman video in which he was pretty meh on Godwin, and I remember one play in particular Waldman was harping about for so long that Godwin jumped to catch a pass where he may not have had to jump. I think a lot of these tape guys go wrong not because they're incorrect about what they're saying but because the emphasis doled out to each thing is in incorrect proportions.

[Chwf3rd]

He’s not the only one who falls into this trap. Waldmann is notorious for it and is the reason I don’t put much stock into his opinions. These guys actually are knowledgeable to know what they are watching technically and put in incredible amounts of hours watching film for every bit of minutia. The effort expended is truly amazing.

The problem seems to be that they are so caught up in the micro that sometimes they ignore the macro. The amalgam of less than ideal traits can add up to a product that as a whole exceeds expectations.

"Can't see the forest through the trees". I remember scouting Godwin and being really high on him. Then I watched a Waldman video in which he was pretty meh on Godwin, and I remember one play in particular Waldman was harping about for so long that Godwin jumped to catch a pass where he may not have had to jump. I think a lot of these tape guys go wrong not because they're incorrect about what they're saying but because the emphasis doled out to each thing is in incorrect proportions.

100% agree. 95% of the focus should be on evaluating fundamental traits rather than the minutiae. Big, powerful, explosive, violent players tend to succeed in the NFL.

[MEuRaH]

100% agree. 95% of the focus should be on evaluating fundamental traits rather than the minutiae. Big, powerful, explosive, violent players tend to succeed in the NFL.

And it's not that I disagree, but these athletes drafted in the first 3 rounds of the NFL draft are by and large, big, powerful, etc. So we need to try to find something else to help separate them.

Plus it's fun.

[OhCruelestRanter]

100% agree. 95% of the focus should be on evaluating fundamental traits rather than the minutiae. Big, powerful, explosive, violent players tend to succeed in the NFL.

And it's not that I disagree, but these athletes drafted in the first 3 rounds of the NFL draft are by and large, big, powerful, etc. So we need to try to find something else to help separate them.

Plus it's fun.

Right, except when they aren’t! CEH is explicitly not those things. And that’s the point everybody is making- when you’re comparing Swift and Akers, sure, focus on that stuff. They were comparable prospects and athletes. CEH wasn’t in JT’s stratosphere as an athlete or a college producer. That’s the forest.

Hat tip to Chwf3rd, DD, and BroncoBilly for great explanations of why these guys keep missing on the same types of players.

[cantguardjake]

I hated Akers initially for all of the reasons Mike mentioned, he doesn’t run at all like a traditional running back.

The more I watched the more I realised it’s actually not a bad thing, he just had X factor.

He’s awesome to watch, glad I changed my mind on him.

[YouMightDieTryin]

[stoneghost28]

WHAT THE HECK MAN!?

I can explain this to you. I think I already have. It’s because none of this:

I just spent the last hour watching his season highlights and I'm genuinely confused. He's upright when he makes contact with defenders but he's moving the pile. He's not being asked to find many cutback lanes but he's doing it nearly perfectly when asked. He doesn't use proper technique when making defenders miss in the open field but he's making defenders miss.

actually matters. You’ve spent spent so much time focusing on ill-defined concepts that are impossible to prove like “proper technique” that you’ve ignored Akers’ ability. He’s got feature back size and feature back speed and he plays in an offense committed to running the football. It’s the same thing with Henry, the same thing with Chubb, the same thing with Taylor, the same thing with Cook. As prospects, these guys had abilities and/or production data that clearly correlated with NFL success, and each time you ignored it because when you watched their YouTube highlights you didn’t like the way they planted their foot, or you don’t think his technique in the open field is “proper”.

You’re confused about why you missed on Akers and you’ve been wrong about these other players because you’re spending way, way too much time focusing on things that nobody has ever demonstrated to be predictive in any way. I imagine you watching a prospect finish a 60 yard touchdown run where he runs through a linebacker near the line of scrimmage and pulls away from the entire defense and being bewildered at how he could have scored because he never switched the ball to his outside arm. Try focusing on the things that matter.

+1,000,000,000,000

And not even person specific, I'm applying this to anyone who leans in on this.

Just going through my own teams Draft thread of hundreds of pages at extremeskins, so much of the thread is littered with "I need to watch more tape of", "I need to look at his throwing from platform/off platform", I need to see how he handles his first step off the press

yadayayadayaydadayaya --------!

It's complete horse ----. Just people speculating w/bias on what they like versus what they don't like (I'd love to see how many trade offers across MFL hosted platforms alone were made for Henry off the "tape" of his annihilation of that guy stiff arm on that MNF or TNF game from a year or two ago alone to illustrate that. One beloved bias of people is running backs who run through people, rather than RB's who avoid people with finesse moves that slip/avoid tackles and injury for instance.) and imagining what they're seeing is fact, when it's often a mixture of open to interpretation moments, and bias, period.

I have no doubt you can dig through tape and pull out stuff that's bad or good, I also have no doubt that the more you dig the more opaque reality gets for you.