I'll read this tomorrow. I must say though, you and CK have pretty much put me over the top on Brandin Cooks; would love to see him in a Dolphins uniform in 2014.
For my Devin Street fans out there, here's how it all breaks down. Finally we get back to normal wide receiver numbers, no players with ridiculous amounts of screens or anything like that. First off, I've got every game but the Pitt-Navy game (which is a frustrating 9 receptions missing). Street's distribution of catches is pretty even, only 10% of his receptions are screens - the rest are between 20 and 27% of his total receptions, which is pretty similar to DeAndre Hopkins last year. Also 23% of his receptions are 20+ yards, which would be even higher than last year's leader - Terrance Williams. His YAC on all receptions is a solid 5.9, which you can't complain about. It's right about where you'd expect a solid player to be. On the three whole screens he's caught, he's averaged 7.7 yards after the catch. In the 30 receptions I have for him, and 50 total targets - I don't have a single drop. That's excellent of course. Where you might be concerned, if you were a worrying type of person is in his lack of route diversity. Square routes breaking in and out represent 44% of his total catches while posts,corner and slants represent another 37%. In 50 targets I only have him breaking back to the QB twice, and only one reception in 30. That's not to say he can't do it, he's just not asked to frequently. If you're looking for a guy doing it all, Street isn't it. However, you do have the alignment diversity we've discussed in here. 33% of his receptions have come in the slot where he's averaged 22.9 yards per reception (more than his overall 17.3 yards). You may look at Street's overall production and say...well he's only got 690 yards, that's not very much. Tom Savage is missing Street on 40% of his total targets (20/50) and targeting him on 27.9% of his passes (lower than average). If Street had an average QB who targeted him on average, he'd have 200+ yards or around 900 total yards right now. Something to consider if total production is something that bothers you.
Just as a piece of advice, if you start doing google video searches of that Pitt-Navy game I BELIEVE you will find really high quality video of it on a Navy fansite. I'm not sure they have the video but I watched particularly the touchdown, which was pretty keen as I recall.
As a rule, I try to remain positive while watching college football. These are college kids who are trying their best to get through school, life and football. That's commendable. But holy sħit does watching Blake Bell try to throw make my eyes bleed. I mean he makes Tyler Bray and his overthrows look like Peyton Manning. A quick calculation suggests that if Jalen Saunders even had an average QB throwing to him (just from a perspective of targets and misses), he'd have 39% more yardage. And god forbid Bell throw a ball further than 5 yards down the field. /rant
[video=youtube;gODZzSOelss]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gODZzSOelss[/video] Definarely need to give those guys a look, especially Dan Smith.
Houston true freshman QB O'korn looks to have a bright future. Assuming our new GM isnt sold on Tannehill.
I'm very interested in the statistical breakdown of Odell Beckham Jr. On film, he's the best pure route runner and gets open better than any wide receiver I've seen in college football. I've seen him on two previous occasions, and I am watching him against Alabama tonight. The guy is very quick in and out of his breaks. He doesn't have to gear down. The times when he doesn't create a large cushion between he and the defender, he shows the ability to go up and get the football. He's a great athlete, very smooth. Looks like he can play both outside and in the slot. Based on what I've seen on film, my guess is he will probably not be very high on RAC yards because he catches a lot of out-breaking routes, but he will be among the leaders at how far down the field he catches the football. [video=youtube;1cjvErKu35g]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1cjvErKu35g[/video]
You're in luck, because I've charted Odell Beckham Jr (and Jarvis Landry), I just hadn't written anything up yet. His overall YAC is around 6.0. That's actually really solid, and isn't too low like you had expected. He doesn't have a ton of catches in the endzone, but he has 8 TDs and 4 of those were caught in the endzone, so his YAC bumps up to 6.6 when you factor those out. He doesn't run a lot of screens, 4 total on 47 receptions, but on those he's averaged 8.5 yards after the catch. Take that for whatever it's worth. The averaged catch for Beckham comes 14.9 yards down the field, which is around where Terrance Williams was last year - among the deepest of all WRs I've looked at. 49% of his receptions come in the 11-20 yard range and 19% of his receptions come 20+ yards down the field. So he's a huge threat on deep routes. He most often breaks back to the QB on his routes, comprising 37% of his total receptions. Almost every WR I've looked at averages 2.5 YAC on comebacks, interestingly Beckham averages 5.2 yards. This could mean a few things: 1. He's getting a lot of separation on those routes, 2. DBs aren't expecting those routes, 3. He has quality run after catch skills allowing him to elude DBs on routes difficult to normally gain YAC on. It's probably a combination of all three of those. His drop rate is around 7.8% (or 4 drops on 51 catchable balls). That's right in the middle between 'not worried' and 'too many drops'. However, I've seen him make some pretty spectacular catches, so I'm not as concerned as if he was just catching and/or dropping wide open receptions. Mettenberger is pretty evenly targeting Landry and Beckham, both with around 30% of his overall throws. However, he's missing Beckham (24% miss rate) more than Landry (14% miss rate). This is likely because Beckham is being targeted deep so much more often than Landry who mostly catches screens and 1-5 yard balls. Crude calculations suggest that if Mettenberger were hitting Beckham more often, he'd have about 30% more yardage at this point in the season. That doesn't take into account a few things though, including depth of routes. I'm working on a more advanced way to normalize WRs (for routes, QB, throw depth) and create a "production score", so I'll post that when I'm done. If you have any questions about any other data I might have on Beckham, let me know as I probably left out some things.
Good stuff. I'd like to see how well he does in 3rd and 8 situations and what his numbers look like in the 4th quarter and the score is + or - 7 points in difference. Based on my limited film work on him and the statistics you present, if the Dolphins happen to keep Joe Philbin around, he seems to be a great fit for the style of offense he wants to play.
Don't have the 4th quarter data as I don't keep quarter/ score differential data because you can typically get it here: http://www.cfbstats.com/blog/college-football-data/ I've got Beckham in seven 3rd/4th and 8+ situations. 4/7 were converted through the air, that is he caught them past the sticks. 2/7 were misses and 1/7 was dropped. He didn't convert any of them by catching it before the sticks and running for the 1st. On all receptions (41 total), 76.6% were converted by receptions past the first down marker, 10.6% were converted by gaining the first down with yards after the catch, 12.8% were caught before the first down line and were stopped before gaining a first down. That compares to someone like Jarvis Landry who caught 56% of receptions past the sticks, gained 22% after the catch, and was stopped before a first down on 22%.
I've been posting a ton about WRs so far, I'm trying to get as many charted right now as possible. But my question is...if you're drafting a number one WR this year, do you pick Sammy Watkins or Mike Evans assuming they both come out? I know it's early, but I'm curious where people are at.
If I'm drafting a receiver, I'll go with Sammy Watkins. I think it depends on what you already have in the cupboard though.
Tough question. I think it could be argued that Evan's big physical presence could be of greater need to this offense, however, if we're to continue with this same type of offensive scheme then I think Sammy fits it better, and if Wallace isn't in the long term plans then Sammy might make more sense. But then again I'd want to first know who next year's OC is.
I'm going with Evans on this. I love Sammy Watkins, but I think Evans' total package of skills is just a little more rare. I see the system argument, but at this level I think you take who you view to be the better player and build the system around that.
If we're willing to change the system then I'd probably go with Evans as well. Would you want to be more vertically oriented with he and Wallace?... and perhaps with a big athletic TE working the middle to take advantage of it?
Well first off, why do we really believe that a system change is even needed? It kind of assumes that the current setup with Mike Wallace is ideal for this system. I think the fact that Wallace is having a hard time fitting into the system argues against that. What I've seen from Mike Evans this year more often is separation on the hoof. He's not just separating because of nifty agility or the style of coverage, I've seen him get separation by just RUNNING and then maintaining that separation. And he's probably the most play-making receiver in the college game right now as far as what he's doing way down the field, and no that isn't all just jump balls. Basically he's showing me from a physical standpoint, there aren't any holes in his game. From a mental standpoint? I don't know yet. I know that too often all he has to do is just make up his route as he goes because that's what Manziel likes him to do because Manziel rarely reads the field from the pocket and throws the football with timing. So there's a lot that Evans will need to learn from a mental standpoint and you have to be very careful in reading his attitude and demeanor whether he's going to embrace that or if he's always going to be wishing he could just improvise with his QB like he did with Manziel.
Reviewing the game Blake Bortles had against Houston. Was an interesting overall day. 1. Sometimes when you stick to the ground game, you live and die by it. This kind of happened here. UCF ran its tailbacks 37 times during the game. Bortles dropped back to pass it looks like only 26 times. He had 3 designed QB sneaks for 3 yards (converted on 4th & 1, 3rd & 1 and 3rd & 1). He had 1 more designed run play that was a QB option which he kept for 4 yards off a 2nd & 7. 2. Here's where the rubber meets the road on that. When a drive ends because your QB made some keen passes to get you in the tight red zone and then your RB fumbled the ball just before he was about to cross the goal line, you can't fault the QB for not scoring on that drive. Another drive ends because on 1st & 10 they put the ball in the hands of their ground game and they lost 2 yards, then they put it in their hands again on 2nd & 12 and they got a zero gain, and so now Bortles is faced with a very low odds 3rd & 12. What does he do? They're on the opponent 35 yard line (52 yard field goal). They need some yards to make the field goal. He checks down to a guy for 7 yards. They make the field goal. Is that bad on the QB? 3. One thing I continue to like about him is that he throws guys open. He's also pretty aware. On a play where the defense came offsides, he took a nice shot down the field trying to throw a guy open and see if he could adjust back to the ball. The receiver couldn't get there and the ball skipped a little short because Bortles was absorbing a vicious hit to the ribs as he was throwing. Pretty fearless guy. 4. On 2nd & 4 from the opponent 9-yard line, he rolls out and throws a perfect pass to the tight end, who drops it. That's a 1st & Goal from the 1- or 2-yard line, if not a touchdown. 5. On the 5th interception he's thrown all year (which came one play after the above)...some kind of miscommunication between QB and WR here. Bortles clearly thought the guy would be breaking in on a square in. The WR saw the DB squatting in man coverage at the 1st down marker and decided to release up the field instead. But Bortles had already thrown the football on the square-in. Defender easily broke on the ball, caught it. 6. This is something I've seen all year from him. He really trusts his guys in man coverage. He'll help them out with high ball placement when appropriate. But he trusts his guys to beat the man coverage and create separation. He trusts them to come back to the football on comebacks, and he trusts them to cross the defensive back's face on square-ins. 7. He uses his eyes to manipulate the defense a lot, and sometimes it can get him in trouble as he clicks off the eye fake and comes over to his intended target, and throws the ball without necessarily having located the defensive back to that side. But he clearly is one of those guys that uses his eyes and head to disguise what he's doing. Tannehill is not. 8. Boy was this a pretty play right here. NFL caliber for sure. I love how active he is with his eyes and head, trying to see everything. Once he gets into scramble mode he shifts his gaze to his right side to see whether the direction would be open to him, but watch as he turns his head again because in the back of his mind he knows that there's a pass rusher behind him likely chasing him. He tries to locate him, senses him and runs out as hard as he can to get away. Then after all that he sees a defender disengage and come to cream him, gets the football back up and throws a guy on the sidelines tho toe-taps inbounds. Wondeful play. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66Q8tNBTdOk&feature=player_detailpage#t=946 9. He really does back-foot more throws than are absolutely necessary. He's just confident in his arm. Dan Marino is famous for saying that if he's evaluating a QB he wants to see 100 back-foot throws because you're going to need to throw the football off leverage at the next level. But at the same time, some of his throws where he aims high in man coverage, the ball sails a little TOO high because he's not stepping all the way into it. Correctable, IMO. 10. He blew one drive in 1H by not recognizing a delayed LB blitz until too late and then not coming up with a better idea for beating it than to just turtle the ball to be safe. That drive ended in a field goal instead of a TD. 11. Made a huge error in the third quarter on a rollout. Backside defender had run to where he would turn around off the play fake, so he spun out of the contact and pulled the football back to throw the ball away (live to fight another day). Problem? An OL had blown his block on the play side and a DT was barreling toward Bortles' back. He plowed into Bortles as he tried to throw the football away, which caused a fumble recovered by Houston. I don't want to excuse him, but considering he made the first defender miss and was making the right throwaway decision, it's tough to fault him for getting bowled over by a DT who went unblocked. 12. Pretty keen throw on the run right here, NFL caliber play. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GURyMcXeNlE&feature=player_detailpage#t=467 13. Overall I like the way he responds. UCF was up 6-0 but then the fumble allowed Houston to go up 7-6. So he answered with two consecutive long TD drives to pull the score out to 19-6. Can't really tell which player he was throwing to on the 2-point conversion but the ball did go right through the tight end's outstretched hands. 14. Another keen series of two plays. Backed up in his own end zone. Pro caliber play, locating a secondary target on the run from a moving pocket. Watch the play immediately after it, too. What a throw on the money 40 yards down the field. Particularly pay attention to his pocket movement before the throw. Receiver catches the ball, gets hammered (illegally, flag thrown), ball comes dribbling out. Player injured. Shame. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GURyMcXeNlE&feature=player_detailpage#t=720 15. Once UCF got up 19-6 in the fourth quarter they clearly made an effort to run the clock out, giving him very little chance to affect the rest of the game. He threw three passes on the team's final two drives, and one of those was a tailback screen (not exactly something that allows the QB to affect the defense with his field reading ability). One of the two passes he aimed high in man coverage and got it about a foot too high. The other he caught a bad break and it got tipped at the line of scrimmage. Tough break. That's what allowed Houston the chance to try and win the game on the final play.
I haven't watched any college games this year but when I was checking out DeAndre Hopkins last year, Watkins was the one that really caught my eye. He's a top 10 pick imo.
I don't think we'd have to change the system to draft Evans, but if we're staying with the same system I do feel Sammy is a better fit. However I'm pretty much at an impasse between the two. With Sammy I know I'm getting a smart, selfless, highly passionate and motivated player who will give it his all. But between the two, Evans seems to possess the highest ceiling. I'd love to have both.
I doubt we look at either Evans or Watkins given our glaring weaknesses everywhere on the team. That being said, I think you have a predicament on your hands if you are trying to decide between the two. I think Watkins would fit better into our system, BUT that being said I think Tannehill would favor a WR with Evans skill set a lot more than Watkins. The more I think about it, the sadder I get that we never got to see Tannehill throw to Brandon Marshall. I think Tannehill would have thrived with a WR like that. He trusts his arm to sling it into coverage when the WR is covered yet in good position and Marshall used his body well to shield defenders. They could have been dynamic together.
Here's my most recent piece on Mike Evans, Jarvis Landry, Odell Beckham, and Allen Robinson. Or more aptly titled...why Mike Evans is awesome. I have no clue if the Dolphins will draft a WR, but here it is: http://secondroundstats.com/2013/11/12/wrs2/ I'm moving on to another position group after I finish getting Tevin Reese charted tonight. Likely defense as I've been stuck on offense for awhile now. We'll see what position.
Cornerbacks are a little hard to look at for the Dolphins right now. First we don't even know if they'd draft another CB with Jamar Taylor and Will Davis already getting no playing time. Second, with the possibility of a new coaching staff, it's hard to predict what type of corners they'd be looking for. Regardless, Darqueze Dennard of Michigan State is someone I listed being interested in at the beginning of the season and am still liking. Unlike Bradley Robey (another guy I had listed), Dennard's kept up his high level of play. Somewhere in the Club forum are the stats/write up on his last year stats, but I've only just started charting him for this year so no full sets of data. He's a physical player, playing up on the WR most of the time with a solid ability to get up and tackle. I'm not sure he's a huge ballhawk, he's got a decent 3 interceptions on the season. However, I love this play where he comes off his own man to make the deflection: http://youtu.be/4GJp7Wsqwic?t=2h2m47s On every play he was targeted against Indiana (8 times on 47 passes) except one he was right on the hip of his man. He's not going to blow you away with a 40 time, but I find his physicality and consistently high level of play appealing.
I seem to leave corners and safeties last nowadays as far as my evaluation cycle goes. I doubt Miami will be onto corners as they'll want to bring both Brent Grimes and Dimitri Patterson back, while giving Jamar Taylor and Will Davis the chance to grow.
Any opinions on Keith Wenning from Ball State? He plays tonight against Northern Illinois on ESPN which I think is his first national game of the season. Under the radar quarterback with nice accuracy and mechanics. Best quarterback in the MAC.
I'd give Jordan Lynch the best MAC QB vote, but I'm interested in watching. Though, my Dayton Flyers play tonight at 7...I'll try and watch both.
Great stuff! Personally, my rankings of the WR position at this time would go like this: 1. Mike Evans, 2. Odell Beckham Jr, 3. Sammy Watkins, 4. Jordan Matthews. I think Evans is a guy that has incredible triangle numbers with his size, speed, and overall athleticism. I think the fact that he has played with Manziel is both good and bad. It's good because you know he knows how to get himself open when the quarterback has to scramble. It's bad because he isn't a polished route runner at this point because of the fact that Manziel scrambles so much. Odell Beckham has all the polish that Evans lacks, but he doesn't have Evans's triangle numbers.
He looked good. Has all the tools. Takes what the defense gives him. Based on last night, I have to question his natural ability to handle pressure though, both the pressure of big moments and the pressure of having a defense pin their ears back and come after him. The first drive of the game was very shaky for him. He seemed like he was on a stage bigger than him, and he played like it. He really settled down after that drive and played his game, which involved a lot of Chad Henne type of passes. He took what the defense gave him, passed the football underneath and at the weakest spots. In the second half he did a better job challenging the seams a little bit. But there were moments in the game when you knew Ball State was going to have to lean on him a little, and it didn't seem like he stepped up in those moments. Maybe that's unfair, maybe it's a small sample size. I can see looking at the schedule he helped lead a game-winning touchdown drive against Toledo, completing 2 of 3 passes for 28 yards, although he never faced a 3rd down on the drive. But against North Texas, who I'm quite surprised they lost to, he got down 34-27 early in the fourth quarter and had three drives to do something about that...and he couldn't. In fairness, one of those drives ended with a zero gain run play on 3rd & 1, forcing a punt. But the final drive, the 2-minute drive, ended in interception. On the other hand against Kent State they're down 24-20 and he executes a 57-yard game winning touchdown drive, going 2 of 3 for 52 yards with the TD. Yet, the drive before they got the ball down 24-20 with 7:14 left and Ball State showed with their play calling that they wanted THAT to be the game-winning drive. He drove them 52 yards but the drive ended with 3 straight incomplete passes at the Kent State 10-yard line. They're kind of lucky they had the opportunity to still win the game after that. Then you've got how he sits in the pocket and handles the pass rush, which I'm not sure is at an NFL level. Overall what I worry about with Keith Wenning are the following: 1. Is he a Chad Henne, as far as how he attacks the defense and what passes he hits well, what passes he doesn't hit as well? 2. Does he use his face fundamentals to disguise his throws, or does he need to stare things down in order to read them quickly enough? 3. Does he handle pressure in the pocket well enough to throw punches back at an NFL defense when they're punching him? 4. How is he in big moments? There seem to be some issues sometimes. Otherwise the guy has the tools and he seems able to read a defense pre-snap, really take what the defense is giving him after the play starts. He can make every throw. He has good accuracy. He works the pocket as he is taught (though not necessarily in a manner that I think poses danger to defenses). He seems fundamentally sound. He has started a lot of games, and he's a good leader. He seems like he's coached well. My read on him is he might be another Chad Henne, in both the good and bad ways.
Yeah I made that post at halftime, that second half really turned me off. First half he looked real good. I think he will be there in later rounds, 4th might be a bit early for him considering how many quarterbacks will be coming out.
It's all got to be relative to other players. There could be a good quantity of guys of his caliber in this draft. The guys that sit head and shoulders above might be few and far between (Teddy Bridgewater and ... ??? ). But there will be a lot of guys like Blake Bortles, Tajh Boyd, Derek Carr, Zach Mettenberger, A.J. McCarron, Aaron Murray, Jimmy Garoppolo, David Fales, Stephen Morris, Jeff Matthews and Keith Wenning. It may get hard to differentiate a lot of these guys from one another.
Did you do one on RB's yet? Never too early to start looking for depth for my dynasty team. EDIT: Found it.
After dropping to Day 2 with his early 2013 play, Tajh Boyd is getting back on track now that he's developing some chemistry and trust with his young inexperienced pass-catching group. I mean, he lost 2 of his 3 top receivers from 2012 [Hopkins & Jaron Brown], his go-to TE [Brandon Ford], his trustworthy RB who was great out of the backfield [Ellington]. Those were all experienced players whom he had a few year's of chemistry with. Then this year he lost Hopkins' heir, Charone Peake. He's starting to look like the Tajh Boyd of last year but he's got some work to do to get back into the 1st round mix IMO.
That plus I love watching Watkins just snatch balls out of the air and then accelerate. I know we have much bigger issues but I wouldnt mind picking Watkins at all if he was still around.
No team with uncertainties at WR could go wrong with Sammy, us included.... especially in today's NFL. IMO our receiving corps could very much use a dependable playmaker like Sammy who can beat defenses at all levels of the field.
As I'm watching him and a lot of other QBs now though, I'm starting to notice a lot of ball placement issues in Tajh Boyd, especially down the field where he seems to throw too far inside a lot.
I haven't taken the time to break down his film yet this year, however, watching the games as a fan I can tell the accuracy, decision-making, rhythm, and timing have been off. I think he was putting too much pressure on himself to do too much with his inexperienced surrounding cast, but the past few weeks he seems to be falling back into place and you can tell he's developing some rapport with the youngens.
