It was just three years ago that the New York Jets decided they absolutely needed to trade into the top 3 of the 2018 NFL Draft. The decision was bad at the time and looks worse in hindsight: not only did New York whiff by drafting Sam Darnold, one of the biggest draft busts in recent history, but the Jets could have taken either Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson with the team’s original pick.

The package that New York sent to Indianapolis for the 3rd pick was massive: New York sent the 6th overall pick (Quenton Nelson), along with the 37th (Braden Smith) and 49th (Dallas Goedert) picks, plus a 2019 2nd round pick (34th overall, Rock Ya-Sin) for the rights to acquire whoever would be there at three. The Jets got “lucky” in that Darnold, for much of the pre-draft process considered the presumptive first overall pick, was even available to them at three. As I wrote at the time, the Jets chose the rights to the third quarterback ^[1]Which, after the Giants drafted Saquon Barkley, turned into the second available quarterback. available in the draft over getting Lamar Jackson plus four second round picks. It has worked out to such a poor degree that the Jets are one month away from using the #2 overall pick that the Darnold-led Jets very much earned on Darnold’s successor.

Well, the 49ers decided what was bad for the Jets would be good for them. Because San Francisco decided to acquire Miami’s 3rd overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft — ostensibly the right to select the third quarterback in the draft after the Jaguars and Jets have their picks — for a similarly enormous haul. San Francisco sent the 12th overall selection, along with its 1st and 3rd round picks in 2022, and its first round pick in 2023 in exchange for that third overall selection.

Can we calculate just how much the 49ers overpaid for the rights to the third pick? Under my draft value chart, the 3rd pick is worth 27.6 points while the 12th pick is worth 18.8 points; of course, those are just average values, and the 49ers feel like the dropoff in quality between a quarterback available at 3 and a quarterback available at 12 is enormous.

Let’s assume that the 49ers two first round picks will be average; pick 16 is valued at 16.9 points. If we assume a 10% discount rate on future picks for each season, that puts those two picks at 15.2 and 13.5 points, respectively. The 49ers are also sending a 2022 3rd round pick which is a comp pick (in this case, compensation for the Jets hiring Robert Saleh as head coach); that pick should be right around pick 100, worth 5.3 points. Apply a 10% discount, and we get 4.8 points.

So the 49ers gave up draft picks worth 18.8, 15.2, 13.5, and 4.8 points, for a total of 52.3 points. That is, obviously, a significant package, equivalent to the first overall pick in the draft plus another top-15 pick. To move up from 12 to 3, the 49ers gave up more than the Jets did when they moved up from 6 to 3; the Jets overall sent more total value to draft Darnold than San Francisco did to draft QB3 this year, but overall, the teams are pretty similar: [continue reading…]

In Part I, we learned that there is a correlation between 40-yard dash times and wide receiver success in the NFL. Today, I want to look at a third variable: NFL Draft status.

My sample once again comprises the 853 wide receivers who ran the 40-yard dash at the NFL combine from 2000 to 2017. All data is publicly available from PFR, via Stathead Football. If you think there was a strong correlation between 40-yard dash time and NFL production, wait until you see the correlation between 40-yard dash time and draft status.

In the table below, the average draft value represents the FP draft value associated with each pick. A higher number means more draft value — i.e., an earlier pick — was used to select those players. [continue reading…]

The NFL Draft is supposed to help promote parity in the league. By giving the teams with the worst records the best draft picks, all teams are pushed to regress towards the mean over time. The Jaguars and Jets were the worst two teams in the 2020 NFL season, and they have the first two picks in the 2021 NFL Draft, giving those organizations a chance to land franchise-altering quarterbacks.

But the third pick belongs to the Miami Dolphins, as the last bit of compensation in the Laremy Tunsil trade. Miami is the rare team that was both good last year and has a ton of draft capital, which could set the team up for long-term success.

Yesterday, the NFL released the final order for the entire 2021 NFL Draft. Using both the traditional, Jimmy Johnson draft chart and the Football Perspective Draft Value Chart, below is how much draft capital each organization has, from most to least. [continue reading…]

In 2019, Carolina wide receiver D.J. Moore gained 1,175 receiving yards; in 2020 he caught 66 passes for 1,193 yards. Strong seasons, to be sure, but probably not too noteworthy in your head. For instance, over the last two seasons, there have been 15 players who had more than 1,193 receiving yards in either 2019 or 2020.

But among that group, tight end Travis Kelce is the only one who did it in both years. In fact, Moore is the only wide receiver to hit 1,175 yards in both seasons. Drop the threshold to 1,165 yards, and DeAndre Hopkins also joins the group. Drop down to 1,130, and then Stefon Diggs and Allen Robinson also make the cut (as does another tight end, Darren Waller). But no matter: if one is playing a game of trivia, D.J. Moore is the answer to the question: which wide receiver topped the highest threshold of receiving yards in each of the past two season?

That’s funky, of course, and a misleading way of implying that Moore might be the best receiver in the NFL. In addition to Kelce, four wide receivers (Diggs, Hopkins, Robinson, and Davante Adams) gained more receiving yards than Moore and a few others (Michael Thomas, Julio Jones, Chris Godwin, Calvin Ridley, and Tyreek Hill) also have averaged more receiving yards per game than Moore. ^[1]Allen Robinson actually averaged fewer yards per game; Moore played 15 game both years, while Robinson did not miss a game. But misleading stats can also make for fun trivia, so this made me wonder: who are the other D.J. Moore all stars in NFL history?

For example, Michael Thomas crossed the highest threshold in both 2018 and 2019, as he was the only player to top 1,400 yards both seasons. In 2017 and 2018, DeAndre Hopkins had over 1,375 receiving yards both years. In fact, 2019 and 2020 was the first time since the strike-impacted seasons of 1987 and 1988 that no wide receiver topped 1,200 yards both seasons.

The table below shows the leading wide receiver in each pair of seasons since the merger, from the perspective of crossing a certain minimum threshold. [continue reading…]

The 2020 Atlanta Falcons starting offensive linemen were all former first round picks. Atlanta drafted right guard Chris Lindstrom and right tackle Kaleb McGary in the first round of the 2019 Draft, five years after using the 6th overall pick on Texas A&M left tackle Jake Matthews. In 2016, Atlanta signed center Alex Mack, the 21st pick in the 2009 Draft, away from the Browns to a monster deal; he’s been the center of the team’s offensive line ever since. And in the 2019 offseason, the left guard spot was pugged by James Carpenter, who had been a first round pick out of Alabama and then played four seasons each with the Seahawks and Jets.

It should go without saying that that is a lot of highly drafted offensive linemen for one team, even if Atlanta only drafted three of the players. ^[1]The Falcons also had five first round picks on offense outside of the offensive line: the Falcons drafted QB Matt Ryan, WR Julio Jones, and WR Calvin Ridley in the first round, too, and added former … Continue reading Let’s compare them to the Green Bay Packers, who had arguably the best offensive line in the NFL and trotted out the following starting five:

• LT David Bakhtiari (4th round pick by the Packers in 2013)
• LG Elgton Jenkins (2nd round pick by the Packers in 2019)
• C Corey Linsley (5th round pick by the Packers in 2014)
• RG Lucas Patrick (undrafted free agent out of Duke signed by the Packers in 2017)
• RT Billy Turner (3rd round pick by the 2014 Dolphins, signed by Green Bay in the 2019 offseason)

The Packers had one of the least heralded group of offensive linemen in the league — at least from a draft perspective (in other news, the entire left side of the line made the Pro Bowl). How does that compare to the rest of the NFL? [continue reading…]

Welcome to part 17 of the Grand List, or: the top 1000 players in history (in my opinion, as of the end of the 2019 season). The original plan for this series was to have it done by the start of the 2020 season. That didn’t happen. In order to keep every player on the same playing field, I’m going to continue the presenting the series without including the 2020 season (it hardly seems fair to exclude 2020 for Nuk Hopkins but include it for Julio). ^[1]Spoiler alert! Quintorris made the list. This portion of the list has something for everyone, unless you fancy yourself a special teams enthusiast. We have passers, pure runners, receiving backs with confusing legacies, antediluvian receivers, linemen and linebackers of all kinds, a cover corner, and some hard hitting safeties. It’s safe to think of everything from this point on as a list of players whose play merits strong Hall of Fame consideration. ^[2]Note, there are several players who would move up (or even onto) the list were I to include 2020. Off the top of my head, I can think of 18 players already on the list who would move up. I can think … Continue reading

Previous articles in the series

The Grand List, part 1: Includes honorable/special mentions and players 1000-990.
The Grand List, part 2: Includes players 989-965.
The Grand List, part 3: Includes players 964-940.
The Grand List, part 4: Includes players 939-901.
The Grand List, part 5: Includes players 900-876.
The Grand List, part 6: Includes players 875-851.
The Grand List, part 7: Includes players 850-810.
The Grand List, part 8: Includes players 809-780.
The Grand List, part 9: Includes players 779-750.
The Grand List, part 10: Includes players 749-700.
The Grand List, part 11: Includes players 699-650.
The Grand List, part 12: Includes players 649-600.
The Grand List, part 13: Includes players 599-550.
The Grand List, part 14: Includes players 549-500.
The Grand List, part 15: Includes players 499-450.
The Grand List, part 16: Includes players 449-400

Away we go!

[continue reading…]

Over at FiveThirtyEight, Josh Hermsmeyer recently wrote about wide receivers and 40-yard dash times. Using yards per route run as his measure of productivity, Josh concluded “that higher speed isn’t associated with higher on-field production.” Today I want to take a deep dive into the question of how much 40-yard dash times are correlated with wide receiver success. For a very long time, people have argued that 40-yard dash times are overrated (actually, for a very long time, people have argued that just about everything is overrated). But such a comment is paper thin, because it’s unclear exactly how “rated” 40-yard dash times are, anyway. So let’s skip the overrated/underrated analysis and dive into the data.

My sample comprises the 853 wide receivers who ran the 40-yard dash at the NFL combine from 2000 to 2017. ^[1]Why those years? PFR’s data only goes back to 2000, and players who participated at the combine more recently than 2017 have not yet accrued four NFL seasons. All data is publicly available from PFR, via Stathead Football. I then looked at how many receiving yards those players gained in their first four seasons in the NFL. ^[2]Chosen because this represents the average length of a rookie contract. The question of what metric to use to measure production is a complicated one: receiving yards is not perfect (and I will revisit this decision at the end of the article), but it should work well enough for these purposes.

On average, these 853 players ran the 40-yard dash in 4.51 seconds and gained a total of 678 receiving yards in their first four seasons; this includes the 360 of them who never gained a receiving yard in the NFL. The top three wide receivers by receiving yards over this period ^[3]This analysis, of course, excludes players who were not invited to the combine like Tyreek Hill and Josh Gordon, undrafted players like Victor Cruz, Robby Anderson, and Doug Baldwin, and players who … Continue reading were Michael Thomas, A.J. Green, and Anquan Boldin, who ran the 40-yard dash in 4.57, 4.48, and 4.72 seconds, respectively. Strike one for 40-yard dash times mattering. The fastest two players were John Ross and Donte’ Stallworth, who both ran the 40 in 4.22 seconds. ^[4]That might sound like strike two, but Stallworth was tied for the 61st most receiving yards out of this group if 853 receivers. It’s a strike for 40-yard dash time being the only thing that … Continue reading

But anecdotes can only take us so far when we have 853 players, from Ross and Stallworth on the far left, to Thomas up at the top, all the way to Mississippi State’s De’Runnya Wilson, who never played in the NFL and ran the 40 in 4.85 seconds. [continue reading…]