In 1960, Cleveland’s Milt Plum was the most efficient passer in the NFL. He arguably outshined teammate and running back Jim Brown, who was in his prime and finished as the leader in rushing yards while averaging 5.8 yards per carry. Cleveland led the NFL in points scored, and Plum finished with a passer rating of 110, more than 10 points higher than any player achieved in the decade of the ’50s. In three games against the Steelers, Eagles, and Cardinals, he went 37-for-51 for 791 yards with 5 TDs and 0 interceptions! Cleveland was probably the best team in the NFL in 1960 due to the presence of Plum, Jim Brown, Bobby Mitchell, and Ray Renfro on offense, but the Browns had a 1-3-1 record in one-score games. As a result, the team’s 8-3-1 record left them as the runner up to the Philadelphia Eagles for the 1960 NFL East division crown. Philadelphia was a great team, of course, too, but the team’s 10-2 record was boosted by a 5-1 mark in games decided by a touchdown or less, including a last-second win over Cleveland that changed the season:

With time running down, the Eagles took over at their 10 yard line. Van Brocklin passed to Retzlaff for 27 yards and then McDonald for 12 to just short of midfield. However, it appeared that Cleveland would win when safety Bobby Franklin came up with an interception, but LB Vince Costello was flagged for pass interference and the Eagles, instead of losing the ball, now had a first down at the Browns 30. [continue reading…]

Let’s review the passing games of the 2001 Raiders and the 2018 Raiders. Both teams were coached by Jon Gruden and had similar passing yardage totals: the 2018 Raiders gained 4,057 receiving yards (i.e., gross passing yards before deducting sack yards lost), while the 2001 version gained 3,862 receiving yards. But how those passing offenses were constructed were very different. ^[1]It is noteworthy, but not the intent of this post, that the 2001 Raiders passing offense was also much better. Oakland ranked 4th in passing yards in 2001, and more notably, 4th in ANY/A. The 2018 … Continue reading

In 2001, Gruden’s offense was largely centered around the team’s two top wide receivers, a pass-catching running back, and a tight end, in that order: Tim Brown had 1,165 receiving yards, Jerry Rice had 1,139, Charlie Garner gained 578 yards, and Roland Williams gained 298 yards.  Brown and Rice combined for 60% of the team’s receiving yards, and the quartet gained 82% of Oakland’s passing yards. Jerry Porter, the team’s third wide receiver, was limited to 220 receiving yards, while fullback Jon Ritchie (154) was the only other player with 100 receiving yards. That did not stand out as unusual for the era. [continue reading…]

A few months ago, I calculated the concentration index for each passing offense in the NFL.  For new readers, don’t be scared: a passing offense’s Concentration Index is simple to calculate, and it measures how concentrated a team’s passing offense is among a small or large number of players.  To calculate, you take each player’s receiving yards and divide that by his team’s total receiving yards.  Once you get that number, you square it, and then do that for each player on the offense and add the totals.  The most concentrated passing offense in 2019 was in New Orleans. For the Saints, Michael Thomas gained 38.9%; the square of that is 15.2%.  Jared Cook was second on the team with 705 yards, or 15.9% of the team’s receiving yards; the square of that number is 2.5%.  Do this for every player, and the Saints have a total Concentration Index of 21.1%… which is highly concentrated, at least by 2019 standards.  Here is the full table: [continue reading…]

Yesterday, I looked at the NFL teams since 1970 that got the most (in terms of winning percentage) out of their passing games. These were teams that were dragged down by their passing offense. Today, the opposite: passing offenses that were dragged down by the rest of the team.

And let’s begin with Manning. Because no passing offense was ever let down more by the rest of his team than one of Manning’s dome teams. Of course, I am referring to Archie Manning and the 1980 Saints, who went 1-15 despite having an above-average passing offense. New Orleans finished 6th in completion percentage and 10th in ANY/A in 1980, but New Orleans allowed a then-record 6,218 yards of offense to opponents season. The Saints allowed 487 points, a mark that still ranks as the worst in franchise history.

Behind Manning, the Saints averaged 5.19 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt, which was +0.33 better than league average. As a result, this means among all teams since 1970, the ’80 Saints were 0.28 standard deviations better than average at passing. However, with a 1-15 mark, those Saints were 2.27 standard deviations below average at winning. Using the methodology described yesterday, this means the 1980 Saints get a grade of -2.55, indicating an extreme lack of help for the passing offense. That is the worst result of any team since the merger.

The next 3 teams on the list are all 49ers teams. In 2000, Jeff Garcia, Terrell Owens, a 38-year-old Jerry Rice, and Charlie Garner powered one of the best offenses in the NFL. The 49ers ranked in the top 5 in yards per play and led the league in turnovers… and yet went 6-10, thanks to a defense and special teams that was just as bad as the 49ers offense was good. In 1982, the strike-shortened season, Joe Montana and Dwight Clark were a lethal combination, but the team won 3 games, blew 3 games in the 4th quarter, and lost another 3 games. Montana and the 49ers had the best passing attack in the NFC that season, but a defense that significantly regressed. And in 1979, in the first year of Bill Walsh, San Francisco had a similar situation: Steve DeBerg and the 49ers had an above-average passing offense, but the defense couldn’t stop a nosebleed, ranking in the bottom 3 in both ANY/A and points allowed.

The full results, below: [continue reading…]

The 2005 Bears were a work of art.  Coached by Lovie Smith, with Ron Turner (OC) and Ron Rivera (DC) at his side, the Bears clinched the NFC North with an 11-4 record in week 16.  The Bears did this despite having one of the worst passing offenses in the NFL: at the time, Chicago ranked 31st in passer rating, passing yards, and passing touchdowns, only eclipsing the 49ers in all three categories.  Therefore, it’s fair to say that the team’s success was overwhelmingly due to a dominant defense and a solid running game powered by Thomas Jones (the special teams were not particularly good, either).

In fact, by one measure, the 2005 Bears got more out of bad QB play than any other team since 1970.  How did I measure that? [continue reading…]

Last year, Lamar Jackson had an MVP season, playing a huge role in Baltimore leading the NFL in points scored. Surprisingly, Baltimore didn’t have many other offensive players receive much All-Pro recognition: LT Ronnie Stanley and RG Marshal Yanda were both first-team All-Pros, but that was it. But this made me wonder, which league-leading offense had the least All-Pro recognition?

In 1985, the San Diego Chargers led the NFL in points scored. That year, Dan Fouts was a 1st-team All-Pro selection at quarterback by the NEA, while Dan Marino was a 1st-team All-Pro by all the other major organizations (AP, Sporting News, Pro Football Weekly). For purposes of today’s post, I am treating all organizations equally, and therefore both Fouts and Marino would get credited with being a 1st-team All-Pro.

The Chargers didn’t have many other honors on offense, though: the only other recognition went to RB Lionel James and LT Jim Lachey, who were each 2nd-team All-Conference selections from the UPI. But that’s only the second-least decorated offense since 1970 among teams that have led the league in scoring. One team had just one 1st-team All-Pro and the only other all-pro honor was one 2nd-team All-Conference selection. Can you guess the team? [continue reading…]

Sixteen players from historically black colleges entered pro football in the 1960s and are now in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Ten of them joined the AFL: Willie Brown, Charlie Joiner, Ken Houston, Larry Little, Buck Buchanan, Art Shell, Willie Lanier, Winston Hill, Elvin Bethea, and Emmitt Thomas.  By comparison, only six future Hall of Famers entered the NFL from HBCUs despite the senior league having more teams: Deacon Jones, Lem Barney, Rayfield Wright, Leroy Kelly, Bob Hayes, and Claude Humphrey. ^[1]However, most of the best players in the next tier from HBCUs were in the NFL. Harold Jackson, L.C. Greenwood, Jethro Pugh, Roger Brown, Rosey Taylor, John Gilliam, Coy Bacon, and Homer Jones all … Continue reading  And the lasting image of the AFL-NFL wars was Super Bowl IV, a game that saw the 12-point underdog Chiefs, with 8 starters from historically black colleges, upset a Vikings team with zero such players.  Those are two of the big reasons, along with actual words from those in pro football at the time, that the AFL was considered ahead of the curve when it came to bringing in players from these tiny schools.

On the other hand, as we’ll soon see, the narrative doesn’t quite match up with the facts.  Three of the ten AFL players — Thomas, Brown, and Hill — were not selected in the AFL Draft; Hill was chosen by the Colts in the NFL Draft, ^[2]He was soon cut and then signed by the Jets; it probably didn’t help that the Colts spent the 5th pick in the same draft on a future 5-time Pro Bowler at the same position. while the other two went undrafted in both leagues. More importantly, six of those 10 AFL Hall of Famers entered the AFL in 1967 or later, which came after the creation of a common draft. ^[3]Joiner never started a game in the AFL. Shell started one game. Little and Bethea made the AFL Pro Bowl in ’69, but had the overwhelming majority of their success in the NFL. Lanier and Houston … Continue reading These players made most of their marks in the ’70s, and are remembered as NFL stars, now AFL ones. By the time they entered pro football, the AFL had already won: a merger had been agreed upon by the teams, and the credibility of the league had been established.  Sure, it was still the inferior league, and it wasn’t until the Jets and Chiefs both won Super Bowls that the league was truly viewed as comparable to the NFL, but the 1967 AFL was very different than the 1961 AFL.  When we talk about the AFL as an upstart league that challenged the NFL and won, we are mostly talking about the AFL prior to the 1967 season.

And if we look at the most dominant players who entered pro football from HBCUs between 1960 and 1966, you get a different story.  Sure, Buchanan was a big star, but arguably five of the six biggest stars from HBCUs in the ’60s were actually in the NFL: Deacon Jones, Roger Brown, Rosey Taylor, Leroy Kelly, and Bob Hayes.

So let’s take a deeper dive and analyze how the two leagues really approached players from HBCUs prior to 1967.  From 1960 to 1966, the two leagues battled over talent, and the AFL’s surprising ability to keep pace is what led to the AFL-NFL merger, announced in June of 1966. Because I am focusing on the talent battle, I am really focused on the two drafts, but will note key undrafted players (and there were several). [continue reading…]

Yesterday, I looked at how both the NFL and the upstart AFL dealt with the issue of integration in pro football. The common reframe is that the young, nontraditional AFL was more innovative and enlightened than the NFL, particularly on the issue of black players in pro football and the scouting of talent from small historically black colleges. The numbers don’t bear that out with black players generally, but today I want to focus on the game that is most responsible for creating that narrative: Super Bowl IV. [continue reading…]

The AFL was the rare upstart league that challenged the NFL … and won. Part of the narrative in that victory is that the AFL was much more welcoming to black players, especially those from a traditionally overlooked source: small, historically blacked colleges. There are elements of truth in that version of history: there was still a hostile attitude from some teams (notably Washington) towards black players at the end of the 1950s,  and the NFL did a poor job scouting at historically black colleges during that decade. The NFL, as hard as this may be for you to imagine, also had a degree of hubris that may have turned off some prospects. Over the next two days, I want to dive into the AFL and NFL wars over signing talent.  Today, an examination of black players by the leagues; tomorrow, a focus on players from historically black colleges.

Black Players In the 1950s

At the start of the 1950s, most NFL teams did not have a single black player on their roster.  During the 1954 season, there were only 31 black players in the NFL, or about 3.4 per team.  Notably, 8 of those players went on to make the Pro Football Hall of Fame; the success of black players in the ’50s helped usher in the next generation in the ’60s. By 1955, all NFL teams had a black player other than Washington, who would not until 1962.   But at least one sometimes meant just that: when the Detroit Lions won the NFL championship in 1957, the team had just one black player: future Hall of Fame back John Henry Johnson. ^[1]The ’53 Lions were also the last all-white team to win an NFL championship.  Their opponents, the Cleveland Browns, had five black players, led by rookie and league MVP Jim Brown. [continue reading…]

There are over 100 academic institutions that are identified by the US Department of Education as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). But when it comes to football, three stand out:

• Grambling State University is located in northern Louisiana in the city of Grambling. Prominent alumni include four Hall of Famers — Willie Davis, Willie Brown, Buck Buchanan, and Charlie Joiner, along with great players like Everson Walls, Albert Lewis, Gary Johnson, Ernie Ladd, Tank Younger, and Doug Williams.  There have been a record 121 Tigers from Grambling State drafted.

• Tennessee State University is located in Nashville, Tennessee. More draft value has been spent on TSU Tigers than on any other HBCU. Prominent alumni include Hall of Famers Richard Dent and Claude Humphrey.  In the pros, these players have not had the success of the Grambling players, but in terms of draft value, they can’t be topped: Too Tall Jones was selected first overall, Humphrey and Waymond Bryant were top-5 picks, and Dan Williams, Vern Holland, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, Jim Marsalis, and Eldridge Dickey were all top-25 picks.  A whopping 117 players from TSU were drafted.

• Jackson State is located in Jackson, Mississippi, about halfway in between New Orleans and Memphis. The JSU Tigers have four Hall of Famers in Walter Payton, Jackie Slater, Lem Barney, and Robert Brazile.  Jackson State is also home to two of the best receivers not in the Hall of Fame: Jaguars great Jimmy Smith and Harold Jackson, who comfortably led all players in receptions, receiving yards, and receiving touchdowns in the 1970s.  Coy Bacon, Wilbert Montgomery, and Leon Gray all went to Jackson State, among other stars, helping the school provide more AV in the pros than any other HBCU. There have been 101 players from JSU drafted by the NFL.

A fourth school, Southern University in Baton Rouge, LA, is in its own tier as the 4th most prominent HBCU when it comes to NFL success.  There have been 78 Jaguars drafted and only one — Isiah Robertson — was selected in the first round.  So it hasn’t had quite the success as Grambling, Tennessee State, or Jackson State at putting players into the pros. But the Jaguars sure have been successful once they got there (including Robertson, a fringe HOF candidate). Two Hall of Fame cornerbacks, Mel Blount and Aeneas Williams, were drafted in the third round, while WR Harold Carmichael was a 7th round pick.  And one of the best defensive ends during his prime was Broncos legend Rich “Tomstone” Jackson, was also a Jaguar. [continue reading…]

For purposes of today’s post, I am defining major college football programs in the South and Texas as the schools in three major conferences. These 30 schools represent most of the major college football programs in the South, Southeast, and Texas. However, I am going to exclude the “northern” schools from these conferences, for reasons that will soon become clear.

The three conferences are the SEC, the ACC, and the former Southwestern Conference (the SWC). The 30 schools are:

• 13 of the 14 current SEC schools, excluding Missouri. ^[1]These include all 10 schools in the SEC as of the late 1960s, plus three schools that would otherwise qualify anyway: South Carolina (then in ACC), Texas A&M (then in the SWC), and Arkansas (then … Continue reading

• 11 of the 14 current ACC schools, excluding Syracuse, Boston College, and Pittsburgh. ^[2]These include all 8 ACC schools at the time other than Maryland (now in the Big 10 and a “northern” school) and South Carolina (included in this analysis by virtue of being in the SEC … Continue reading

• The Texas schools that were in the SWC at the time: that includes these 6 schools: ^[3]In addition to Texas A&M and Arkansas, which are of course now in the SEC. Texas, TCU, Texas Tech, Baylor, Rice, and SMU.

So why am I excluding the northern schools? They integrated much earlier than the southern schools. Most of the schools in this group of 30 didn’t really integrate until the very late ’60s or early ’70s. Meanwhile, Jim Brown was playing at Syracuse in 1954 and Bobby Grier was famously playing at Pittsburgh at the same time. I also chose to use the old SWC rather than the current Big 12, because that is more reflective of those times. Schools like Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri were in the old Big 8, but those schools were much better at integration than the old SWC. Also, other schools in Texas, like Houston, were a few years ahead of the Texas schools in the SWC. We will deal with the non-SWC Texas schools at the end.

So now we have our group of 30 schools that were the major college programs in the south or Texas over the last 60 years. And, thanks to yesterday’s work, we have a history of players drafted from HBCUs. So let’s compare: the graph below shows the draft value used on players from these 30 southern schools in red compared to the draft value spent on players from HBCUs in blue. You can see a clear dip in talent in the southern/Texas schools in the late ’60s, and it’s directly related to segregation: [continue reading…]

The first NFL Draft took place in 1936. But for players attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), it wasn’t until 1950 that the draft would hold any significance. Later, for a short window in the late ’60s and early ’70s, players from these tiny HBCUs dominated the draft. And finally, with a few notable exceptions, the prominence of HBCU players in the NFL Draft all but disappeared. Today, a look at NFL draft results and how players from HBCUs were valued in each draft. However, to start the story in the 1950s would be woefully inadequate. [continue reading…]

Every year, I publish a color-coded version of the NFL schedule the night it is released. Tonight is that night. [continue reading…]

From 1961 to 1966, the upstart American Football League and NFL competed off the field in a battle for the top players from college football. The rival leagues would hold two separate drafts — in later years, on the same day — and then compete to sign these players. Sometimes, the two leagues would battle over stars: North Carolina State’s Roman Gabriel was drafted second overall by the NFL’s Rams and first overall by the AFL’s Raiders in 1962. A year before, Tulane’s Tommy Mason was the 1st pick in the NFL Draft (Vikings) and the 2nd pick in the AFL Draft (Patriots). There were a number of future Hall of Famers like Mike Ditka, Merlin Olsen, and Gale Sayers who were highly coveted by both leagues. In other cases, though, prospect evaluation 50 years later is a bit more complicated.

Both leagues placed heavy emphasis placed on both signability, which could lead to drastically different draft outcomes for players. While Oregon State QB Terry Baker was drafted first overall by the NFL’s Rams, the AFL didn’t even feign interest in the Heisman Trophy winner, letting him fall to the 12th round of the ’63 AFL Draft. And top-5 NFL picks like Tucker Frederickson, Bob Brown, Ken Willard, and Randy Beisler weren’t even drafted in the AFL! This went the other way, too: Memphis lineman Harry Schuh was the 3rd overall pick in the AFL Draft, but no team in the NFL Draft wasted a pick on him. Buck Buchanan was the first pick in the AFL Draft in ’63, but was only a very late pick in the NFL Draft (more on him in a minute). The gamesmanship increased prior to the 1964 draft season, as the NFL instituted Operation Babysitter, designed to babysit (or kidnap) draft prospects during critical windows so AFL teams couldn’t contact them! Oh, and every once in awhile, neither league would win in a fight over a top player. ^[1]I bring you the story of famed guard/defensive lineman Tom Brown from Minnesota — who led the Gophers to a national championship in 1960, finished as the runner up in the Heisman Trophy, and … Continue reading [continue reading…]

Drafts in the early 1970s were long by modern standards, with 442 players selected. If the 1971 NFL Draft is remembered for anything, it’s for having three quarterbacks go with the first three picks in the draft: Stanford’s Jim Plunkett, Mississippi’s Archie Manning, and Santa Clara’s Dan Pastorini. But more than any other draft in NFL history, the 1971 NFL Draft represented the changing landscape of college football — and the country.

Fifty years ago, many Division 1 schools still operated independent from any conference affiliation. There were 56 players selected from such schools in the ’71 Draft, including 10 from Houston, 6 from Pittsburgh, 5 from Notre Dame, and 4 each from Penn State, Tulane, and Boston College.

The Big 10 led all conferences with 52 players drafted. That number just to 60 players drafted from schools in the 2020 version of the Big 10, which you reach by including the players drafted from Nebraska and Penn State.

The SEC had 31 players drafted in 1971, and 46 players if you include existing SEC schools not in the conference fifty years ago. ^[1]Those schools: South Carolina, Missouri, Texas A&M, and Arkansas.

The Pac-8 (the predecessor to the current Pac-12) had 29 players drafted, and 44 players chosen from schools now in the Pac-12. ^[2]Adding Colorado, Arizona and Arizona State, and Utah.

The Big 8 conference (the predecessor to the current Big 12) had 34 players drafted; the Southwest Conference (another predecessor to the Big 12) had 23 draftees that year, with players from Texas and Arkansas making up the majority of that group. There were 35 players drafted in 1971 among modern Big 12 schools.

The ACC had only 11 players drafted, although there were 26 players drafted from schools currently in the ACC. [continue reading…]

Yesterday, I looked at the draft capital allocated to each position in the 2020 NFL Draft. I noted that significantly more draft capital was used on offensive tackles than on guards or centers, which is even more striking when you realize that there were 2 OTs and 3 interior offensive linemen on every play.

So how does the 2020 NFL Draft compared historically to other drafts, in terms of allocating draft capital to tackles versus interior linemen? For purposes of this post, I reduced draft capital allocated to guards and centers by one third in every draft class, to make for a more apples to apples comparison. In that case, most years, significantly more draft capital is allocated to tackles, and that number is on the rise.

The last time more draft capital on a per position basis was used on interior offensive linemen than offensive tackles was in 1990. That year, tackle Richmond Webb was the first lineman drafted, but the next five OL were all guards or centers: Bern Brostek, Keith Sims, Tim Grunhard, Leo Goeas, and Glenn Parker. The most OT-heavy draft relative to guards and centers was in 2008, when Jake Long went first overall, and six other offensive tackles went in the first round: Ryan Clady, Chris Williams, Gosder Cherilus, Jeff Otah, Sam Baker, and Duane Brown. The only guard drafted in the first round was Branden Albert, who played guard in college and was drafted as such, and then played left tackle for his entire NFL career.

The graph below shows the draft capital allocated to offensive tackles (in black) and interior offensive linemen (in red) in each year since 1967. Again, I have multiplied the draft capital allocated to guards and centers by two thirds to compare the positions more evenly. [continue reading…]

The NFL Draft is a good way to measure how the league values particular positions. Last year, it was all about the defensive line: edge rushers and interior defenders dominated the draft, with over a quarter of all draft capital spent on these players. Two years ago, it seemed as though the running game was back in vogue: after quarterback, running back was perhaps the most highly valued position in the ’18 Draft, and a lot of draft capital was used on non-pass rushing linebackers.

Which positions did NFL teams focus on in the 2020 NFL Draft? We can use the Football Perspective Draft Value Chart to answer that question pretty easily for the first 224 picks (all picks after that have been excluded, since they have a draft value of zero). Prior to the 2020 Draft, we were told that this would be one of the most WR-heavy drafts in NFL history. That turned out to be accurate: a whopping 210.3 points of draft capital were used on wide receivers, the 8th-most of any draft since 1967 (the record is 224.9, set in 2000). There were a record eleven wide receivers were drafted in the first 50 picks, breaking the old mark in the modern era of ten, set in 1994.

For defensive coordinators, they will get an influx of talent in the secondary. The graph below shows the amount of draft value used on each position in the 2020 NFL Draft. I split front seven players into interior defensive lineman (labeled as DI), edge rushers, and linebackers; there is going to be some overlap for certain players (as well as between CB/S, and guards and centers or tackles, and occasionally amongWR/RB/QB) but I did the best I could to pick one label for each player. [continue reading…]

The 2020 Draft is now over, which means there are an endless number of places where you can read recaps, draft grades, and who are the winners and losers of the past three days. But there are no answers yet to how the 2020 draft prospects will turn out; on the other hand, we now have 5 years of data to analyze the 2015 Draft. So let’s do that today.

Sports Illustrated’s draft experts Chris Burke & Doug Farrar graded each team’s draft five years ago, and I will be using that recap in this article. Burke and Farrar handed out 4 A grades — including one to Minnesota and one to Jacksonville. With the benefit of hindsight, what do the numbers say? As it turns out, according to my methodology, the Vikings did indeed have the single best draft. Nice job, Chris and Doug!  Here’s what Farrar wrote about the Vikings haul:

Minnesota’s primary needs were at cornerback and offensive tackle. It dealt with the first issue at pick No. 11 by taking Michigan State’s Trae Waynes, a highly physical and aggressive press cornerback. He’ll be a perfect bookend for Xavier Rhodes if he learns to deal with crossing routes and avoids a heap of penalty flags. Pitt right tackle T.J. Clemmings dropped to the fourth round due to medical concerns, but if the converted defensive lineman can stay healthy, he might be the best tackle out of this class in a couple years. Second-round linebacker Eric Kendricks should be able to start right away in the middle of Mike Zimmer’s defense, while third-round pass-rusher Danielle Hunter from LSU is both freakishly athletic and raw like sushi. He’ll need some time with a line coach, but there’s a lot to like there. In addition, the Vikings got two much-needed targets for Teddy Bridgewater: Southern Illinois tight end MyCole Pruitt (one of my favorite small-school guys this year) and Maryland speed receiver Stefon Diggs, who can line up all over the place.

Waynes, the team’s first overall pick, was a disappointment: he was inconsistent during his time with the Vikings, and was only a full-time starter for the last 3.5 years. The team did not resign him, and he’s now in Cincinnati.  Clemmings didn’t quite turn out as planned, although he did start for 30 games for the team.  But for a team that didn’t nail its first pick, the rest of the draft was superlative. Diggs, a 5th round pick, has been the best receiver in the Draft outside of perhaps Amari Cooper, who went 4th overall. Hunter has been one of the steals of draft, recording a 2015 class-high of 54.5 sacks.   And Kendricks has turned into one of the best linebackers in the league, earning first-team All-Pro nods in 2019.

On the other hand, Jacksonville’s draft hasn’t quite been so good.

The Jaguars are coming. Maybe not in 2015, maybe not in 2016, but soon. This draft without question kept this franchise’s positive momentum, from a talent standpoint, rolling in the right direction. Jacksonville made one solid decision after another, right through Notre Dame tight end Ben Koyack in round 7.

Opinions varied on this class’s top pass rusher, but Dante Fowler was at or near the top of the list, and Gus Bradley can turn him into a star. Running back T.J. Yeldon and guard A.J. Cann should be starters by Week 1, as well. But the real gems here came in rounds 5 and 6, respectively: Florida State wide receiver Rashad Greene, a sharp route-runner and productive performer; and penetrating three-tech tackle Michael Bennett, a remarkable value at pick No. 180.

The Jaguars caught some bad breaks with Fowler: he tore his ACL on the first day his first mini-camp, and never quite turned into the edge rusher the Jaguars were expecting. He was traded to the Rams in October 2018 for a 2019 late 3rd round pick (Quincy Williams) and a 2020 fifth rounder. He signed this offseason with the Falcons.  Yeldon was a bust: two years later, the Jaguars used the 4th overall pick on Leonard Fournette in part because of Yeldon’s failures.  Cann has been a five-year starter, but is a below-average starting guard.  Greene caught 2 touchdowns in his Jaguars career, while had 0.5 sacks; both were not in the NFL in 2019.  The Jaguars got nothing more than warm bodies in rounds 4 through 7, and their high picks in rounds 1 and 2 were disappointing, leaving Cann — the 67th overall pick — as the highlight of a bad draft.

Burke and Farrar handed out just 2 really bad grades; a C to the Bills and a C+ to the Colts.  Here’s what Burke wrote about the Bills.

The Bills started this draft at a disadvantage, having coughed up their first-round selection to add Sammy Watkins last year. They did well at No. 50 to add a borderline round 1 talent in cornerback Ronald Darby, but it’s hard to guarantee any of their other picks will make an impact. Guard John Miller (No. 81) has the clearest shot. Buffalo is thin at guard and Miller, though limited overall, fits the mauler mold Rex Ryan favors. Sixth-round tight end Nick O’Leary was productive at Florida State. Can he find any playing time with two players similar to him in style, Charles Clay and Chris Gragg, ahead of him on the depth chart?

Instead of the detailed analysis, let’s just say this: none of the Bills draftees were still on the team four years later, and Ryan was gone after 2016.

Here was the Colts analysis:

The Colts caught everyone off-guard at No. 29 with their selection of speedy wide receiver Phillip Dorsett. He is an exciting weapon and a home-run threat whenever he’s on the field, but Indianapolis already had Andre Johnson, T.Y. Hilton and Donte Moncrief locked in place at receiver. Sure, sticking to an approach of taking the best player available is generally advisable. The Colts, though, believe they are on the brink of a Super Bowl berth, and it’s hard to argue the Dorsett pick got them closer than an upgrade on defense would have.

Those defensive moves did follow. Cornerback D’Joun Smith and defensive end Henry Anderson (both third-rounders) have starter qualities, and safety Clayton Geathers is a nice depth/special teams piece.

Geathers wound up starting the most games for the Colts among this group, and he’s currently a free agent.  Dorsett was utlimately flipped by Jacoby Brissett, which turned out to be a great trade, but he was disappointing in Indianapolis (although an aging Johnson was a reason to invest in wide receivers, not avoid the position).  Anderson turned out to be a solid player with the Jets, but this was one of the drafts that ultimately led to Ryan Grigson’s termination.  Kudos to Burke and Farrar for nailing that both the Colts and Bills struggled in the 2015 Draft.

On the other hand, the Seahawks were given a B- grade and

Pete Carroll and John Schneider have built up a lot of equity with great pick after great pick since they took over the Seahawks organization in 2010, but they tested a lot of that faith with the second-round selection of Michigan edge-rusher Frank Clark, a third- to fourth-round prospect in the minds of many before you throw in the domestic violence issue that got him kicked off the Wolverines last November. Clark had better be special on the field and perfect off it, because Carroll and Schneider are taking a huge risk here. The move to trade up for Kansas State receiver Tyler Lockett in the third round was better-received, and for good reason. He’s an outstanding return man and the kind of speedster who can take the top off a defense—just what Seattle needs. Seattle also took three offensive linemen: San Diego State tackle Terry Poole (who projects as a guard), West Virginia’s Mark Glowinski (who might kick inside to center) and Buffalo defensive tackle Kristjan Sokoli, who the Seahawks want to turn into a guard. The guy to watch in Seattle’s draft is Towson cornerback Tye Smith, regarded by many as the best small-school pass defender in the 2015 class. He’ll get a legitimate shot to crash into the Legion of Boom.

Seattle entered the draft without a first round pick thanks to the Jimmy Graham trade, but Lockett and Clark were two of the steals of the 2015 Draft.  Clark had 32 sacks in his 2nd, 3rd, and 4th seasons, before being traded for a late 1st round pick in 2019 and the 64th pick in 2020; that’s an excellent return for a player drafted with the 63rd pick. Lockett has been the third most valuable receiver in this draft so far, behind only Cooper and Diggs.  And on a yards per target basis — a disfavored metric in these parts — Lockett has been playing at a Hall of Fame level.  This was one draft grade that should have been much higher.

I went through the 2015 Draft and calculated how much marginal AV was provided by each player in his first five seasons (Marginal AV being Approximate Value over 2 in each year).  Here is how each draftee fared, relative to their expected marginal AV from the draft value curve.

This was a very good draft, with Kevin White being the only complete bust in the top ten (other than him and Fowler, the others all started at least for four seasons). Stefon Diggs, Marcus Peters, Danielle Hunter, and Eric Kendricks graded as the four players who most exceeded their draft slot, making this a remarkable draft for the Vikings.  The chart below shows each team, along with their SI Draft Grade, the total Marginal AV produced by the draft picks, and the AV over expectation (i.e., giving credit to teams that had less draft capital).  As you can see, the Vikings were the best team in the draft when it comes to AV over expectation, although the Bucs matched them (in addition to Jameis Winston with the first overall pick, Donovan Smith, Ali Marpet, and Kwon Alexander all turned into regular starters.

Finally, here are the grades on each player in the draft, using PFR’s Approximate Value.

Five players from LSU and four players from Alabama were drafted in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft last night, the latest in a long line of draft dominance from two of the powerhouses of college football. In addition, another 6 players from the SEC had their names called during the first round: two from Georgia, two from Auburn, and one from both Florida and South Carolina. That gave the conference a record 15 players selected in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft.

The previous record for players from one conference getting selected in first round of an NFL Draft was 12, set by the ACC in 2006 and matched by the SEC in both 2013 and 2017. ^[1]If you wanted to be cheekyy, and I would expect nothing less out of you, the schools in the current SEC also had 13 players drafted in 2011… when there were 10 players from the SEC drafted in … Continue reading For as long as I can remember — and, assuredly, for longer than that — SEC fans have boasted about the football talent within its conference. At times, the reputation has exceeded the results. But in recent years, there’s no question that the draft has become dominated by the conference. How much more dominant is the SEC at the top of the NFL Draft relative to prior years? [continue reading…]

In the 1969 NFL Draft, 8 of the first 10 picks were used on offensive players. In total, 64% of all draft capital — according to the Football Perspective Draft Value Chart — was used on offensive players. Two years later, the first three picks were all used on quarterbacks; only 1 of the first 9, and 2 of the first 13 players selected, were on the defensive side of the ball.

As recently as 1995, the first five picks were all used on offensive players, as were 8 of the first 10 picks. But more recently, NFL teams have been much more even in their draft day gifts to offensive and defensive coordinators.

In 2016 and 2017, teams actually used significantly more draft capital on defense than on offense. This year, according to CBS, an almost perfect 50/50 split is expected. The graph below shows the percentage of actual draft capital allocated to offensive players each season, compared to the total amount allocated to both offensive and defensive players. [continue reading…]

The 2000 NFL Draft was the most wide receiver-heavy draft in NFL history. Peter Warrick, Plaxico Burress, and Travis Taylor went in the top 10 picks, Sylvester Morris and R. Jay Soward also went in the first round, and another eleven (11!) wide receivers went in the first 100 picks after that: Dennis Northcutt, Todd Pinkston, Jerry Porter, Ron Dugans, Dez White, Chris Cole, Ron Dixon, Laveranues Coles, JaJuan Dawson, Darrell Jackson, and Gari Scott.

In case you can’t tell by those names, the draft was a complete dud. Expected to revolutionize the NFL with a new wave of athletic wide receivers, the entire class combined to make just 1 Pro Bowl at wide receiver — Coles in 2003 (Dante Hall, drafted in the fifth round, would make two Pro Bowls as a returner). Coles, Burress, and Jackson were all good players, but they were also the only three to eclipse even 5,000 receiving yards.

Twenty years later, we are looking at the next “greatest wide receiver class” of a generation. Oklahoma’s CeeDee Lamb and Alabama’s Jerry Jeudy will be early first round picks; they are expected to be joined in the first round by Jeudy’s teammate, Henry Ruggs III, Clemson’s Tee Higgins, and possibly  LSU’s Justin Jefferson, Arizona State’s Brandon Aiyuk, or Colorado’s Denzel Mims.

I looked at the CBS 7-round mock draft and calculated the Draft Value used on wide receivers. Why CBS? Because they were the first website I found that put together a clean table of all draft picks for all 7 rounds, making it easy to calculate draft value. Draft value is simply calculated as the value assigned to each pick, according to my draft value chart, that is used on a wide receiver.

Based on the CBS projections — which has WRs going at 12, 14, 15, 21, 30, 34, 37, 42, 50, 51, and 58 — this would be an outstanding draft class for wide receivers. And while none would be selected in the top 10, there would be a total of 201.6 points of draft capital spent on wide receivers. That would make this one of the top 10 drafts for wide receivers since the common draft era beginning in 1967.

The graph below shows the draft capital used on the position in each draft since 1967. [continue reading…]

Rather than pick my team, I am going to pick my best four teams.

Let’s start with my run-n-shoot offense: think of this as the team you would pick if, say, you know you are starting the second half down 21-0.

Here are my thoughts:

1) Calvin Johnson is the only WR available at flex, so he’s an obvious choice.

2) Barry Sanders has a lot of experience in the run-n-shoot (first under Mouse Davis) and with 11 personnel under Tom Moore; Sanders’s skills are best utilized without a fullback on the field. The running back will be devalued here, but Sanders can keep defenses honest — especially when they are playing the pass.

3) At FB/TE, we are going with the best receiver in the group, and that’s Kellen Winslow Sr. He’s got some experience playing on some pass-happy teams.

4) You want Peyton Manning — the ultimate quarterback to lead a second half comeback — and he also has experience under Moore.

5) Taking Manning and Johnson removes Rice and Moss from the WR list, but going with Don Hutson and Lance Alworth is a legendary pair of wide receivers to join Johnson.

6) Mel Hein is going to be a consistent pick — the guy won MVP at center! He is the pick as our player from the ’30s.

7) Next, I’m taking Dan Dierdorf as my right tackle.  In addition to being an outstanding player, Dierdorf excelled under Don Coryell  — which means he’ll be a natural fit sliding in next to Winslow. [continue reading…]

Here are the rules.

1. You must take 1 player from each row: so one player from each of the 9 decades (1920s, 1930s, 1940s, etc.) and one player on the AFL/AAFC/USFL row.

2. You must pick 1 player from each column to form an offense, but of course, you pick 2 players each at End/Receiver, Tackle, and Guard.  At the top of each column is the number of players from that column you can need to select.  Of course, the 1 player per row rule still applies.

3. You get the player’s career, not just the decade listed.  So you aren’t ignoring the 1980s portion of the careers of Walter Payton or Jerry Rice just because they aren’t listed there.

Who are you picking?

Leave your team and thoughts in the comments.

Which teams have gained and lost the most draft value? Using the 2019 team records and the draft value chart, this is a relatively simple question to answer. The table below shows the pick in the first round each team earned based on its 2019 performance, along with their record, the total draft value assigned based on their 2019 performance, the current draft value they have as of today, and the difference between those two numbers.

And here’s the same information but in chart form: the X-Axis shows the Football Perspective Draft Value assigned to each team based on its 2019 performance, and the Y-Axis shows the current draft value for each team. Teams above the line gained value, while teams below the line lost value. [continue reading…]

Let’s talk about little bit about Kellen Winslow II. Winslow’s life has been marked more by what’s happened off the field than what happened on the field, starting with being the son of a Hall of Famer, continuing with an awful motorcycle accident early in his career, and ending with a conviction for rape and a CTE diagnosis. On the field, Winslow was productive but played during the peak of the tight end era: Tony Gonzalez, Antonio Gates, and Jason Witten were all still in their prime, Rob Gronkowski and Jimmy Graham were setting single-seaosn records, and guys like Vernon Davis and Dallas Clark were productive Pro Bowlers.

Winslow produced solid numbers, but he did so in the worst of circumstances. During this time, his quarterbacks were mostly Josh Freeman and Derek Anderson, along with a season of Charlie Frye, and a few games from Josh Johnson, Brady Quinn, and end-of-career Byron Leftwich. On average, Winslow’s offenses were 0.87 ANY/A below average during the course of his career, weighted by how productive Winslow was each season. Among tight ends with at least 5,000 career receiving yards, that is — by a large measure — the worst group of passing offenses. The second-worst would be Todd Heap: About a quarter of his career came with the early days of Joe Flacco, and another quarter was defined by the Kyle Boller era. He caught passes from end-of-career Steve McNair, Anthony Wright, Jeff Blake, Chris Redman, Elvis Grbac, and also Kevin Kolb and John Skelton in Arizona. On average, Heap’s offenses finished 0.45 ANY/A below average.

Only three other tight ends with 5,000+ career receiving yards played on teams that finished at least 0.20 ANY/A below average: Rich Caster (who had a little bit of prime Joe Namath and then little else), Delanie Walker, and Greg Olsen. If you want to lower the threshold for tight end production, we should all feel badly for Chargers TE Freddie Jones, who played with Ryan Leaf and a string of bad quarterbacks who were either bad, very young, or very old (or two of those three). For his career, Jones’s passing offenses finished 1.46 ANY/A below average. We can also pour one out for Boston Patriots TE Jim Whalen, who was one of the best tight ends of the late ’60s. In 1968, as the Patriots finished with the second-worst passing offense in the AFL — the passing offense was 2.88 ANY/A below average — Whalen somehow was a first-team AP All-Pro. Among all tight ends who have been named first-team All-Pro in a season, that is the worst accompanying passing offense in history. Whalen was a consummate Massachusetts man: he was born and raised in Cambridge, starred at Boston College, and then was drafted and spent the first five years of his career with the Patriots. That said, most of his career was played with bad or out of their prime quarterbacks.

On the other side, Brent Jones had a pretty sweet set-up: he played most of his career with Steve Young or Joe Montana, and his average offense had a Relative ANY/A of +2.00.  Second on the list would be Rob Gronkowski, who of course played with Tom Brady.  And if you lower the minimum threshold, nobody had it easier than Aaron Hernandez, who played his entire, short career during Brady’s prime.

I looked at the careers of over 100 tight ends and calculated how productive their average passing offense was. Regular readers may recall that I previously used a similar methodology to grade wide receivers. Let’s use Vernon Davis as an example.  He’s experienced it all, from the early struggles of Alex Smith to the efficient version, the dark days of Shaun Hill and Troy Smith, but also the good days of Colin Kaepernick and Kirk Cousins. [continue reading…]

In a few weeks, Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa will be drafted early in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft. In doing so, he will become the fourth Crimson Tide passer to get drafted in the first round (in addition to Hall of Famers Bart Starr and Ken Stabler, who were not first round picks).  But in the current, golden era of Alabama football, this isn’t much of a surprise: in fact, his former teammate, QB Jalen Hurts, will also hear his name announced during this draft.

Being born in Hawaii and of Samoan descent makes Tagovailoa a rarity in NFL circles, but not unique: he will join Marcus Mariota as the second such quarterback in the NFL.

But there is something particularly distinct about Tua: he throws the football with his left hand. The last quarterback in the NFL who was lefthanded was Kellen Moore, who went undrafted eight years ago in 2012 and has not thrown a pass in the NFL since 2015 (and, of course, is now the offensive coordinator for the Cowboys). The last southpaw quarterback to get drafted in the first round was Tim Tebow.

Over the last decade, the lefty has disappeared from the NFL passing landscape. Sure, you get the occasional lefthanded pass from a Tyreek Hill, Kevin Byard, or Antonio Brown, and the even rarer lefthanded toss by a righty, but the last time a lefthanded quarterback back stated and won a game was Michael Vick back in week 6 of the 2015 season! As I wrote last year, the lefthanded quarterback has been slowly phased out of the game; the graph below shows the percentage of passing yards in each season since 1932 that were thrown by southpaws: [continue reading…]

I was reading an old Brad Oremland article and this line about Andre Reed’s career stood out to me:

Even his seven Pro Bowls are as much a reflection of the AFC’s weakness as anything. Who was he beating out? Haywood Jeffires, Anthony Miller, and Al Toon? The competition (Clark, Ellard, Irvin, Rice, Rison, Sharpe) was all in the NFC.

Reed made seven Pro Bowls in his career, and he did that consecutively from 1988 to 1994. But it’s true that those years were some of the weakest years the AFC receivers had relative to their NFC counterparts (the weakest would come the year after, in 1995). Here are Reed’s ranks in receiving yards in the AFC from 1988 to 1994: 7th, 1st, 6th, 2nd, 12th, 4th, and 2nd. That’s pretty good and while there are a few less than stellar years in there, in almost all of those you can see why he’d be a Pro Bowl receiver. But here are Reed’s ranks in receiving yards in the NFL during those seasons: 17th, 5th, 13th, 6th, 11th, 23rd, 5th. Without fail, his ranking in the combined AFC/NFC league looks worse than his ranking in the AFC each year.

For nearly Reed’s entire career, the receivers in the NFC were superior to those in the AFC. For each year since 1970, I looked at the top five leaders in receiving yards in both conferences, and recorded how many receiving yards was gained by the average player in each group. In 1992, for example, the top five leaders in receiving yards in the AFC gained 950.8 yards, while the top five leaders in the NFC picked up 1,252 yards. The NFC boasted the top five leaders in receiving yards that season, which is how Reed — who ranked 11th in yards that season — ranked 4th in the conference in receiving yards.

The graph below shows the average for each season from 1970 to 2019. [continue reading…]

A year ago, I wrote about the shrinking middle class of quarterbacks from a salary cap perspective: there were 14 teams paying huge dollars to their quarterback, 11 teams with a starter on a rookie contract, and 7 teams caught in the middle. And all 7 of those teams caught in the middle will have new starting QBs in 2020: the Bucs and Titans had QBs playing out their 5th year option, the Bengals, Jaguars, and Broncos had middling veterans, and the Dolphins and Redskins quarterback situations were wide open as of last March (Washington wound up using a first round pick on a quarterback, while Miami is likely to do so this year).

In 2019, there were 32 quarterbacks who threw enough passes to qualify for the league passing title. And over half of those passers were under 27 on September 1st (this includes two quarterbacks from the 2016 Draft, Carson Wentz and Jacoby Brissett, who turned 27 in December). That is the first time since 1960 that over half of the qualifying passers were under 27 as of September 1st of that season.

There also were a lot of old quarterbacks: Matt Ryan, Joe Flacco, Aaron Rodgers, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Philip Rivers, Drew Brees, and Tom Brady were all 34 or older at the start of the season, and that doesn’t even include opening day starters Ben Roethlisberger and Eli Manning. That’s part of another growing trend in the modern NFL, although the presence of more old quarterbacks isn’t quite as noticeable as the increase in young ones.

Where quarterbacks are really getting squeezed is the place you might not expect: during their prime years. A quarterback should still have their physical skill-set, but be further along mentally, in their late 20s and early 30s. A quarterback who is between the ages of 27 and 33 should be, broadly speaking, in the prime of his career. And yet last season, there were just 8 starting quarterbacks in this middle class of life: Jimmy Garoppolo, Derek Carr, Russell Wilson, Ryan Tannehill, Matthew Stafford, Case Keenum, Kirk Cousins, and Andy Dalton.

The graph below shows the percentage of qualifying passers in each season since 1960 that were, as of September 1st of that season: (1) under 27 years old, (2) between 27 and 33 years of age, and (3) 34 or older. [continue reading…]

For the 10-year period from 2006 to 2015, only two quarterbacks with strong Hall of Fame prospects entered the league: Matt Ryan in 2008 and Russell Wilson in 2012.

And there aren’t that many franchise quarterbacks that entered during this time, either: Matthew Stafford in 2009, Cam Newton in 2011, and Andrew Luck in 2012 are the only that probably qualify. (And pickin’ nits s as to whether Ryan should be with this group, or Newton should be with the other group, is not relevant to this post.)

Heck, there weren’t even that many good starters that entered the league during this time 10-year period: the ones that qualify are Kirk Cousins, Andy Dalton, Joe Flacco, Jay Cutler, and Derek Carr.

How about solid starters? Jameis Winston and Ryan Tannehill, maybe? The book has yet to be written on Jimmy Garoppolo or Teddy Bridgewater and Marcus Mariota, so perhaps they jump into this or one of the higher tiers over the next few years.

After that, you are looking at guys like Jason Campbell, Sam Bradford, Nick Foles, Colin Kaepernick, and Case Keenum as the other top guys. But in general, this was an ugly decade. [continue reading…]