First off, we'll poke around the Jerry Hughes situation. Despite being a former first round pick (31st overall selection in 2010), he was constantly buried behind Robert Mathis and Dwight Freeney on the Colts' depth chart, starting only 7 games in his first 3 years. You would think that failing to take a starting job from either of those two players would be understandable, but the fans seemed to eventually turn to the "he can't get on the field, so he must be a bust" viewpoint. The Colts' management evidently were of the same mindset as the fans, as they drafted Bjoern Werner in the first round (24th pick overall in 2013), to provide a pass rushing presence that Hughes apparently wasn't capable of while sitting on the bench. With renewed confidence that they had gotten it right this time, the Colts promptly traded the nearly showroom condition Jerry Hughes to Buffalo, for middling linebacker Kelvin Sheppard.
What was the outcome of this trade? Well, let's look at their statistical performances in 2013.
| GP | GS | Tackles | Sack | Pdef | FF | |
| Jerry Hughes | 16 | 1 | 46 | 10 | 2 | 2 |
| Bjoern Werner | 13 | 1 | 18 | 2.5 | 2 | 0 |
It appears that when finally given a real opportunity, Jerry Hughes did turn into a legitimate pass rusher. His replacement in Indianapolis, on the other hand, has struggled mightily. Now, I'm sure that some people will argue that Werner is just a rookie, and that he should be given time to prove himself, the same sort of time that I might criticize the organization for not giving to Jerry Hughes. The difference here is that Werner's measurables don't give me much confidence that he will ever really develop into anything special, while Hughes at least gave us some reason to be optimistic.
So, let's look at their data from the combine, side by side.
| Player | Year | Pick# | 40 Yard | KANG | Agility | FINAL | Avg. TFL |
| Jerry Hughes | 2010 | 31 | 4.65 | 0.155 | 1.038 | 0.448 | 18 |
| Bjoern Werner | 2013 | 24 | 4.83 | -0.280 | -0.251 | -0.220 | 14.5 |
The Kangaroo Score (my measure of lower body power) and Agility Score (based on the short shuttle and 3-Cone drill), are given in the form of how many standard deviations away from the average result for their peers, that a player is. As I explained in the post on Explosive Pass Rushers, I basically use the player's Final Score, in combination with a player's Avg. TFL (the average number of tackles for a loss that a player had in his last two years in college) is used to come up with a rough idea as to what round I would be willing to draft a player in. According to these numbers, Jerry Hughes would have been considered a 3rd round prospect by the computer (admittedly lower than where he was selected, but still intriguing to us). Technically, Hughes is a player who would better fit in the High Agility Pass Rusher category, for obvious reasons, though this doesn't alter the round in which the computer would have selected him. Werner, despite a respectable number of tackles for a loss in his college years, would have been viewed as too risky a prospect for me to select in any round (though a very late round pick could be considered, I suppose), due to his poor physical measurables. You can take this all with an enormous grain of salt, as it is just my goofy method for judging things, but it tends to produce reasonable results.
One of the more peculiar aspects of this, is in how these players are utilized. Being a somewhat smaller to average sized DE/OLB prospect, at 254 pounds, Hughes, with his excellent agility measurements would have seemed to perhaps be better suited for a 3-4 defense, where he could operate in space and not get smothered by larger offensive tackles. Of course, the Colts were running a 4-3 defense during the majority of the time he was with them, until 2012 when they switched to a 3-4, and suddenly Hughes responded with 4 sacks in 6 games started. Then, to make matters even stranger, they draft Werner, a somewhat larger 266 pound player with below average/poor measurables in terms of agility and speed, and ask him to operate in space, something he may not be terribly well suited for athletically. Hello there, square peg and round hole, I'd like to introduce you to Chuck Pagano's mighty mallet of misguided machinations, which will make everything turn out just fine. It almost feels as if teams select their defensive scheme, with little to no thought as to whether it suits a player's abilities.
Now let's move on to the Steelers' situation with Jason Worilds. Similar to Jerry Hughes, Worilds was stuck behind James Harrison and LaMarr Woodley, a rather successful and talented pass rushing duo. After three years of just occasional usage in a rotation, it seems that the Steelers' expectations had diminished for this former 2nd round pick. With the departure of James Harrison, the organization decided to fill this void by selecting Jarvis Jones in the first round (17th pick overall), in the 2013 Draft. While Jones was given the starting job at the opening of the season, his lack of production eventually resulted in Worilds being given his first real opportunity to prove himself. Let's take a look at their results in 2013, to see how they did.
| GP | GS | Tackles | Sack | Pdef | FF | |
| Jason Worilds | 15 | 11 | 63 | 8 | 2 | 2 |
| Jarvis Jones | 14 | 8 | 40 | 1 | 4 | 0 |
Again, I suspect a lot of people will argue that Jarvis Jones just needs time to develop, but I'm just not terribly confident he will ever really turn into the sort of player the Steelers are probably looking for. The positive side of this, is that the Steelers could still choose to bring Worilds back next year (he will be a free agent after the 2013 season), though this might require admitting to some problems with Jones. Teams do seem to have a problem with admitting to potential mistakes with their draft picks, so this will be interesting to watch. Still, just like we did with Hughes and Werner, let's take a look at how the computer viewed them as draft prospects, to see if either one has an advantage over the other, or might be a better long term gamble.
| Player | Year | Pick# | 40 Yard | KANG | Agility | FINAL | Avg. TFL |
| Jason Worilds | 2010 | 52 | 4.65 | 0.604 | 0.727 | 0.583 | 14.75 |
| Jarvis Jones | 2013 | 17 | 4.92 | -1.243 | -1.304 | -1.216 | 22 |
In this case, the computer feels that the Steelers hit the nail on the head with their selection of Jason Worilds, and assigned him a 2nd round grade, which is precisely where he was taken. Jarvis Jones, on the other hand, produced nightmarishly poor results at the combine, that largely negated any good will his excellent college production might have engendered. I honestly have to wonder if Jarvis Jones was drunk at the combine, to produce these kinds of numbers. While it is certainly possible for a player with poor physical measurables to become a quality player, it isn't the sort of thing that happens frequently enough to take this sort of gamble in this first round. When you throw in Jones' health concerns (spinal stenosis), it makes his selection in the 1st round even more perplexing.
When you see that the computer only rated Worilds and Hughes as 2nd and 3rd round draft prospects, it might seem odd that I am so interested in how they perform. The truth is, that despite these modest appraisals, they were still the computer's second and third rated pass rushing prospects in 2010 (out of 57 players, between 240-280 pounds, who we felt might be used in a pass rushing role), and rated well ahead of players like Brandon Graham, Jason Piere-Paul, and Derrick Morgan (who were selected with the 13th, 15th, and 16th overall picks). Graham has clearly been a disappointment for the Eagles. Morgan appears to have done somewhat better, though almost certainly not at the level you would hope for from a 1st round pick. Pierre-Paul is a bit of an enigma, who had one huge season, then started to turn into a pumpkin again (though injuries may be a factor). So, it is nice to finally see Worilds and Hughes beginning to justify the computer's optimism. We were getting tired of waiting.
In the end, none of this should be taken as a statement of my strong belief in Hughes or Worilds. I think they are legitimate pass rushing prospects, now somewhat confirmed, though a long way from greatness. Their physical measurables and college production suggested they had potential, though they certainly wouldn't rank as highly as many other prospects in better draft classes, whom the computer might feel more strongly about. Still, like I said, they seemed to have a reasonable likelihood of doing okay for themselves, which is more than I can say for the people that teams have tried to shove onto the field as their replacements. That, right there, is the issue that confuses and annoys me. Just having to ask the question of whether the best players are even getting on the field, is something that should be unthinkable.
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