For some reason the comments section on PFT seems to be heavily populated with people who are questioning the reasoning behind the trade of Trent Richardson to the Colts, for a 1st round pick. People are screaming about how the Browns have effectively given up on this season by making this move. Sympathy from all directions is being showered on poor Browns fans.
Personally, I love this move, and think that it was a ballsy decision on the part of the Browns' management. When the Browns selected Richardson with the 3rd overall pick in 2012, it was a blatantly idiotic move. Unless you are Adrian Peterson, a running back just isn't worth that sort of investment. Hell, even if you are Adrian Peterson, I'm not sure you are worth that kind of investment (hasn't gotten the Vikings very much). Either way, Trent Richardson has at best been 'O.K.', but not exactly mind-blowing so far in his career, with a 3.5 yard career rushing average. I'm not saying that he is bad, I'm just suggesting that the likelihood of the team being in a position to seriously compete, before Richardson's rookie contract is up, was questionable. I'm not suggesting that the team trade away all of it's talent, in an attempt to build for the future, but if you have a player who is as easily replaceable as a running back, that someone is willing to trade for, it does make sense.
I also see that the Browns have issued the obligatory "We aren't giving up on the season" statement to the press. Let me make something clear. THEY ARE GIVING UP ON THE SEASON. I don't expect them to admit this to the ticket buying public, but it is the truth. They have an injured soon to be 30 year old QB with one year of experience (another brilliant pick!), one WR who can't catch (Greg Little), and another who is coming off suspension, and their hopes hinged on a running back who was gaining 3.6 yards per carry this year. I applaud them for giving up. It shows that they actually recognize the situation they are in, unlike most teams. Now they can focus on the future, where they can potentially improve (assuming they can learn how to draft better). Based on nothing more than the fact that the last 2 drafts have been relatively weak on actual talent (the 2013 draft in particular was garbage, in my opinion), I would expect the 2014 draft to rebound and be much better. An additional pick in the upcoming draft is a nice bit of extra ammunition
As for the Colts, well, I have mixed feelings. I'm not entirely confident that Richardson will turn into a savior, but he will probably do better with Indy's passing game taking some pressure off of him. For what the Colts paid, a 1st round pick that will probably be in the 20-25 range, it is closer to Richardson's actual value. He can probably deliver in a competent way for the Colts. Maybe he will excel there. I just don't see this as a move that puts the Colts over the hump, at least in the short term. Will they make the playoffs this year? I don't know. If they do, I expect them to be quickly bounced out by better teams. I think the Colts could have waited until the offseason to address the running back position.
Not everybody should be approaching the season with a "Super Bowl or bust" attitude. It just isn't sensible. Most teams don't really have a legitimate shot. There are some teams that just have too many areas of concern to be worrying about short term goals. I think it took guts for the Browns to take this path, and genuinely wish them the best, because I know the fans are going to be unreasonably brutal about this.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Friday, September 13, 2013
Steelers' O-Line: We don't need no stinkin' athletic ability!
I really have to wonder how long it is going to be before Ben Roethlisberger gets killed playing behind this Steelers' offensive line. The worst part about this situation, is that this problem is hardly what anyone would call a new revelation. Their line simply sucks. In week 1, versus the Titans, Roethlisberger was sacked 5 times, while the running backs averaged 2.07 yards per carry. Does anybody really think that the Titans are the greatest threat that the Steelers will face this year? Personally, I think it's going to get a lot worse this Sunday when they face the Bengals. This game could be comically bad (although the Bengals did fail to record a sack against the Bears, which surprised me).
First of all, let's look at their offensive line, to see if they are even physically capable of blocking anyone more intimidating than a chipmunk.
I dropped Fernando Velasco into the lineup, since it seems that the team intends for him to fill in for Maurkice Pouncey. Personally, I think their backup Cody Wallace might be a more interesting replacement, though it is hard to compare him to Velasco, since Velasco has no combine data.
Either way, what we have here is an offensive line that is probably built to fail. While this offensive line is quite large, with the smallest lineman weighing 316 pounds, they are almost all lacking any real athletic ability. The Steelers seem to be shopping at Sam's Club for their linemen, where bulk matters more than quality. The only player with any real power (as measured by the Kangaroo Score), is Marcus Gilbert, but this is probably largely negated by his abysmally poor Agility Score. To be fair, I should mention that Gilbert's Agility Score is based solely off of his short shuttle time, as his 3-cone time is unavailable, though there is normally a significant correlation between the two drills. David "Friendly Fire" DeCastro is the only member of the line that I can't really dismiss as a likely fraud. In DeCastro's case, his scores suggest only somewhat average power, but he does appear to be quite agile, which is more typical among successful guards.
While the value of this is a bit more debatable, this group also shows fairly poor results in the 40 yard dash, with the best result being 5.28 seconds. Now, normally I would agree with people who say that how fast an offensive lineman can run 40 yards is completely pointless...except this might not be entirely true. Generally speaking, I would say that the history of success for offensive linemen really declines rather sharply when their time drops below 5.2 seconds. Rather than being a pointless measure of their top speed, I think this may relate to how 'light on their feet' the player is, when it comes to making quick adjustments in their foot positioning. Generally, I rely on the Agility Score to capture this nimbly-toed quality of offensive linemen, as this tends to also correspond with an acceptable 40 time, but it is still something I keep on the checklist. Basically the Steelers linemen are as swift as slugs. Yes, we could look at their 10 yard splits instead, but it really doesn't do them any favors, or improve the overall picture.
Rather than building a line that is mobile, agile and hostile, the Steelers seem to be aiming for 'simply big'. That the Steelers have invested draft picks from the first two rounds in most of these players, honestly confuses the hell out of me. For a bit of comparison, let's look at the Patriots offensive line, and how they measure up.
Hmm, which line would you rather have? The funniest part of this is that the Patriots haven't invested any more in their line, in terms of where their linemen were selected in the draft. If I included Maurkice Pouncey, who was selected with the 18th overall pick in 2010, then the Steelers average starting offensive linemen would come at the 83rd overall pick, while the Patriots would have come at 123th pick (undrafted players are counted as the 255th pick). So, the Patriots built a better line, that was more athletic, and at a lower average draft position.
Still, it is the line that they have, and there isn't much point in wishing things were different now. So how are they going to move the ball?
On the one hand, you have the Steelers' running backs, who present little reason to believe they are capable of accomplishing very much. Le'Veon Bell is probably the most gifted of the bunch, but he's not playing yet due to injury. Even if he was playing, I'm not confident he has the superhuman ability to overcome the obstacles this line would put in his path. After Bell, you get to Isaac Redman and LaRod Stephens-Howling, and I don't think anybody believes the opposing defense is quaking in their boots at those names. Bad blocking, mixed with mediocre running backs? Why, that does sound like a recipe for success, doesn't it?
Now, this lack of actual physical ability along the line is going to affect the Steelers' ability to pass the ball too, so maybe keeping the opposing defenses guessing by running the ball still has some value. Except, in this case, throwing the ball still appears to easily be the lesser of two evils. At least with the Steelers passing game, they have 3 legitimately fast (actually, Antonio Brown isn't that fast) and talented (probably) receivers, who have shown some ability to produce, when given an opportunity. Markus Wheaton and Emmanuel Sanders both scored well enough coming out of college to appear on the computer's list of WR prospects that appeared to be reasonably safe bets to become future reliable performers. You can feel free to dismiss that if you wish, though things tend to work out for players of this type. While the computer had less confidence in Antonio Brown, we have to acknowledge that he has done quite well so far, so he is a good target as well. The main problem here is that all of these receivers tend to be on the small side, limiting their usefulness in the redzone. Still, the receivers would appear to be the area of strength for this offense. So, it seems they are going to just have to throw the ball up (quickly!) and pray.
I suspect that the inevitable outcome of the Steelers' current situation is an injury for Ben Roethlisberger, but until the great QB decapitation occurs, I'll just be watching to see how bad this mess can get. I actually have a fair bit of respect for the Steelers' organization, but their draft tendencies along the offensive line really make no sense to me. The funniest aspect of this situation is that the team didn't even draft a single offensive linemen this year. So, basically, they were confident in this group, for some unknown reason.
First of all, let's look at their offensive line, to see if they are even physically capable of blocking anyone more intimidating than a chipmunk.
| Player | Year | Weight | Draft # | 40 yd | Kangaroo | Agility |
| Mike Adams LT | 2012 | 323 | 56 | 5.28 | 0.138 | -0.787 |
| Ramon Foster LG | 2009 | 328 | U | 5.28 | -0.689 | -0.896 |
| Fernando Velasco C | 2008 | 318 | U | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| David Decastro RG | 2012 | 316 | 24 | 5.32 | -0.117 | 1.301 |
| Marcus Gilbert RT | 2011 | 330 | 63 | 5.47 | 0.566 | -1.340 |
I dropped Fernando Velasco into the lineup, since it seems that the team intends for him to fill in for Maurkice Pouncey. Personally, I think their backup Cody Wallace might be a more interesting replacement, though it is hard to compare him to Velasco, since Velasco has no combine data.
Either way, what we have here is an offensive line that is probably built to fail. While this offensive line is quite large, with the smallest lineman weighing 316 pounds, they are almost all lacking any real athletic ability. The Steelers seem to be shopping at Sam's Club for their linemen, where bulk matters more than quality. The only player with any real power (as measured by the Kangaroo Score), is Marcus Gilbert, but this is probably largely negated by his abysmally poor Agility Score. To be fair, I should mention that Gilbert's Agility Score is based solely off of his short shuttle time, as his 3-cone time is unavailable, though there is normally a significant correlation between the two drills. David "Friendly Fire" DeCastro is the only member of the line that I can't really dismiss as a likely fraud. In DeCastro's case, his scores suggest only somewhat average power, but he does appear to be quite agile, which is more typical among successful guards.
While the value of this is a bit more debatable, this group also shows fairly poor results in the 40 yard dash, with the best result being 5.28 seconds. Now, normally I would agree with people who say that how fast an offensive lineman can run 40 yards is completely pointless...except this might not be entirely true. Generally speaking, I would say that the history of success for offensive linemen really declines rather sharply when their time drops below 5.2 seconds. Rather than being a pointless measure of their top speed, I think this may relate to how 'light on their feet' the player is, when it comes to making quick adjustments in their foot positioning. Generally, I rely on the Agility Score to capture this nimbly-toed quality of offensive linemen, as this tends to also correspond with an acceptable 40 time, but it is still something I keep on the checklist. Basically the Steelers linemen are as swift as slugs. Yes, we could look at their 10 yard splits instead, but it really doesn't do them any favors, or improve the overall picture.
Rather than building a line that is mobile, agile and hostile, the Steelers seem to be aiming for 'simply big'. That the Steelers have invested draft picks from the first two rounds in most of these players, honestly confuses the hell out of me. For a bit of comparison, let's look at the Patriots offensive line, and how they measure up.
| Player | Year | Weight | Draft # | 40 yd | Kangaroo | Agility |
| Nate Solder LT | 2011 | 319 | 17 | 4.96 | 1.281 | 1.592 |
| Logan Mankins LG | 2005 | 307 | 32 | 5.06 | -0.370 | 1.146 |
| Ryan Wendell C | 2009 | 286 | U | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Dan Connolly RG | 2005 | 311 | U | 5.19 | 0.274 | 0.695 |
| Sebastian Vollmer RT | 2009 | 312 | 58 | 5.13 | 1.748 | 1.076 |
Hmm, which line would you rather have? The funniest part of this is that the Patriots haven't invested any more in their line, in terms of where their linemen were selected in the draft. If I included Maurkice Pouncey, who was selected with the 18th overall pick in 2010, then the Steelers average starting offensive linemen would come at the 83rd overall pick, while the Patriots would have come at 123th pick (undrafted players are counted as the 255th pick). So, the Patriots built a better line, that was more athletic, and at a lower average draft position.
Still, it is the line that they have, and there isn't much point in wishing things were different now. So how are they going to move the ball?
On the one hand, you have the Steelers' running backs, who present little reason to believe they are capable of accomplishing very much. Le'Veon Bell is probably the most gifted of the bunch, but he's not playing yet due to injury. Even if he was playing, I'm not confident he has the superhuman ability to overcome the obstacles this line would put in his path. After Bell, you get to Isaac Redman and LaRod Stephens-Howling, and I don't think anybody believes the opposing defense is quaking in their boots at those names. Bad blocking, mixed with mediocre running backs? Why, that does sound like a recipe for success, doesn't it?
Now, this lack of actual physical ability along the line is going to affect the Steelers' ability to pass the ball too, so maybe keeping the opposing defenses guessing by running the ball still has some value. Except, in this case, throwing the ball still appears to easily be the lesser of two evils. At least with the Steelers passing game, they have 3 legitimately fast (actually, Antonio Brown isn't that fast) and talented (probably) receivers, who have shown some ability to produce, when given an opportunity. Markus Wheaton and Emmanuel Sanders both scored well enough coming out of college to appear on the computer's list of WR prospects that appeared to be reasonably safe bets to become future reliable performers. You can feel free to dismiss that if you wish, though things tend to work out for players of this type. While the computer had less confidence in Antonio Brown, we have to acknowledge that he has done quite well so far, so he is a good target as well. The main problem here is that all of these receivers tend to be on the small side, limiting their usefulness in the redzone. Still, the receivers would appear to be the area of strength for this offense. So, it seems they are going to just have to throw the ball up (quickly!) and pray.
I suspect that the inevitable outcome of the Steelers' current situation is an injury for Ben Roethlisberger, but until the great QB decapitation occurs, I'll just be watching to see how bad this mess can get. I actually have a fair bit of respect for the Steelers' organization, but their draft tendencies along the offensive line really make no sense to me. The funniest aspect of this situation is that the team didn't even draft a single offensive linemen this year. So, basically, they were confident in this group, for some unknown reason.
Monday, September 2, 2013
Short Shuttle Times and NFL Centers
As the name of this blog would suggest, I believe that the simplest
answers to a problem tend to be the best ones. Among these simple (and potentially stupid) answers that I believe in, is the possibility that if
you are looking for a center for your team's offensive line, you might
not need to go any further than examining the player's short shuttle
time. Strange and magical things seem to happen when a player's short
shuttle time approaches the 4.50 second mark.
Yes, I realize that this is probably going to sound incredibly foolish. Yes, I realize that this doesn't involve film study. Yes, character, hard work, motivation, proper blocking technique, blah, blah, blah...that stuff matters I guess (Does it? I'm really not sure.). I will admit that this seems a bit crazy, and yes, I do consider other factors. I just suspect that, in the end, the short shuttle time probably is the main deciding factor in a player's success at the center position. So, let's proceed with my attempt at demonstrating this lunacy, and you can laugh at me afterwards.
What I'm going to do, is to list every single player who was the intended starting center at the beginning of the 2012 season. While some of these players ended up getting hurt, and not finishing the season, I think it is best to just include the players that the team wanted to start, not the ones they were forced to play. I will make one exception to this rule though, and that is for the Green Bay Packers. I'll explain why I'm making that exception in a little bit. For the most part, I believe this list is accurate, though in a couple cases it was a bit unclear who the intended center was. Overall, this should be pretty reliable though.
The 32 starting centers will be divided into 3 tiers. Along with their short shuttle time, I will also show their Kangaroo Score, and their Agility Score (half of which also comes from the short shuttle drill), which are shown in the form of how many standard deviations they are away from the average results for a player in their position group. I'll also show how many games they have started in their career (GS), their number of Pro Bowl selections (PB), and their number of All Pro selections. I should also mention that the average short shuttle time for all offensive linemen is approximately 4.74 seconds.
Group 1
The Average and the Unknown- Starting centers with short shuttle times of 4.60 seconds or worse.
Players in Group 1 were drafted, on average, around the 104th pick, which would be in the 3rd round. The five players at the bottom of this group, for whom I have no data, aren't factored into any of this. I'll explain why I dumped these unknowns into this group later. Group 1 is sort of a hodgepodge of highly drafted players, and people that nobody has probably ever heard of before. While numerous players in this group have short shuttle times that are better than the average result of 4.74 seconds, their results still aren't exactly shocking. I'm not saying that such players will do poorly. I am only suggesting that I generally wouldn't be inclined to bet on them, if I had other options.
This is only going to cause me trouble. You see that guy in the list above? The one with the most Pro Bowls, 3? Yes, Maurkice Pouncey! Well, he might be overrated (please don't hurt me). Really, I have no axe to grind here, but if you take the fellows at Pro Football Focus seriously (a debatable proposition), he's just kind of average (and, they mention it again here), and they suggest his brother Mike Pouncey is probably better. Now, I can neither confirm nor deny the validity of their analysis. That's not what I do. All I can say is that this view of the two Pounceys is closer to what their measurables would suggest was a likely outcome. Is it possible...now hear me out here... is it possible that a player taken in the 1st round, with all the hype and expectations that come with this, and is also selected by a celebrated and highly successful team, might be getting more credit than he deserves? While Pro Bowls are a questionable way to measure success (especially for offensive linemen who people probably don't watch as closely as they think they do), I think they become even more meaningless with high draft picks, who sometimes just need to avoid screwing up, in order to make people happy. A 7th round Pro Bowler, on the other hand, well, they probably really earned it. Maybe Pouncey is an outlier, or maybe I am just completely wrong about all of this.
Outside of the Pouncey brothers, the main name that probably stands out is that of Nick Hardwick. While his short shuttle time is only a little bit above average, his Kangaroo Score suggests he has much more explosive lower body power than most of his peers. While he might not have had an exceptional score when it came to the primary trait that I look for, he did come through on the secondary trait I consider for a center.
Group 2
The Pretty Damned Impressive- Starting centers with short shuttle times from 4.50-4.59 seconds.
When players begin sneaking into Group 2, I start to pay attention. How rare is it for a center to score this highly in their short shuttle drill? Well, that is a somewhat complicated question. So many players are shuffled around from position to position on the offensive lines, that it becomes hard to measure players who are strictly centers. Still, since pretty much all centers are under 6'5" tall, we can narrow things down a bit. Out of the 521 offensive linemen that I have in my database, I have short shuttle data for 498 of them. If we take these 498 players, and eliminate everyone over 6'5", then we are left with only 17.87% of the remaining players who ran a short shuttle time under 4.59 seconds. Since there are, on average, 41 offensive linemen taken in the NFL Draft, then that would mean the average draft class has 7.32 players who should probably qualify for this group.
The tricky thing here is that many of these 7.32 players per draft class still end up playing other positions. Many end up playing guard quite successfully, such as David Decastro (4.56), Marshal Yanda (4.58), Andy Levitre (4.52) Logan Mankins (4.45) or even tackle, such as Matt Light (4.49) or Jordan Gross (4.39). It's impossible to anticipate how teams will utilize these players (it is, either way, still a positive trait for other positions to have too). In the 2013 Draft, 6 players were selected who met this short shuttle time/height requirement (a below average year, unfortunately), with 1 currently being listed by their team as a tackle, 3 listed as guards, and only 2 currently listed as centers. What position they end up playing is anyone's guess, but this might give us some idea as to how these things typically break down.
Still, considering that these players with a short shuttle time under 4.59 seconds only make up about 17.87% of the draft population, it seems odd that they ended up with 18 out of 32 (56.25%, this includes the upcoming Group 3 players) of the starting center jobs in 2012. That means that there were 3.15 times as many starting centers last year, with times under 4.59 seconds, than there should have been considering their relative rarity. Players in Group 2 were also available about 24 picks later in the draft than the players in Group 1.
Dan Koppen is sort of the poster child for this whole theory. He pretty much bombed every event at the combine...except for one. The nice thing about this is that, if we believe that measurable athletic traits matter, then this helps to narrow down which drills matter for which positions. Koppen was a pioneer. A man ahead of his time. Setting forth on a path of adventure, he went on a quest to see how far an athletically inferior specimen could go, with only a great short shuttle time. I salute you Dan Koppen.
Overall, Group 2 looks reasonably impressive, and seems to have fewer random bozos in it than Group 1 (LRBP- Low Random Bozo Population, almost always an important factor). Half of the players here have managed to make it to a Pro Bowl or an All Pro team (with only one of these three players being selected before the 5th round, which I believe adds some validity to the honor). Roberto Garza, while lacking in awards, has at the very least had a fairly impressive career, having started 148 games.
Now, we're going to take things up a notch, and everything is going to get much weirder.
Group 3
The Freaks!- Starting centers with a short shuttle time under 4.49 seconds
UPDATE- 9/10/2014 : In the time since I first posted this, I have come across another, more plausible source, for Matt Birk's short shuttle time. This new source lists his time as 4.45 seconds. In the end, that still places him in Group 3, but I just wanted to make a note of this.
Well damn, that is one good looking group of centers we have there, and on average, they will only cost you a pick at the very beginning of the 5th round. While I have to wonder about the authenticity of Matt Birk and Jason Kelce's short shuttle times, even if I added 0.25 seconds to their results, they would still be in Group 3. It probably shouldn't come as a shock at this point to see that Birk, one of the most accomplished centers of the past decade would have shocking results in this area, though I am still stunned at how well he did.
Out of these 12 players, 5 have have gone to Pro Bowl or All Pro teams. Two more players, Brad Meester and Dominic Raiola, have had at least solid Roberto Garza type careers, with a remarkably high number of games started by them. You almost have to wonder if a Reverse Pouncey Effect might be at play here, since the relatively poor history of these player's teams (Jaguars and Lions respectively) probably doesn't bring them as much attention.
So, how rare are the players in Group 3? Well, using the same method I used for Group 2, the numbers would suggest that only 8.03% percent of drafted players are likely to qualify. Out of the 41 offensive linemen taken in an average draft, you should only expect to find 3.29 players who qualify. You should remember, these 3.29 players are also part of the same group of 7.32 players that would fit into Group 2, and not in addition to them. Just like with Group 2, there is still the issue that some of them will also end up playing positions other than center. In the 2013 Draft, 3 players were selected who could fall into this group, and only one is currently listed as a center, while the other 2 are currently listed as guards (David Quessenberry and Jeff Baca). Are you curious who this one unnamed center is? I'll get to that in a minute.
You should also consider this. These 12 players in Group 3 make up 37.5% of the starting centers, while only being 8.03% of the draft population. This means that there are 4.6 times as many of them starting as you would expect, considering their rarity. As players' short shuttle times improve, they continue to take an increasingly disproportionate number of the starting jobs. They are also available, on average, nearly a full round later than their more common Group 1 peers, though this also means that many of them have to overcome their team's lower expectations of them.
The one player, out of all three of these lists, that I had to sort of cheat to include, was Evan Dietrich-Smith. He doesn't really belong in this list at all, since the Packers had no intention of him being the starter. Legendary center Jeff Saturday was the actual opening day starter, a 37 year old free agent acquisition that the Packers had just signed. In fact, Saturday did start the first 14 games, before being benched (in his defense, you have to expect a decline in performance from a 37 year old). Unfortunately, I don't have the combine data for Jeff Saturday, but it strikes me as very interesting to see who they replaced him with, and who is now penciled in as the opening day starter for 2013. That they just happened to replace him with a player who had a 4.40 short shuttle time would seem like a peculiar coincidence. You have to wonder how this happened. Did Mike McCarthy, frustrated with Saturday, say,"Put in that undrafted kid from Idaho State. Yeah the one who has been lurking around here for 4 years, and only started 3 games. I'm feeling lucky!" It seems unlikely that Dietrich-Smith's excellent short shuttle time was a factor they consciously considered when making this move, since teams haven't shown many signs that this factor registers with them as terribly important in their draft decisions. Nonetheless, the undrafted oddball rose to the top of the heap, sort of like Jeff Saturday, who was also an undrafted player.
Among the players in this list, Will Montgomery's might not be a household name. Still his story is kind of interesting. Drafted at the very end of the 7th round, back in 2006, it is probably safe to say people expected very little of him. He bounced around the league, going from the Panthers, to the Jets, and finally to the Redskins, starting only 15 games in his first 6 years in the league, mostly at guard. Then in 2011, someone got the bright idea to give him a shot at the center position, and according to Pro Football Focus, he flourished with this switch, and was ranked as their 5th overall center for the 2012 season. The possibility that people would discover this hidden ability to play center, shortly before Montgomery turned 30, kind of strikes me as a cruel joke.
There is also the peculiar situation with Samson Satele (4.29 Short Shuttle), who started the first 11 games for the Colts, before suffering a knee injury. So, here's a quick trivia question. Who finished the remaining 5 games for the Colts? Why it was A.Q. Shipley, who just happens to have a short shuttle time of 4.40 seconds, which would also put him into Group 3 (DUN! DUN! DUN!). So, how did he perform, this undrafted player from the 2009 draft, who had never started a game in 4 years, on any of the three teams he had played for? I really have no idea, but the Ravens seemed to think that this formerly forgotten player was worth acquiring in a trade, even though they had supposedly drafted their center of the future, Gino Gradkowski, in the 2012 draft (who happens to have a short shuttle time of 4.78 seconds, uh, oh!). The odd coincidences seem to keep piling up.
In all of this rambling, I still haven't accounted for the 5 players from Group 1, for whom we have no combine data. When you consider the disproportionate degree to which players with better short shuttle times seem to be dominating the center position, it could lead you to the not so wild hunch that 2 or 3 of these unaccounted for players probably would fall into Group 2 or 3 as well. This would just push the overall representation of athletically gifted players even higher. If just 2 of these 5 players only made it as high as Group 2, then 20 out of 32 (62.5%) starting center jobs would be occupied by a group of players that only make up 17.87% of the population. It could conceivably be even higher.
You may have also noticed that as the players short shuttle times improved from Group 1, to Group 2, to Group 3, that there were corresponding improvements to the average Kangaroo Score for each group. In reality though, there is only a R^2 value of about 0.17 between the individual player's short shuttle times and their Kangaroo Scores, which is a rather low correlation. Still, the Kangaroo Score would be the second factor that I would probably consider when looking for a center. As I said earlier, I think this additional factor might partially explain how Nick Hardwick has succeeded, while being in Group 1. So, using the same criteria as before, what percentage of the population has a Kangaroo Score that is at least average (average being a result of "0"), while also running the short shuttle drill in under 4.49 seconds (might as well be greedy here and shoot for Group 3)? That would be 4.01% of the population, or 1.64 players per draft class. Despite the rarity of this sort of physical ability, 7 seven such players (21.875% of the 32) were starters in 2012, which is 5.45 times as many as you would expect if this was all just dumb luck. In the 2013 Draft, two players were selected who fit this mold. One was David Quessenberry, who I mentioned is now listed as a guard for the Texans, and the other is that same Group 3 center prospect that I previously said I would reveal. So, let's see who this player is, and match them up against the first center who was selected in the 2013 draft.
Who would you guess will end up doing better? Travis Frederick? Or, Eric Kush? Plus, Eric Kush was available 139 picks later than Travis Frederick. Whether Kush will actually end up doing well, is impossible for me to say. Despite that, the numbers would suggest that there is a high probability of this happening.
To what degree do NFL teams seem to care about these measurable factors when drafting a player? Well, let's divide the 2012 starting centers, from whom we have gathered data, into 2 groups, and compare their results. The first group will be players who were taken in the first two rounds. The second group will be players who were taken later than the 6th round, or who went undrafted.
Despite the fact that they are a seriously disproportionate number of the players who end up becoming starters (relative to the rarity of their physical ability), teams seem to place less emphasis on this in the first 2 rounds of the draft. This would seem to suggest that they don't actually trust these numbers very much. Still, despite their apparent lack of interest, they end up having to give (begrudgingly?) a surprisingly high number of the starting jobs to these athletically superior late round picks. If we count the 2012 starters that we don't have short shuttle times for, then we wind up with an equal number (14) of starters that came from the first 2 rounds, as we have from the 6th round through the undrafted. Then, when you consider that 7 out of 32 teams (21.875%) were starting centers who went undrafted, it really starts to paint a picture that suggests that teams might not really know what they are doing, or what they are looking for.
With such a disconcerting possibility, who can we place our faith in? Maybe, we can place our faith in the freakishly gifted athlete. Even when obstacles (GMs), and low expectations (their draft status), are placed in their path, they still just seem to rise to the top.
You can start laughing at me................................now!
Yes, I realize that this is probably going to sound incredibly foolish. Yes, I realize that this doesn't involve film study. Yes, character, hard work, motivation, proper blocking technique, blah, blah, blah...that stuff matters I guess (Does it? I'm really not sure.). I will admit that this seems a bit crazy, and yes, I do consider other factors. I just suspect that, in the end, the short shuttle time probably is the main deciding factor in a player's success at the center position. So, let's proceed with my attempt at demonstrating this lunacy, and you can laugh at me afterwards.
What I'm going to do, is to list every single player who was the intended starting center at the beginning of the 2012 season. While some of these players ended up getting hurt, and not finishing the season, I think it is best to just include the players that the team wanted to start, not the ones they were forced to play. I will make one exception to this rule though, and that is for the Green Bay Packers. I'll explain why I'm making that exception in a little bit. For the most part, I believe this list is accurate, though in a couple cases it was a bit unclear who the intended center was. Overall, this should be pretty reliable though.
The 32 starting centers will be divided into 3 tiers. Along with their short shuttle time, I will also show their Kangaroo Score, and their Agility Score (half of which also comes from the short shuttle drill), which are shown in the form of how many standard deviations they are away from the average results for a player in their position group. I'll also show how many games they have started in their career (GS), their number of Pro Bowl selections (PB), and their number of All Pro selections. I should also mention that the average short shuttle time for all offensive linemen is approximately 4.74 seconds.
Group 1
The Average and the Unknown- Starting centers with short shuttle times of 4.60 seconds or worse.
| Player | Year | Pick# | Sh. Sht. | Kangaroo | Agility | GS | PB | All Pro |
| Rodney Hudson | 2011 | 55 | 4.96 | -1.545 | -0.971 | 4 | ||
| Maurkice Pouncey | 2010 | 18 | 4.92 | -1.149 | -0.359 | 45 | 3 | 3 |
| Brian De La Puente | 2008 | U | 4.77 | -1.915 | 0.220 | 28 | ||
| Alex Mack | 2009 | 21 | 4.75 | -0.026 | 0.817 | 64 | 1 | |
| Ted Larsen | 2010 | 205 | 4.66 | -1.226 | 0.153 | 27 | ||
| Phil Costa | 2010 | U | 4.65 | 1.420 | 0.443 | 20 | ||
| Nick Hardwick | 2004 | 66 | 4.65 | 0.851 | 0.125 | 119 | 1 | |
| Mike Pouncey | 2011 | 15 | 4.64 | -1.409 | 0.468 | 32 | ||
| Stefen Wisniewski | 2011 | 48 | 4.64 | -0.235 | 0.733 | 31 | ||
| Ryan Wendell | 2008 | U | N/A | N/A | N/A | 21 | ||
| Fernando Velasco | 2008 | U | N/A | N/A | N/A | 19 | ||
| Peter Konz | 2012 | 55 | N/A | N/A | N/A | 15 | ||
| Jonathan Goodwin | 2002 | 154 | N/A | N/A | N/A | 92 | 1 | |
| Lyle Sendlein | 2007 | U | N/A | N/A | N/A | 77 | ||
| Average | 104 | -0.581 | 0.181 |
Players in Group 1 were drafted, on average, around the 104th pick, which would be in the 3rd round. The five players at the bottom of this group, for whom I have no data, aren't factored into any of this. I'll explain why I dumped these unknowns into this group later. Group 1 is sort of a hodgepodge of highly drafted players, and people that nobody has probably ever heard of before. While numerous players in this group have short shuttle times that are better than the average result of 4.74 seconds, their results still aren't exactly shocking. I'm not saying that such players will do poorly. I am only suggesting that I generally wouldn't be inclined to bet on them, if I had other options.
This is only going to cause me trouble. You see that guy in the list above? The one with the most Pro Bowls, 3? Yes, Maurkice Pouncey! Well, he might be overrated (please don't hurt me). Really, I have no axe to grind here, but if you take the fellows at Pro Football Focus seriously (a debatable proposition), he's just kind of average (and, they mention it again here), and they suggest his brother Mike Pouncey is probably better. Now, I can neither confirm nor deny the validity of their analysis. That's not what I do. All I can say is that this view of the two Pounceys is closer to what their measurables would suggest was a likely outcome. Is it possible...now hear me out here... is it possible that a player taken in the 1st round, with all the hype and expectations that come with this, and is also selected by a celebrated and highly successful team, might be getting more credit than he deserves? While Pro Bowls are a questionable way to measure success (especially for offensive linemen who people probably don't watch as closely as they think they do), I think they become even more meaningless with high draft picks, who sometimes just need to avoid screwing up, in order to make people happy. A 7th round Pro Bowler, on the other hand, well, they probably really earned it. Maybe Pouncey is an outlier, or maybe I am just completely wrong about all of this.
Outside of the Pouncey brothers, the main name that probably stands out is that of Nick Hardwick. While his short shuttle time is only a little bit above average, his Kangaroo Score suggests he has much more explosive lower body power than most of his peers. While he might not have had an exceptional score when it came to the primary trait that I look for, he did come through on the secondary trait I consider for a center.
Group 2
The Pretty Damned Impressive- Starting centers with short shuttle times from 4.50-4.59 seconds.
| Player | Year | Pick# | Sh. Sht. | Kangaroo | Agility | GS | PB | All Pro |
| Dan Koppen | 2003 | 164 | 4.56 | -0.762 | -0.397 | 132 | 1 | 1 |
| John Sullivan | 2008 | 187 | 4.55 | -0.251 | 0.759 | 61 | 1 | |
| Roberto Garza | 2001 | 99 | 4.53 | 0.977 | 0.649 | 148 | ||
| Eric Wood | 2009 | 28 | 4.51 | -0.117 | 0.963 | 47 | ||
| Kyle Cook | 2007 | U | 4.51 | -1.059 | 0.963 | 50 | ||
| Max Unger | 2009 | 49 | 4.50 | -1.493 | 1.289 | 48 | 1 | 1 |
| Average | 130 | -0.451 | 0.704 |
When players begin sneaking into Group 2, I start to pay attention. How rare is it for a center to score this highly in their short shuttle drill? Well, that is a somewhat complicated question. So many players are shuffled around from position to position on the offensive lines, that it becomes hard to measure players who are strictly centers. Still, since pretty much all centers are under 6'5" tall, we can narrow things down a bit. Out of the 521 offensive linemen that I have in my database, I have short shuttle data for 498 of them. If we take these 498 players, and eliminate everyone over 6'5", then we are left with only 17.87% of the remaining players who ran a short shuttle time under 4.59 seconds. Since there are, on average, 41 offensive linemen taken in the NFL Draft, then that would mean the average draft class has 7.32 players who should probably qualify for this group.
The tricky thing here is that many of these 7.32 players per draft class still end up playing other positions. Many end up playing guard quite successfully, such as David Decastro (4.56), Marshal Yanda (4.58), Andy Levitre (4.52) Logan Mankins (4.45) or even tackle, such as Matt Light (4.49) or Jordan Gross (4.39). It's impossible to anticipate how teams will utilize these players (it is, either way, still a positive trait for other positions to have too). In the 2013 Draft, 6 players were selected who met this short shuttle time/height requirement (a below average year, unfortunately), with 1 currently being listed by their team as a tackle, 3 listed as guards, and only 2 currently listed as centers. What position they end up playing is anyone's guess, but this might give us some idea as to how these things typically break down.
Still, considering that these players with a short shuttle time under 4.59 seconds only make up about 17.87% of the draft population, it seems odd that they ended up with 18 out of 32 (56.25%, this includes the upcoming Group 3 players) of the starting center jobs in 2012. That means that there were 3.15 times as many starting centers last year, with times under 4.59 seconds, than there should have been considering their relative rarity. Players in Group 2 were also available about 24 picks later in the draft than the players in Group 1.
Dan Koppen is sort of the poster child for this whole theory. He pretty much bombed every event at the combine...except for one. The nice thing about this is that, if we believe that measurable athletic traits matter, then this helps to narrow down which drills matter for which positions. Koppen was a pioneer. A man ahead of his time. Setting forth on a path of adventure, he went on a quest to see how far an athletically inferior specimen could go, with only a great short shuttle time. I salute you Dan Koppen.
Overall, Group 2 looks reasonably impressive, and seems to have fewer random bozos in it than Group 1 (LRBP- Low Random Bozo Population, almost always an important factor). Half of the players here have managed to make it to a Pro Bowl or an All Pro team (with only one of these three players being selected before the 5th round, which I believe adds some validity to the honor). Roberto Garza, while lacking in awards, has at the very least had a fairly impressive career, having started 148 games.
Now, we're going to take things up a notch, and everything is going to get much weirder.
Group 3
The Freaks!- Starting centers with a short shuttle time under 4.49 seconds
| Player | Year | Pick# | Sh. Sht. | Kangaroo | Agility | GS | PB | All Pro |
| David Baas | 2005 | 33 | 4.48 | 0.518 | 1.108 | 128 | ||
| Brad Meester | 2000 | 60 | 4.43 | 0.702 | 1.336 | 193 | ||
| Will Montgomery | 2006 | 234 | 4.43 | 0.172 | 1.442 | 47 | ||
| Nick Mangold | 2006 | 29 | 4.40 | -0.584 | 1.374 | 110 | 4 | 3 |
| Evan Dietrich-Smith | 2009 | U | 4.40 | -0.778 | 1.587 | 9 | ||
| Scott Wells | 2004 | 251 | 4.40 | 0.278 | 1.233 | 107 | 1 | |
| Dominic Raiola | 2001 | 50 | 4.35 | 0.789 | 1.373 | 188 | ||
| Chris Myers | 2005 | 200 | 4.35 | 0.213 | 1.727 | 95 | 2 | |
| Ryan Kalil | 2007 | 59 | 4.34 | -0.840 | 1.486 | 68 | 3 | 1 |
| Samson Satele | 2007 | 60 | 4.29 | 0.007 | 1.662 | 85 | ||
| Matt Birk | 1998 | 173 | 4.18 | N/A | 2.374 | 187 | 6 | 2 |
| Jason Kelce | 2011 | 191 | 4.14 | -0.537 | 2.472 | 18 | ||
| Average | 133 | -0.005 | 1.598 |
UPDATE- 9/10/2014 : In the time since I first posted this, I have come across another, more plausible source, for Matt Birk's short shuttle time. This new source lists his time as 4.45 seconds. In the end, that still places him in Group 3, but I just wanted to make a note of this.
Well damn, that is one good looking group of centers we have there, and on average, they will only cost you a pick at the very beginning of the 5th round. While I have to wonder about the authenticity of Matt Birk and Jason Kelce's short shuttle times, even if I added 0.25 seconds to their results, they would still be in Group 3. It probably shouldn't come as a shock at this point to see that Birk, one of the most accomplished centers of the past decade would have shocking results in this area, though I am still stunned at how well he did.
Out of these 12 players, 5 have have gone to Pro Bowl or All Pro teams. Two more players, Brad Meester and Dominic Raiola, have had at least solid Roberto Garza type careers, with a remarkably high number of games started by them. You almost have to wonder if a Reverse Pouncey Effect might be at play here, since the relatively poor history of these player's teams (Jaguars and Lions respectively) probably doesn't bring them as much attention.
So, how rare are the players in Group 3? Well, using the same method I used for Group 2, the numbers would suggest that only 8.03% percent of drafted players are likely to qualify. Out of the 41 offensive linemen taken in an average draft, you should only expect to find 3.29 players who qualify. You should remember, these 3.29 players are also part of the same group of 7.32 players that would fit into Group 2, and not in addition to them. Just like with Group 2, there is still the issue that some of them will also end up playing positions other than center. In the 2013 Draft, 3 players were selected who could fall into this group, and only one is currently listed as a center, while the other 2 are currently listed as guards (David Quessenberry and Jeff Baca). Are you curious who this one unnamed center is? I'll get to that in a minute.
You should also consider this. These 12 players in Group 3 make up 37.5% of the starting centers, while only being 8.03% of the draft population. This means that there are 4.6 times as many of them starting as you would expect, considering their rarity. As players' short shuttle times improve, they continue to take an increasingly disproportionate number of the starting jobs. They are also available, on average, nearly a full round later than their more common Group 1 peers, though this also means that many of them have to overcome their team's lower expectations of them.
The one player, out of all three of these lists, that I had to sort of cheat to include, was Evan Dietrich-Smith. He doesn't really belong in this list at all, since the Packers had no intention of him being the starter. Legendary center Jeff Saturday was the actual opening day starter, a 37 year old free agent acquisition that the Packers had just signed. In fact, Saturday did start the first 14 games, before being benched (in his defense, you have to expect a decline in performance from a 37 year old). Unfortunately, I don't have the combine data for Jeff Saturday, but it strikes me as very interesting to see who they replaced him with, and who is now penciled in as the opening day starter for 2013. That they just happened to replace him with a player who had a 4.40 short shuttle time would seem like a peculiar coincidence. You have to wonder how this happened. Did Mike McCarthy, frustrated with Saturday, say,"Put in that undrafted kid from Idaho State. Yeah the one who has been lurking around here for 4 years, and only started 3 games. I'm feeling lucky!" It seems unlikely that Dietrich-Smith's excellent short shuttle time was a factor they consciously considered when making this move, since teams haven't shown many signs that this factor registers with them as terribly important in their draft decisions. Nonetheless, the undrafted oddball rose to the top of the heap, sort of like Jeff Saturday, who was also an undrafted player.
Among the players in this list, Will Montgomery's might not be a household name. Still his story is kind of interesting. Drafted at the very end of the 7th round, back in 2006, it is probably safe to say people expected very little of him. He bounced around the league, going from the Panthers, to the Jets, and finally to the Redskins, starting only 15 games in his first 6 years in the league, mostly at guard. Then in 2011, someone got the bright idea to give him a shot at the center position, and according to Pro Football Focus, he flourished with this switch, and was ranked as their 5th overall center for the 2012 season. The possibility that people would discover this hidden ability to play center, shortly before Montgomery turned 30, kind of strikes me as a cruel joke.
There is also the peculiar situation with Samson Satele (4.29 Short Shuttle), who started the first 11 games for the Colts, before suffering a knee injury. So, here's a quick trivia question. Who finished the remaining 5 games for the Colts? Why it was A.Q. Shipley, who just happens to have a short shuttle time of 4.40 seconds, which would also put him into Group 3 (DUN! DUN! DUN!). So, how did he perform, this undrafted player from the 2009 draft, who had never started a game in 4 years, on any of the three teams he had played for? I really have no idea, but the Ravens seemed to think that this formerly forgotten player was worth acquiring in a trade, even though they had supposedly drafted their center of the future, Gino Gradkowski, in the 2012 draft (who happens to have a short shuttle time of 4.78 seconds, uh, oh!). The odd coincidences seem to keep piling up.
In all of this rambling, I still haven't accounted for the 5 players from Group 1, for whom we have no combine data. When you consider the disproportionate degree to which players with better short shuttle times seem to be dominating the center position, it could lead you to the not so wild hunch that 2 or 3 of these unaccounted for players probably would fall into Group 2 or 3 as well. This would just push the overall representation of athletically gifted players even higher. If just 2 of these 5 players only made it as high as Group 2, then 20 out of 32 (62.5%) starting center jobs would be occupied by a group of players that only make up 17.87% of the population. It could conceivably be even higher.
You may have also noticed that as the players short shuttle times improved from Group 1, to Group 2, to Group 3, that there were corresponding improvements to the average Kangaroo Score for each group. In reality though, there is only a R^2 value of about 0.17 between the individual player's short shuttle times and their Kangaroo Scores, which is a rather low correlation. Still, the Kangaroo Score would be the second factor that I would probably consider when looking for a center. As I said earlier, I think this additional factor might partially explain how Nick Hardwick has succeeded, while being in Group 1. So, using the same criteria as before, what percentage of the population has a Kangaroo Score that is at least average (average being a result of "0"), while also running the short shuttle drill in under 4.49 seconds (might as well be greedy here and shoot for Group 3)? That would be 4.01% of the population, or 1.64 players per draft class. Despite the rarity of this sort of physical ability, 7 seven such players (21.875% of the 32) were starters in 2012, which is 5.45 times as many as you would expect if this was all just dumb luck. In the 2013 Draft, two players were selected who fit this mold. One was David Quessenberry, who I mentioned is now listed as a guard for the Texans, and the other is that same Group 3 center prospect that I previously said I would reveal. So, let's see who this player is, and match them up against the first center who was selected in the 2013 draft.
| Player | Year | Pick# | Sh. Sht. | Kangaroo | Agility |
| Travis Frederick | 2013 | 31 | 4.76 | -0.492 | -0.091 |
| Eric Kush | 2013 | 170 | 4.35 | 0.221 | 1.639 |
Who would you guess will end up doing better? Travis Frederick? Or, Eric Kush? Plus, Eric Kush was available 139 picks later than Travis Frederick. Whether Kush will actually end up doing well, is impossible for me to say. Despite that, the numbers would suggest that there is a high probability of this happening.
To what degree do NFL teams seem to care about these measurable factors when drafting a player? Well, let's divide the 2012 starting centers, from whom we have gathered data, into 2 groups, and compare their results. The first group will be players who were taken in the first two rounds. The second group will be players who were taken later than the 6th round, or who went undrafted.
| # of Players | Sh. Sht. | |
| 1st to 2nd round | 13 | 4.55 |
| 6th round to undrafted | 11 | 4.45 |
Despite the fact that they are a seriously disproportionate number of the players who end up becoming starters (relative to the rarity of their physical ability), teams seem to place less emphasis on this in the first 2 rounds of the draft. This would seem to suggest that they don't actually trust these numbers very much. Still, despite their apparent lack of interest, they end up having to give (begrudgingly?) a surprisingly high number of the starting jobs to these athletically superior late round picks. If we count the 2012 starters that we don't have short shuttle times for, then we wind up with an equal number (14) of starters that came from the first 2 rounds, as we have from the 6th round through the undrafted. Then, when you consider that 7 out of 32 teams (21.875%) were starting centers who went undrafted, it really starts to paint a picture that suggests that teams might not really know what they are doing, or what they are looking for.
With such a disconcerting possibility, who can we place our faith in? Maybe, we can place our faith in the freakishly gifted athlete. Even when obstacles (GMs), and low expectations (their draft status), are placed in their path, they still just seem to rise to the top.
You can start laughing at me................................now!
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