Top Wide Receiver Short List - 4/22/13

Ok so let's start on the offense. Just to give y'all an update I decided to adjust the weightings to give measurables a little bit more weight than I have been giving in the past and will eventually give an update on all the previous rankings. I wanted to make sure production was dominant so initially it was 75/25 in favor of production, but I will adjust it to 60/40 in favor of production after having seen the results. The results I was getting deviated too much from the mocks and historically the mocks and actual drafts have done a fairly good job identifying the best players. The purpose of the stat model was to take some of the measurables bias away from the evaluation. Keep in mind the measurables that are used in these models are based on metrics that have shown a history of statistical relevance according to Draftmetrics. No offensive lineman nor a QB needs a fast 40 and unfortunately people will still be influenced by bad numbers in this area. Remember Tom Brady ran a 5.28 sec 40yd dash. Furthermore there are some anomalies in measurables. The average successful NFL safety actual bench pressed less on average than the rest of his peer group. Successful corners typically bench pressed more than his peers. One might think the bench press combine statistic would be irrelevant for corners. In any case, I've used Draftmetrics to isolate the best measurables so even though I use the term 'measurables' this may differ from another evaluator's 'measurables.'

See: http://www.draftmetrics.com/draft.asp?f=2

Here is the overall ranking for WR with a 60/40 weighting. For measurables I used: Height, Weight, 40yd dash, Vertical, Broad Jump. The stats I used were simply Yds/Game & TDs and made adjustments for competition based on conferences. Unfortunately I didn't have any drop statistics. I think Belichick once said all a good receiver needed to do was two things: 1) get open and 2) catch the ball. I gave Juniors a positive adjustment because there is typically a maturing process for WRs and you should expect productive Juniors who leave early to have much better Senior seasons if they were to stay in college. Also note KR/PR/Rushing stats are not included which hurts Cordarelle Patterson and Tavon Austin. I just stuck with pure receiving stats. Here is the list:

Overall Ranking: (60% Active Stats/ 40% Measurables)

1. * Stedman Bailey, West Virginia 2.43
2. * Justin Hunter, Tennessee 2.16
3. Terrance Williams, Baylor 2.15
4. Da'Rick Rogers, (former Tennessee), 2.05
5. *De'Andre Hopkins, Clemson, 1.88
6. *Robert Woods, USC 1.74
7. *Cordarelle Patterson, Tennessee 1.66
8. Quinton Patton, Lousiana Tech 1.58
9. Tavon Austin, West Virginia 1.57
10. Keenan Allen, California 1.43
11. Aaron Dobson, Marshall 1.39
12. Markus Wheaton, Oregon St, 1.30

For comparison here is what happens when measurables are dominant. I feel the NFL draft will look closer to this (Austin & Cordarelle would go higher because of their special team/rushing skills):

Ranking: (40% Active Stats/ 60% Measurables)

1. * Justin Hunter, Tennessee 2.41
2. Da'Rick Rogers, (former Tennessee), 2.30
3. Terrance Williams, Baylor 2.19
4. *Cordarelle Patterson, Tennessee 2.11
5. * Stedman Bailey, West Virginia 2.07
6. *De'Andre Hopkins, Clemson, 2.018.
7. Aaron Dobson, Marshall 1.84
8. *Robert Woods, USC 1.81
9. Quinton Patton, Lousiana Tech 1.69
10. Keenan Allen, California 1.53
11. Tavon Austin, West Virginia 1.44
12. Markus Wheaton, Oregon St, 1.41

Next up: TE's!
http://moneyballer.blogspot.com/

Very interesting analysis !!

That totally jives with my own assessment of Justin Hunter being one of the top WR picks, if not THE top pick.

Originally posted by Rascal:
Very interesting analysis !!

That totally jives with my own assessment of Justin Hunter being one of the top WR picks, if not THE top pick.

Thanks! Yeah he's up there near the top!

Nice work.

JD:
Do you have a 49ers mock draft for us with all of the information you have?

funny thing is that I actually really like Stedman Bailey later in the draft. H'e make a nice 4th or 5th rounder and he could take Williams spot and be better.

Originally posted by ElephantHaley:
funny thing is that I actually really like Stedman Bailey later in the draft. H'e make a nice 4th or 5th rounder and he could take Williams spot and be better.

Agree.

I hope he's the second WR we take in this draft.

Originally posted by TheFunkyChicken:

Originally posted by ElephantHaley:
funny thing is that I actually really like Stedman Bailey later in the draft. H'e make a nice 4th or 5th rounder and he could take Williams spot and be better.

Agree.

I hope he's the second WR we take in this draft.

who would be the first

Originally posted by gold49digger:

Originally posted by TheFunkyChicken:

Originally posted by ElephantHaley:
funny thing is that I actually really like Stedman Bailey later in the draft. H'e make a nice 4th or 5th rounder and he could take Williams spot and be better.

Agree.

I hope he's the second WR we take in this draft.

who would be the first

Preferably someone with a better size/speed combo. I don't think Bailey is destined to fail because he's not that tall, but that doesn't mean we don't still need someone bigger and faster playing the position.

I like Hopkins and Patterson the most.

But I'd cool Terence Williams, Keenan Allen, Woods, Ra'Rick, or Hunter as well.

Originally posted by ElephantHaley:
funny thing is that I actually really like Stedman Bailey later in the draft. H'e make a nice 4th or 5th rounder and he could take Williams spot and be better.

Is Bailey really likely to last until the 3rd day?? I think I've seen him projected as high as the 2nd round, but I could be wrong. He definitely looks like a 2nd day pick to me on "tape."

So you adjusted your own weighting system cause you didnt like the results. Then you gave juniors positive adjustments?

Originally posted by krizay:
So you adjusted your own weighting system cause you didnt like the results. Then you gave juniors positive adjustments?

Yeah I'm scratching my head there too. I've argued that the weighting for measurables should be higher. But to change it now seems fishy to me.

Also, I don't think you should give juniors a bump. Yes, they have more upside and come into the league younger, but there are also less experienced and more likely to struggle as rookies.

Originally posted by Ninefan56:
JD:
Do you have a 49ers mock draft for us with all of the information you have?

Trying to get to that.. will do a quick one Wednesday probably... thanks!

Originally posted by SammyFrancisco:

Originally posted by ElephantHaley:
funny thing is that I actually really like Stedman Bailey later in the draft. H'e make a nice 4th or 5th rounder and he could take Williams spot and be better.

Is Bailey really likely to last until the 3rd day?? I think I've seen him projected as high as the 2nd round, but I could be wrong. He definitely looks like a 2nd day pick to me on "tape."

Yeah I think Bailey definitely be gone by the end of the 3rd round. I think the Packers will eye him to replace Jennings and they have a good record of getting productive receivers. I remember thinking of Greg Jennings as a sleeper/value pick in the 3rd or 4th, but he was taken in the 2nd at 52. I think it's a similar situation where most people expect him to be in the the 3rd/4th, but a team like the Packers will pick him earlier and get a potential star.

Originally posted by krizay:
So you adjusted your own weighting system cause you didnt like the results. Then you gave juniors positive adjustments?

Yup that's what I did. But as I explained I did not want the results to deviate too much from the mock rankings. I just wanted it to have a 'Production' bias instead of a measurables bias so I probably should have made it closer to 60/40 in the beginning, but I wanted to make sure the bias was noticeable. However after doing many iterations on all the positions I noticed too much of a deviation. Heck maybe 55/45 would have been better. If I had time to backtest the last 10 yrs of mocks & drafts & NFL production to find good weightings it wouldn't have to be arbitrary, but since I haven't this is the best I could come up with that I'm comfortable with. I simply want to find a model that captures a lot of what experts see and make a 'productivity' adjustment from that. I could probably run iterations to see what the best weightings are to most closely match the mock rankings, but I don't have the time to do that.

Juniors? Yes absolutely. From experience I think this is good. I remember Andre Johnson coming off a good Junior season from Florida. I didn't have him as highly ranked just purely on productivity, but I saw the trajectory and understood there was potential. This is especially true at the WR position. Johnson had 600+ yds as a Soph and 1000+ yds as a Junior. As a rookie in '03 he had 900+ yds and made the Probowl the next year with over 1000 yds.. 5 yrs later he had back to back 1500 yd seasons. Receivers take time to mature. Look at stats in the NFL ..look at stats in college.. usually there is a trajectory.. look at Deandre Hopkins .. look at Stedman Bailey this year. RBs are different.. they crank out 1000+ yds immediately and just maintain the numbers. Let me know if your experience is different.