Measuring Athleticism- SPARQ ratings of this year's potential draft picks

[deweybeachde]

Not sure if anyone dives into the analytics behind the Combine and Pro Day data but there is a great website - http://3sigmaathlete.com/rankings/ that does a great job. I am not affiliated in any way with them but I do like what they do. Without getting too complicated, they measure Speed, Power and Explosion. SPARQ is a formula developed by Nike which measures player athleticism by outputting a single composite score. Davis Hsu and Danny Kelly started studying SPARQ over at FieldGulls.com after they were made aware of Seattle Seahawks Head Coach Pete Carroll’s involvement in the metric’s development.

Who are the diamonds in the rough that will help us get 8 good draft picks and some Priority Free Agents this year? Based on this SPARQ data, here is a Big Board of the top rated players.
As far as what positions we will draft, obviously OLB and CB look like the biggest needs for the first 2 rounds. From the 3rd round forward, I could see a Safety that can play both SS and FS, a 6'5+ DE, a combo O-lineman that can play G or T, a WR that also returns kicks, a RB and a TE.

Note that the “NFL perc.” and “z-score” columns refer to the NFL positional averages and not to the draft positional averages. This means that a 0.0 z-score and 50.0 percentile would represent a player who rates as a league-average NFL athlete at the position. The average NFL player is pretty athletic, so this designation is not at all a poor result.

OLB-Edge Rusher
Tier 1 -90 plus rating
Tull
Beasley
DuPree
Odighizuwa

Tier 2 -80 plus
Clark
Smith
Harold
Gregory

CB
Tier 1
B Jones
Rowe
Mager
K Johnson

Tier 2
Darby
Cox
McClain
Coleman

Safety
Tier 1
Shaw
No Tier 2

OLine
Tier 1
Marpet
Glowinski
Fisher
Gibson

No Tier 2

Tier 3-70+
Morse
Harrison
Smith
Scherff
Erving
Fabuluje

WR
Tier 1
Conley
Coates
White

Tier 2
McBride
Bell

Tier 3 - 70+
Hall
Waller
Montgomery

RB
Tier 1
Abdullah
D Johnson

No Tier 2

Tier 3
Burton
Zenner

The best 6'5 D Lineman is Anderson in the 3rd tier at 78.5
No tight end scored in the Top 3 Tiers. Pruitt was the highest at 66.7

[ALLD]

Please, no potheads, mushmouth morons or fragile glassthletes.

[Dwinsgames]

personally I do not subscribe to these formulas , either you can play or you cant athleticism rarely makes any difference if it had not already flashed on tape ...

some guys can put up crazy numbers without the pads but they never show up on tape with the pads on ...

I do believe their is a place for this stuff ( the trash can ) no but really numbers acquired on paper should IMO only be considered if all other things are equal ( tie breaker scenarios between two otherwise equal talents ) but knowing if someone is talented does not come from these numbers it all comes from the tape ....

[one side only]

All measurements offer some value, but it is easy for someone evaluating these players to develop paralysis by analysis. I would want to know if the potential draft pick has heart . . . will he play hurt? . . . is he self-aware (is he confident in his own ability, yet coachable and will buy in to the system)? . . . can he learn the playbook? All of these questions are difficult to answer without interaction with the player and those who know him best.

[Mojouw]

Attempting to quantify athletic potential is important. Obviously game tape and interviews play a larger role. How many draft prospects dominate in college as the big fish in a little pond and then bust out in the NFL as the little fish in a big pond? There have been many. Alternatively, there have been a ton of guys that passed the "eyeball test" athletically and then never figured out how to actually play football. So, clearly you have to evaluate a prospect from all sides.

But to throw out any advance metrics/analytics is tossing the baby out with the bathwater. How many times do scouts ask the question whether or not a small school prospect can continue to perform at a high level against better competition. Then they use one week of senior bowl practices to "answer" the question. These types of statistical tools are an attempt to add another layer to that evaluation. Well, OT Prospect A from Outer Nowhere State really ripped it up against lesser schools. He had a good senior bowl week. Guess we draft him in the 3rd round? These tools then allow teams and analysts to see that OT Prospect A has athletic tools that either do or don't compare to other top performers in the NFL at his position.

I know it is math and not "tape study" but to disregard another potential source of information is never a good idea. For instance, this type of analysis would have clearly indicated that Jarvis Jones was not a good idea in the first round. It may have also prevented the drafting of Tony Hills. Perhaps even spared us from Ricardo Coclough. However, it would have encouraged the drafting of Limas Sweed and Cris Carter -- so clearly it is not a perfect concept.