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NFL Draft - Star Rating - Recruit Identification
FirePlugDawg
Posts: 5,480 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
(This might be a familiar topic but it is new to me.) I counted the number of 3 stars and less in the 2018 NFL draft's first 3 rounds (32 in the first and second rounds, and the first 32 in the 3rd round of the 36) - 96 draft selections, sorted by position. Here are the counts:
3 Stars and Less, 2018 NFL Draft - first 96 players:
qb 3
rb 1
og 2
ot 9
te 2
wr 6
de 6
dt 8
lb 4
db 13 13.54% 24.07%
total 54 56.25%
Selections with 3 Stars or less were over 1/2 (56.25%) of the first 96 selections.
5 stars in the first 96 selections were 12 or 1/8 (12.5%) of the selections.
4 Stars were 30 or nearly 1/3 (31.25%) of the first 96.
What stands out is the number of DBs that had 3 or less Stars. They make up nearly 1/4 (24.07%) of those with 3 Stars or less and were over 10% (13.54%) of the 96 selections.
A more rigorous study is needed to take this much further, but it is clear to me that evaluation of DB talent in high school must be difficult. It is likely that the same applies for OTs and DTs. So, D'Andre Baker's status as a top player who was rated a 3 Star is not unusual.
It might be valid also to suggest that lower rated recruits (and their teams), can very good defensive players with the exception of LBs +/-.
Comments
Interesting
Nice research.
Everyone loves Cinderella, Rudy esk stories. UGA has a lot of 3* favorites from deandre Baker to Pollock and I love hearing guys outwork or blossom later.
The problem with just looking at total number 3 stars vs 4 stars and 5 stars is there are like a huge pool of 3 stars. Every recruiting class there are only 30ish 5 stars, 200 4 stars and close to a thousand 3 stars. When you actually look at the percentages of the 4 and 5 stars who make it to the nfl it’s a lot higher then the number of 3 stars.
I was thinking that as well. Your suggestion is a good one.
Exactly what I was going to say. 3 star and lower ranked players are thousands of kids verses around 230 4 star and higher each year.
Those figures show lower rated recruits can rise above early predictions, that is a great motivator for kids who are willing to work hard.
Of course the ratio of 5 star players who get drafted early is much higher than it is for 3 star recruits, but the opportunity is there for every kid who gets in the door.
I 100% agree on the pool comment. Another factor, IMO, is that many 4 and 5 stars have been superior athletes that haven't had to work on the little lack that ability to grind.
The offenses these guys play in high school also varies widely. I think its also been discussed the camp circuits really determine the stars vs the play on the field. Also I think I heard FIve Star players are only given to what could be 1st round picks ( around 35 in 2019 class). Just based on 2018 group 3 Stars are just more numerous and may be borderline 4s or 5s that didn't get noticed by the camps. Your lower rated recruits also probably end up going through 4 years of college and end up more mature and coached up. Now I still will go with recruiting the best of the best and finding the diamonds in the rough.
From SBNation below.
Here’s how long their odds are to reach various recruiting ratings, using class of 2018 data from Rivals, if we settle on 300,000 football-playing seniors as a fair estimate:
33 five-stars, or 0.01 percent of the class
399 four-stars, or 0.13 percent of the class
1,409 three-stars, or 0.47 percent of the class
1,842 two-stars, or 0.61 percent of the class
296,317 unrated, or 98.77 percent of the class
Not my actual list of top 10s. Just a google search of too 10s for each position.
DBs 5 Star: 2, 4 star: 1, 3 star: 6, 2 star: 1
1.) Patrick Peterson: 5 Star
2.) Xavier Rhoades: 3 Star
3.) Jalen Ramsey: 5 Star
4.) AJ Buoye: 2 Star
5.) Darius Slay: 3 Star
6.) Marshon Lattimore: 4 Star
7.) Chris Harris: 3 Star
8.)Marcus Peters: 3 Star
9.) Richard Sherman: 3 Star
10.)Casey Hayward: 3 Star
QBs 5star: 2, 4star: 1, 3star: 3, 2star: 1, too old: 3
1.) Tom Brady: To old
2.) Aaron Rodgers: 3 Star
3.) Drew Brees: To old
4.) Derek Carr: 4 Star
5.) Russel Wilson: 3 Star
6.) Matthew Stafford: 5 Star
7.) Phillip Rivers: To old
8.) Matt Ryan: 3 Star
9.) Cam Newton: 5 Star
10.) Jimmy Garoppolo: 2 Star
RBs 5star:2, 4star:4, 3star:3, not rated:1
1.) Todd Gurley: 4 Star
2.) Bell: 3 Star
3.) David Johnson: Not rated
4.) Ezekiel Elliot: 4 Star
5.) Alvin Kamara: 4 Star
6.) Kareem Hunt: 3 Star
7.) Leonard Fournette: 5 Star
8.) Melvin Gordon: 4 Star
9.) Saquon Barkley: 3 Star
10.) Lasean McCoy: 5 Star
WRs 5star:3, 4star:3, 3star:1, 2star:1, not rated:2
1.) Julio Jones: 5 Star
2.) Antonio Brown: not rated
3.) Deandre Hopkins: 4 Star
4.) Odell Beckham: 4 Star
5.) AJ Green: 5 Star
6.) Keenan Allen: 5 Star
7.) Michael Thomas: 3 Star
8.) Tyreke Hill: 4 star
9.) Devonte Adams: 2 Star
10.) Adam Thielen: not rated
May add other positions later.
What is being missed is not that these 3 and less stars made the draft, but they made the top 3 levels. And yes, there are more of them, but a bunch made the top 3 levels (emphasis). And, why so many DBs - another of my points. Why not 13 LBs? There are lots of them too.
I also want to emphasize the apparent difficulty of judging defensive players. So, a team like U Mass may not be able to readily advance the ball, but they may be able to stop the ball from advancing. And, that applies to most teams, it would seem.
Below are the counts by round. 5 star and 4 star counts are shown for each round. For each round, the 3 star and less exceeds the total of 5 star and 4 star recruits. Given the overwhelming number of 3 stars and less, this is not necessarily unexpected, but in that these are the top level of draft selections, it does suggest to me that the effectiveness of placing Stars on high school recruits is likely not what it should be, especially on defensive players.
Round 1
5s 6 4s 9
3 stars and less:
qb 3
rb 1
og 0
ot 1
te 1
wr 1
de 2
dt 3
lb 2
db 3
TOTAL Rd 1 - 17
Round 2
5s 2 4s 10
3 stars and less:
qb 0
rb 0
og 2
ot 2
te 1
wr 3
de 3
dt 1
lb 2
db 6
TOTAL Rd 2 - 20
Round 3
5s 4 4s 11
3 stars and less:
qb 0
rb 0
og 0
ot 6
te 0
wr 2
de 1
dt 4
lb 0
db 4
TOTAL Rd 3 - 17
You actually proving why recruiting 4 and 5 *s are so important with this data
In any given draft there might be 40-50 5* athletes who are eligible because of redshirts and juniors declaring. So if we even go high and say there are 50 5* players who enter the draft and based off your data 12 were drafted. That’s about 24% chance that a 5* is drafted in the first 3 Rds in this very small sample size.
4*s
30 divided by ~ 400 eligible = about 7.5% chance
3*s and less
54 divided by a generous 2k eligible 3* or less = 2.7%
It’s more likely that teams with blue chip athletes will do better.
You guys arguing there are more 3*’s aren’t listening to what FirePlug is saying.
What you guys are afraid of is he’s proved that 3*’s are actually on average better than 4*’s and 5*’s. But he’s not even trying to say that.
He’s looking at it more broadly. One question he’s asking is why is so much more elite talent not recognized at certain positions?
His main example is DB’s,
One possible reason I can think of is DB is a harder position to learn than most. There’s more of a transition for that position from the high school game to the college game.
Another position that’s harder to learn is QB. So you could look at the percentage of QB’s with various ratings drafted in the first 3 rounds, but was skews the situation with QB’s is sooo much attention is placed on it. Everyone and their brother knows a little about what it takes to make a good QB.
RB is an easier to learn position. A lot of RB’s don’t need nearly as much transition. But again, like QB’s. Well, not as much as QB’s. But a lot of attention is placed on RB’s.
As to the DBs, there are more "3 or less" star players (7) than 4s and 5s (3). That is consistent with the draft results. I was going to say that perhaps Stars are not effective for predicting draft level, but then need to look at draft level and future performance (I suspect this is well studied), but then, linking it through, what is the impact of Stars on NFL performance? You have a part of the "answer" to that last one above. So, for DBs at least, Star ratings don't tell the tale so well for being a NFL do-er.
Looking at this makes you realize what we have in Pittman, Dell, Schuman and Coley. They bring in some unbelievable talent.
Yes, and folks ought to be hopeful about the prospects of Zion Logue and Tymon Mitchell (3 Stars). DL were just behind DBs for the 3 draft rounds for the D players. What the coaches see is critical, more so than a Star rating. (Also why Owen Condon may be hot stuff yet. Low rating OTs were prominent on the 3 rounds too.)