Current Events > i'm blown away by how stupid the NFL is

(+) Yeah! (+)

sports like hockey, basketball, baseball, soccer all have varying degree of analytics and strong player development.

but the NFL is basically in the stone age. its astonishing how often first round picks are complete whiffs. late round picks VERY rarely work out because presumably teams are too busy focusing on the high round guys. there's also essentially zero rehab success stories as far as vets suddenly busting out. off the top of my head i can really only think of mike mitchell. but this happens all the time in baseball for example.

then front offices focus on the combine when whatever they are doing there that's so freakishly athletic is in underwear rather than in pads and a helmet. front offices also would rather take a benchwarmer on a big school over some guy who was super productive for a smaller one. on top of that some of the personnel decisions that are made are bizarre. like why is sean payton not trying to keep denver's awesome DC? and then why did they rehire former HC/DC vance joseph who was an embarrassment?

i dunno man. i don't really understand why front offices or ownership are so skittish about this stuff when its fully embraced in other sports. anyway. bad sport and am glad i quit watching it.

That's just Denver. Denver hasn't been the same once they got rid of John Elway as GM. Oh, don't forget about about Denver giving up the house for Rusty Wilson right after.

DirkDiggles posted...

That's just Denver. Denver hasn't been the same once they got rid of John Elway as GM. Oh, don't forget about about Denver giving up the house for Rusty Wilson right after.

i mean other teams are stupid too

why did the cardinals hire kliff kingsbury, a college coach who was FIRED for having a LOSING record?

why the panthers fire dave gettleman and replace him with marty hurney instead of brandon beane, who was our assistant GM at the time, allowing him to go to buffalo?

why do the browns do anything they do?

and so forth

US sport needs more jeopardy.

Without promotion/relegation teams get lazy because the majority don't play for any real stakes after a certain point.

If you had 3 teams facing a $100m per year drop in income (not to mention prestige), you would see some changes.

I speak with bias because i'm an NHL fan first, but I watch all sports. I feel like hockey has the best overall development and conditioning program for young players, between the ECHL, AHL, and a ton of pro euro leagues, leaving multiple options open for each individual. The Red Wings got both Zetterberg and Datsyuk late in the draft and both were franchise players. Goalies normally take 4-5 years to develop typically before they see the NHL at a regular level, and even then a lot don't pan, but they are given every opportunity along the way.

ai123 posted...

US sport needs more jeopardy.

Without promotion/relegation teams get lazy because the majority don't play for any real stakes after a certain point.

If you had 3 teams facing a $100m per year drop in income (not to mention prestige), you would see some changes.

football relegation leagues would be unwatchable which is a probably an issue. the USFL, XFL, arena football, NFL europe, etc have all failed to take off really and essentially never got anyone any careers. NFL also has a salary cap and floor so every team is competing with the same amount of money. its just that theyre fucking terrible at creating a winning franchise most of the time unless they luck into a great QB (bucs w brady) or are genuinely smart (chiefs and eagles)

MabusIncarnate posted...

I speak with bias because i'm an NHL fan first, but I watch all sports. I feel like hockey has the best overall development and conditioning program for young players, between the ECHL, AHL, and a ton of pro euro leagues, leaving multiple options open for each individual. The Red Wings got both Zetterberg and Datsyuk late in the draft and both were franchise players. Goalies normally take 4-5 years to develop typically before they see the NHL at a regular level, and even then a lot don't pan, but they are given every opportunity along the way.

tbh i know nothing about PD for hockey but i know they got hella analytics cuz tom tango talks about them a lot on his twitter and also FHM exists. thats cool tho.

Zithers posted...

but the NFL is basically in the stone age. its astonishing how often first round picks are complete whiffs.

interesting you mention baseball compared to this.....

hmmmmmmm..............................

MabusIncarnate posted...

I speak with bias because i'm an NHL fan first, but I watch all sports. I feel like hockey has the best overall development and conditioning program for young players, between the ECHL, AHL, and a ton of pro euro leagues, leaving multiple options open for each individual. The Red Wings got both Zetterberg and Datsyuk late in the draft and both were franchise players. Goalies normally take 4-5 years to develop typically before they see the NHL at a regular level, and even then a lot don't pan, but they are given every opportunity along the way.

^^

Hockey, basketball and baseball have so many more options for developing and under-utilized players. There are leagues on literally every continent for them except ... American football.

Naysaspace posted...

interesting you mention baseball compared to this.....

hmmmmmmm..............................

hit rates in the mlb draft have skyrocketed over the past several years... because of analytics. over half of the first round from 2020 who didnt even get to play in the minors that year are in the majors.

im interested in the data behind that claim. its hard to find recent, secondary research on it -- most recent i can find is 2016 that analysed the 2000's, on fangraphs community research.

i cant remember where i read it or heard it tbh. maybe on baseball prospectus' podcast? but apparently high school pitchers are being drafted way less in the first round and they are the highest variance pick. only 2/29 from that 2020 class were hs pitchers. 5/29 in '21, 4/30 in '22, 2/28 this year. there were 7/30 in 2002 and 8/30 in 2001 just to look at some moneyball adjacent years.

ai123 posted...

US sport needs more jeopardy.

Without promotion/relegation teams get lazy because the majority don't play for any real stakes after a certain point.

If you had 3 teams facing a $100m per year drop in income (not to mention prestige), you would see some changes.

I imagine American sports fans would consider that system backwards just as British fans look at the minor league way of doing things as backwards.

ai123 posted...

US sport needs more jeopardy.

Without promotion/relegation teams get lazy because the majority don't play for any real stakes after a certain point.

If you had 3 teams facing a $100m per year drop in income (not to mention prestige), you would see some changes.

European soccer leagues end up with only one or two teams at a time that can win the title, because they don't have the profit sharing or draft pick communism of American sports, and because Europeans love selling out to brutal third world dictators in need of a fun new public image. And those relegation fodder teams can never respond to the threat of a drop because they don't have the money. They will just gamble on getting 16th or 17th place and continuing to stink up the league the next year.

bump

DirkDiggles posted...

That's just Denver.

Cleveland have been doing that for over 30 years now.

How can you make the claim that both first round picks AND late round picks usually dont work out?

If thats the case, how are there 1500 players in the league?

I actually like how chaotic draft picking turns out. The difference between college and pro leagues is so great you never really know how any player is going to turn out. But then some random 5th rounder ends up catching onto the game better than a 1st round pick and makes it so damn difficult to get the scouting right.

The NBA is no better, you have obvious busts like Anthony Bennett going #1 overall just because Comic Sans needs to show he can build a team his own (shitty) way.

I'm not really convinced that the NFL has a shortage of analytics in 2023.

bigblu89 posted...

How can you make the claim that both first round picks AND late round picks usually dont work out?

If thats the case, how are there 1500 players in the league?

well a lot of those players are bad. and over half of a NFL team is bench guys.

also i think there is not as much effort put into player development or scouting, or at least intelligent scouting and player development. i believe i explained this in the OP.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


When I studied sports economics, my professor said that sports is basically decades behind every other major industry in terms of player scouting, analytics, and development. It's opened up significantly in the last decade but the NFL is still the most stubborn league and collectively the media following it is probably even worse.

How do you quantify physicality and the potential to sufficiently adapt to that at the highest, most intense level of the sport? I feel that the increased speed and violence of the NFL game vs NCAA football often most stymies drafted players. I don't think the NFL Draft combine is a great barometer of any individual's talent as a football player but it does provide a reasonably accurate portrayal of how fast, strong, and agile a player can be when they give it their absolute all, and that at least gives GMs "something" to work with besides watching them put up gaudy statistics against inferior competition.

That said, I don't think the analytics of drafting in other sports work so much better because you still have a LOT of highly drafted players that never make the impact that they were projected to, if they make any impact at all. In every NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL draft, you will have some players that become superstars like projected, some players that will become stars/impact players in spite of their projections, some players who will become "journeymen" by kicking around the league on multiple teams for a few years, and you will have players that will struggle to make or stay on a roster period.

As for player development, how can you measure how players react to adversity or being told to do something that's completely counter to what got them there in the first place? You can measure production and physical attributes until your fingers bleed but what can you do if a player has all of the tools but not the mentality to learn how to use them at a higher level? I think the NFL deals with a "lot" more of that due to the brutal nature of the game and the relatively short careers of its players (yes, you have guys that play for 15 years and sometimes even 20 but they are very rare compared to the other sports, even considering that NFL rosters are much larger..because of said brutality). Guys who have been physically superior their entire lives are suddenly "normal" (or worse) compared to other players for the first time ever and some of them just can't overcome that.

All told, I'm not saying that it's impossible to find "a better way," but I don't think any numbers are going to help the two things that most cause NFL prospects to flame out. Sometimes, you really don't know what a player is capable of until they really get knocked on their ass.

Relegation would be a fun thing to play with in sports video games, but having relegation in the actual leagues would be such a bad idea.

Relegation would not work at all in the modern NFL. Even the worst NFL team would dominate any other football team in the world.

Relegation and promotion is awful. Teams rarely get promoted because they don't have the money for players like Messi, so what's the point? Most teams that get promoted are either long, well established clubs that managed to just squeeze through, and sometimes the ones that are relegated are yuuuugely financially comfortable teams that just had a bad streak one season. Just set up a major/minor structure.

But again, soccer has a much better international scene than American football, so it falls under the hockey/baseball/basketball thing of so many options on different continents!

the NFL is the most old boys club org there is. feels like over half the league is run by incompetent stooges or nepo baby dumbfucks

My condolences

El_Marsh posted...

How do you quantify physicality and the potential to sufficiently adapt to that at the highest, most intense level of the sport? I feel that the increased speed and violence of the NFL game vs NCAA football often most stymies drafted players. I don't think the NFL Draft combine is a great barometer of any individual's talent as a football player but it does provide a reasonably accurate portrayal of how fast, strong, and agile a player can be when they give it their absolute all, and that at least gives GMs "something" to work with besides watching them put up gaudy statistics against inferior competition.

That said, I don't think the analytics of drafting in other sports work so much better because you still have a LOT of highly drafted players that never make the impact that they were projected to, if they make any impact at all. In every NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL draft, you will have some players that become superstars like projected, some players that will become stars/impact players in spite of their projections, some players who will become "journeymen" by kicking around the league on multiple teams for a few years, and you will have players that will struggle to make or stay on a roster period.

As for player development, how can you measure how players react to adversity or being told to do something that's completely counter to what got them there in the first place? You can measure production and physical attributes until your fingers bleed but what can you do if a player has all of the tools but not the mentality to learn how to use them at a higher level? I think the NFL deals with a "lot" more of that due to the brutal nature of the game and the relatively short careers of its players (yes, you have guys that play for 15 years and sometimes even 20 but they are very rare compared to the other sports, even considering that NFL rosters are much larger..because of said brutality). Guys who have been physically superior their entire lives are suddenly "normal" (or worse) compared to other players for the first time ever and some of them just can't overcome that.

All told, I'm not saying that it's impossible to find "a better way," but I don't think any numbers are going to help the two things that most cause NFL prospects to flame out. Sometimes, you really don't know what a player is capable of until they really get knocked on their ass.

you can just watch the tape. people will look explosive or they wont. just hire more scouts than you need, get together in a room to standardize what youre looking for, and then go. tbh every sport could adapt the 2-8 scale that baseball scouting uses. 2 is terrible, 8 is elite, 5 is average. each number is a standard deviation in one direction. then use that to grade various attributes (run blocking, swim moves, yac ability, zone coverage, deep passing, etc).

also each team also gets 30 visits with draft eligible prospects so i would bring them in and really work them on the whiteboard to make sure they understand how to diagnose a play on either side of the ball. really look for reasons why they are going to succeed and make sure they aren't just some idiot getting by on physicality who is going to immediately get exposed. you can even manipulate the visits by knowing who isnt going to be available based on when youre picking or narrowing down options ahead of time.

for player development you can just start strapping sensors all over everyone or get hawkeye installed at your facility and start tracking biometric numbers and working on load management (which is increasing in the NBA and already has been happening in MLB). also just getting better coaches cuz as someone said above its an old boys club or just plain bad decision making (hiring urban mayer, etc).

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


baseball has some pretty easy to understand sabermetric stuff compared to basketball or hockey. baseball is just 9 guys standing in the same place on a diamond and other sports are a ton of people going all over the place so its a lot easier to get super granular on who is performing better and why.

xGhostchantx posted...

Hockey, basketball and baseball have so many more options for developing and under-utilized players. There are leagues on literally every continent for them except ... American football.

The closest thing to "minor league" football is college, CFL, or whatever recent "I am also here!" football league hasn't folded yet.

I think the NFL could benefit from UK foot ball clubs in how they do leagues. If your team in the premier league sucks, they get demoted to a lower league. Imagine if the US had that.

There are a lot of qualitatives, high development time, risk of injuries and team dynamics that make it harder to pick a football player. Plus I feel like coaches have a bigger impact than any other sport. While in theory a soccer coach has a big impact, they mostly just look like they stand around during the game, whereas a football coach is like a Roman general commanding his troops against his adversary.

I dont think its as much stupidity as its just a unique sport that is very complex. The unique demands of each position, the difference in systems, the reliance on other teammates, and the small sample size make it all so difficult to judge. There also isnt really a lower level like there is in other sports.

College football just isnt close to the competition or parity you find in the pros. If you are a WR on Alabama you have a very different opportunity than a WR on Montana, for example. You play different teams, you have different O lines to protect different QBs needed to throw you the ball. You are playing against different defenses and coverage systems and you are judged on maybe 3 seasons of 10 games each if you are a standout.

whitelytning posted...

I dont think its as much stupidity as its just a unique sport that is very complex. The unique demands of each position, the difference in systems, the reliance on other teammates, and the small sample size make it all so difficult to judge. There also isnt really a lower level like there is in other sports.

College football just isnt close to the competition or parity you find in the pros. If you are a WR on Alabama you have a very different opportunity than a WR on Montana, for example. You play different teams, you have different O lines to protect different QBs needed to throw you the ball. You are playing against different defenses and coverage systems and you are judged on maybe 3 seasons of 10 games each if you are a standout.

Yeah I think that CFB being such a dog **** "development" league has a lot to do with it. O-line technique is way different, some teams are so loaded with successful players that it's hard to actually figure out who is good and who is just benefiting from strong team mates, and you have lots of "raw" talent outside of the top 25 teams that you can experiment with but might never make the jump.

The NFL has lots of analytics, but they've only started to really embrace them in recent years.

They really are. The XFL AND USFL both have better officiating because they actually review the tape of the play to make sure they dont miss a call. There's never any blaming of the refs in those leagues. But every game the NFL officials miss penalties because theres so many unreviewable aspects of the game.
Its embarrassing for the pros to be worse, but they dont seem to care.

HOON posted...

The XFL AND USFL both have better officiating because they actually review the tape of the play to make sure they dont miss a call. There's never any blaming of the refs in those leagues.

Every play getting reviewed just sounds like hell to me; "getting the calls right" isn't as important as not bogging the game down with constant replays.

And, based on how replay has been implemented everywhere else in sports, I have severe doubts that nobody complains about the refs in the XFL.

Scouting doesn't go as deep as other sports becasue they pool of players isn't as deep.

Unlike Baseball, Hockey, and Basketball, you can't recruit High School players.

But as far as actual analytics of the players you can scout, the NFL is just as advanced as any other sport. The only real difference (NBA has this problem as well, but not as much because of the G-League) is you actually witness the draft busts on the highest level every Sunday, whereas most hockey and baseball draft busts fizzle out in the minors and become guys you never heard of to begin with.

bigblu89 posted...

Scouting doesn't go as deep as other sports becasue they pool of players isn't as deep.

Very good point, especially for QBs. There aren't even enough good QBs in the world for 32 NFL teams. There are always some teams hamstrung because their QB isn't good enough.