ZWK
Footballguy
This post has my fantasy rankings of the 2014 rookies, before the draft. My opinions haven't changed much from what I've posted elsewhere about RBs & WRs, but I figured I should make a post to put all my mistakes in one place before these opinions become obsolete.
Background/Methodology
There are two types of player ratings that I make: (1) ratings that are my own independent evaluation (based on college stats, combine workouts, what I see on video, and other facts about the player), and (2) ratings that try to incorporate all of the information out there (including other people's opinions, projected draft position, etc.). These are the first type of rating - I've tried to ignore other people's opinions and do my own analysis & evaluation.
My general approach could be called the weighted sum method. Roughly, I (1) identify the numbers which I think are predictive of NFL success, (2) put each number in the format which I think is most informative/relevant for predicting NFL success, and then (3) take the weighted sum of those numbers (giving more weight to the numbers that I think are more important). Sometimes this process is informed by statistical analyses (regressions to see which variables are predictive), but often it's more ad hoc. Two big advantages of this approach are that it allows me to combine a lot of different sources of information, and it forces me to be systematic, evaluating every player on the same factors and taking each factor into account to the same extent.
Though there are some complications to this method. Sometimes (with step 1) I start out identifying a factor that is relevant to NFL success and then I work to turn it into a number. Sometimes (with step 3) I do something more complicated than taking a straight weighted sum, like taking the smaller of two numbers instead of adding them together. And sometimes (after step 3) I shuffle the final rankings around a bit based on my opinions.
I've put a lot more work into my RB & WR ratings than my QB & TE ratings; my QB & TE ratings are more subjective and less systematic. Here are posts from 2013 (from when my rating systems were more under construction) on rating RBs and WRs. This year, I went into more depth on RB elusiveness and WR production.
Now, on to the rankings. Note that if a player isn't listed that usually means that he ranked below the guys who are listed, although in some cases (especially at QB) it just means that I haven't looked at him.
RB
Ratings are mostly based on...
Athleticism: 40 time, vertical, broad jump, and to a lesser extent the agility drills and my impressions
Size: weight, and to a lesser extent BMI (low is bad) & height (tall is bad)
Elusiveness: yards after contact & broken tackles, from my tracking & Greg Peshek's
Production: long runs, short yardage/goalline success rate, receiving, and other stats
Age & Workload: younger is better, non-RB1 workload is negative
My Evaluation: my opinion based on watching game cutups
Carlos Hyde
Lache Seastrunk
Tre Mason
Jeremy Hill
Jerick McKinnon
Bishop Sankey
Stephen Houston
Henry Josey
Isaiah Crowell
Andre Williams
Charles Sims
Dri Archer
Devonta Freeman
David Fluellen
Robert Godhigh
George Atkinson III
Terrance West
Tim Cornett
James White
De'Anthony Thomas
Carlos Hyde has it all except athleticism. Unfortunately, athleticism is really important for an RB. But he still has enough to top this year's weak RB class. He's similar to Lacy (who I loved a year ago), except his elusiveness is merely very good while Lacy's was off the charts.
Seastrunk is the one guy who really wows me on tape (well, him & Archer), with explosion that jumps off the screen. His workout numbers sorta back that up. But he may struggle to find a role in the NFL. His elusiveness numbers are great in space but only meh in traffic, he's an awful pass blocker, and he was almost never thrown the ball in college (and apparently he dropped a huge percentage of the passes he was thrown).
Mason & Sankey are solid / above average across the board but not outstanding on any dimension. Mason's edge over Sankey primarily comes from stronger elusiveness numbers.
Hill is like Hyde, but slightly worse on pretty much every measure. Take another step down and you get David Fluellen.
McKinnon won the combine, but had his most success as an option QB at a small school, and had only average elusiveness.
Houston & Josey have limited tape to judge their elusiveness by, but strong workout numbers and good per-carry performance. Josey is hurt by his lack of size, Houston by his lack of workload.
Archer blew up the combine (nflds is now reporting his 40 time as 4.16!) and had amazing elusiveness numbers and per-carry production, but he's not a great bet to be able to carry this success into the NFL at 173 pounds (especially since he seems to drop a lot of passes). He's currently being talked about more as a WR. Strictly by the numbers, he'd be at the top of this tier instead of the bottom.
Godhigh has a Sproles-like profile, but without the same agility, and his numbers were presumably inflated by the Georgia Tech offense.
Ka'Deem Carey (not in my top 20) was a good college player but it looks like he just doesn't have the athleticism to do much in the NFL (especially at his size). This year's Stepfan Taylor (though Carey was a better college back than Taylor, and projects somewhat better than Taylor did).
WR
Ratings are mostly based on...
Production: TDs, yards per team pass attempt, long receptions, yards per target, and other stats
Athleticism: 40 time, vertical, broad jump
Size: Height, BMI, and weight
Peshek's Stats: drop rate, capped yards after catch, route diversity
Sammy Watkins
Mike Evans
Brandin Cooks
Jordan Matthews
Donte Moncrief
Allen Robinson
Marqise Lee
Davante Adams
Odell Beckham Jr.
Cody Latimer
Albert Wilson
Paul Richardson
Chandler Jones
Alex Neutz
Jalen Saunders
Robert Herron
Josh Huff
Steve Hull
Jeff Janis
Austin Franklin
TJ Jones
Tevin Reese
Mike Davis
Devin Street
Alex Amidon
Michael Campanaro
Jeremy Gallon
Jared Abbrederis
Bernard Reedy
Chris Gant
You could think of the top tier as "10 WRs who made the cut." I'm not all that confident about the order within the top 10. But there is a very clear gap after Latimer, and everyone from Latimer up rates within the range that successful NFL WRs tend to come from.
This is an extremely strong WR class, and for the most part my top 10 did very well in terms of size, athleticism, production, hands, and yards after the catch. It's quicker to just give the negatives. Size: Cooks, Lee, and Beckham are small; Watkins & Adams are just a bit above average. Athleticism: Robinson, Adams, and Evans are only averageish; Matthews & Lee are just a bit above average. Production: Latimer, Moncrief, and Beckham only had good production rather than elite numbers. Lee dropped a lot of passes this year, and Matthews' hands were a little iffy. Beckham, Cooks, and Lee were only okay in terms of yards after the catch this year.
I put even less stock in the order within the second tier; I'd treat it mostly just a list of guys to keep an eye on.
Albert Wilson is someone to watch as a potentially electric slot guy & return man, with a build close to a RB's.
Jeff Janis is a small school guy who I don't have college stats for; he makes this tier solely by virtue of blowing up the combine.
My metrics don't like Kelvin Benjamin or Martavis Bryant, who both had high efficiency on a low target rate, but I suspect that they do belong somewhere in that tier 2 "on your radar" group. Football Outsiders' Playmaker Rating and Rob Pitzer's system, which are both fairly similar to what I'm doing, both like them both around the top of tier 2 (WR11ish). I may look to tinker with my system to see if there's a plausible improvement which could bring them into that range. They currently don't make it because their low volume keeps their production ratings below threshold, and my system is very harsh on receivers who are below the production threshold regardless of their size & athleticism.
QB
Ratings are mostly based on...
Lewin Career Forecast: a formula from Football Outsiders which includes starts, completion percentage, BMI, and other variables
Peshek's Stats: completion percentage when pressured, completion percentage at various distances (especially on medium/long throws)
Darren Page's Stats: completion percentage to various locations (especially on medium/long throws & passes outside the numbers)
Throwing Speed: MPH clocked at the combine
Johnny Manziel
Teddy Bridgewater
Blake Bortles
Jimmy Garoppolo
A.J. McCarron
Derek Carr
Zach Mettenberger
Aaron Murray
David Fales
Logan Thomas
Tajh Boyd
Tom Savage
Connor Shaw
3 quarterbacks clearly stand out from the rest in my numbers, with good accuracy across almost every split including under pressure and on deep & intermediate throws. Manziel is 3rd by the numbers in this tightly packed tier, but he jumps to first in fantasy value because of his legs.
Garoppolo & McCarron are neck-and-neck at the top of tier 2, with the other 3 in a pack behind them. McCarron and Carr both struggled at completing deep balls, Mettenberger ranked last in the Lewin Career Forecast, and Murray was beloved by Lewin but had bad splits across the board in Peshek & Page's numbers.
The tier 3 guys are pretty mediocre across the board, except for some nice arm strength from Thomas & Savage and good deep passing numbers from Boyd. Fales & Thomas don't have Lewin Career Forecast numbers, and could conceivably belong at the bottom of tier 2b if their Lewin numbers are decent.
Shaw struggled across the board, was especially disastrous under pressure, and threw one of the slowest balls on record.
TE
Ratings are mostly based on...
Athleticism: 40 time, jumps, agility drills, bench
Production: touchdowns, long receptions
Size: height, weight (bigger is better)
Peshek's Stats: Drop rate, yards after catch, yards after contact
Eric Ebron
Jace Amaro
Austin Seferian-Jenkins
A.C. Leonard
Colt Lyerla
C.J. Fiedorowicz
Troy Niklas
Joe Don Duncan
6 TEs make the cut in terms of athleticism (with the top 2-3 a step ahead of the rest): Leonard, Ebron, Lyerla, Duncan(?), Fiedorowicz, and Amaro; ASJ is a question mark.
Ebron & Amaro also had the college production, and nice YAC. The only flag on Ebron is his high drop rate. Amaro is also less special as an athlete, with more strength than speed/explosiveness.
Seferian-Jenkins's production is a step down from them. He also had a poor YAC this year, and the only measures of his athleticism are rumors.
Leonard & Lyerla are basically the same guy - great athleticism, but character problems got them knocked out of school (which leaves a hole in their college production record). They have risk & upside, and fantasy TE value is all about upside. Leonard gets the edge based on a better combine (by every measure but height) and more indications that his character problems are behind him (he stuck at Tennessee State), even though Lyerla had more FBS production.
Fiedorowicz lacks long receptions (but has ok athleticism & TDs), Niklas lacks athleticism (but has decent production & good YAC), and Duncan is a small school question mark who only benched at the combine (but dominated that one drill). They have enough going for them to at least be on the radar in deeper leagues.
Background/Methodology
There are two types of player ratings that I make: (1) ratings that are my own independent evaluation (based on college stats, combine workouts, what I see on video, and other facts about the player), and (2) ratings that try to incorporate all of the information out there (including other people's opinions, projected draft position, etc.). These are the first type of rating - I've tried to ignore other people's opinions and do my own analysis & evaluation.
My general approach could be called the weighted sum method. Roughly, I (1) identify the numbers which I think are predictive of NFL success, (2) put each number in the format which I think is most informative/relevant for predicting NFL success, and then (3) take the weighted sum of those numbers (giving more weight to the numbers that I think are more important). Sometimes this process is informed by statistical analyses (regressions to see which variables are predictive), but often it's more ad hoc. Two big advantages of this approach are that it allows me to combine a lot of different sources of information, and it forces me to be systematic, evaluating every player on the same factors and taking each factor into account to the same extent.
Though there are some complications to this method. Sometimes (with step 1) I start out identifying a factor that is relevant to NFL success and then I work to turn it into a number. Sometimes (with step 3) I do something more complicated than taking a straight weighted sum, like taking the smaller of two numbers instead of adding them together. And sometimes (after step 3) I shuffle the final rankings around a bit based on my opinions.
I've put a lot more work into my RB & WR ratings than my QB & TE ratings; my QB & TE ratings are more subjective and less systematic. Here are posts from 2013 (from when my rating systems were more under construction) on rating RBs and WRs. This year, I went into more depth on RB elusiveness and WR production.
Now, on to the rankings. Note that if a player isn't listed that usually means that he ranked below the guys who are listed, although in some cases (especially at QB) it just means that I haven't looked at him.
RB
Ratings are mostly based on...
Athleticism: 40 time, vertical, broad jump, and to a lesser extent the agility drills and my impressions
Size: weight, and to a lesser extent BMI (low is bad) & height (tall is bad)
Elusiveness: yards after contact & broken tackles, from my tracking & Greg Peshek's
Production: long runs, short yardage/goalline success rate, receiving, and other stats
Age & Workload: younger is better, non-RB1 workload is negative
My Evaluation: my opinion based on watching game cutups
Carlos Hyde
Lache Seastrunk
Tre Mason
Jeremy Hill
Jerick McKinnon
Bishop Sankey
Stephen Houston
Henry Josey
Isaiah Crowell
Andre Williams
Charles Sims
Dri Archer
Devonta Freeman
David Fluellen
Robert Godhigh
George Atkinson III
Terrance West
Tim Cornett
James White
De'Anthony Thomas
Carlos Hyde has it all except athleticism. Unfortunately, athleticism is really important for an RB. But he still has enough to top this year's weak RB class. He's similar to Lacy (who I loved a year ago), except his elusiveness is merely very good while Lacy's was off the charts.
Seastrunk is the one guy who really wows me on tape (well, him & Archer), with explosion that jumps off the screen. His workout numbers sorta back that up. But he may struggle to find a role in the NFL. His elusiveness numbers are great in space but only meh in traffic, he's an awful pass blocker, and he was almost never thrown the ball in college (and apparently he dropped a huge percentage of the passes he was thrown).
Mason & Sankey are solid / above average across the board but not outstanding on any dimension. Mason's edge over Sankey primarily comes from stronger elusiveness numbers.
Hill is like Hyde, but slightly worse on pretty much every measure. Take another step down and you get David Fluellen.
McKinnon won the combine, but had his most success as an option QB at a small school, and had only average elusiveness.
Houston & Josey have limited tape to judge their elusiveness by, but strong workout numbers and good per-carry performance. Josey is hurt by his lack of size, Houston by his lack of workload.
Archer blew up the combine (nflds is now reporting his 40 time as 4.16!) and had amazing elusiveness numbers and per-carry production, but he's not a great bet to be able to carry this success into the NFL at 173 pounds (especially since he seems to drop a lot of passes). He's currently being talked about more as a WR. Strictly by the numbers, he'd be at the top of this tier instead of the bottom.
Godhigh has a Sproles-like profile, but without the same agility, and his numbers were presumably inflated by the Georgia Tech offense.
Ka'Deem Carey (not in my top 20) was a good college player but it looks like he just doesn't have the athleticism to do much in the NFL (especially at his size). This year's Stepfan Taylor (though Carey was a better college back than Taylor, and projects somewhat better than Taylor did).
WR
Ratings are mostly based on...
Production: TDs, yards per team pass attempt, long receptions, yards per target, and other stats
Athleticism: 40 time, vertical, broad jump
Size: Height, BMI, and weight
Peshek's Stats: drop rate, capped yards after catch, route diversity
Sammy Watkins
Mike Evans
Brandin Cooks
Jordan Matthews
Donte Moncrief
Allen Robinson
Marqise Lee
Davante Adams
Odell Beckham Jr.
Cody Latimer
Albert Wilson
Paul Richardson
Chandler Jones
Alex Neutz
Jalen Saunders
Robert Herron
Josh Huff
Steve Hull
Jeff Janis
Austin Franklin
TJ Jones
Tevin Reese
Mike Davis
Devin Street
Alex Amidon
Michael Campanaro
Jeremy Gallon
Jared Abbrederis
Bernard Reedy
Chris Gant
You could think of the top tier as "10 WRs who made the cut." I'm not all that confident about the order within the top 10. But there is a very clear gap after Latimer, and everyone from Latimer up rates within the range that successful NFL WRs tend to come from.
This is an extremely strong WR class, and for the most part my top 10 did very well in terms of size, athleticism, production, hands, and yards after the catch. It's quicker to just give the negatives. Size: Cooks, Lee, and Beckham are small; Watkins & Adams are just a bit above average. Athleticism: Robinson, Adams, and Evans are only averageish; Matthews & Lee are just a bit above average. Production: Latimer, Moncrief, and Beckham only had good production rather than elite numbers. Lee dropped a lot of passes this year, and Matthews' hands were a little iffy. Beckham, Cooks, and Lee were only okay in terms of yards after the catch this year.
I put even less stock in the order within the second tier; I'd treat it mostly just a list of guys to keep an eye on.
Albert Wilson is someone to watch as a potentially electric slot guy & return man, with a build close to a RB's.
Jeff Janis is a small school guy who I don't have college stats for; he makes this tier solely by virtue of blowing up the combine.
My metrics don't like Kelvin Benjamin or Martavis Bryant, who both had high efficiency on a low target rate, but I suspect that they do belong somewhere in that tier 2 "on your radar" group. Football Outsiders' Playmaker Rating and Rob Pitzer's system, which are both fairly similar to what I'm doing, both like them both around the top of tier 2 (WR11ish). I may look to tinker with my system to see if there's a plausible improvement which could bring them into that range. They currently don't make it because their low volume keeps their production ratings below threshold, and my system is very harsh on receivers who are below the production threshold regardless of their size & athleticism.
QB
Ratings are mostly based on...
Lewin Career Forecast: a formula from Football Outsiders which includes starts, completion percentage, BMI, and other variables
Peshek's Stats: completion percentage when pressured, completion percentage at various distances (especially on medium/long throws)
Darren Page's Stats: completion percentage to various locations (especially on medium/long throws & passes outside the numbers)
Throwing Speed: MPH clocked at the combine
Johnny Manziel
Teddy Bridgewater
Blake Bortles
Jimmy Garoppolo
A.J. McCarron
Derek Carr
Zach Mettenberger
Aaron Murray
David Fales
Logan Thomas
Tajh Boyd
Tom Savage
Connor Shaw
3 quarterbacks clearly stand out from the rest in my numbers, with good accuracy across almost every split including under pressure and on deep & intermediate throws. Manziel is 3rd by the numbers in this tightly packed tier, but he jumps to first in fantasy value because of his legs.
Garoppolo & McCarron are neck-and-neck at the top of tier 2, with the other 3 in a pack behind them. McCarron and Carr both struggled at completing deep balls, Mettenberger ranked last in the Lewin Career Forecast, and Murray was beloved by Lewin but had bad splits across the board in Peshek & Page's numbers.
The tier 3 guys are pretty mediocre across the board, except for some nice arm strength from Thomas & Savage and good deep passing numbers from Boyd. Fales & Thomas don't have Lewin Career Forecast numbers, and could conceivably belong at the bottom of tier 2b if their Lewin numbers are decent.
Shaw struggled across the board, was especially disastrous under pressure, and threw one of the slowest balls on record.
TE
Ratings are mostly based on...
Athleticism: 40 time, jumps, agility drills, bench
Production: touchdowns, long receptions
Size: height, weight (bigger is better)
Peshek's Stats: Drop rate, yards after catch, yards after contact
Eric Ebron
Jace Amaro
Austin Seferian-Jenkins
A.C. Leonard
Colt Lyerla
C.J. Fiedorowicz
Troy Niklas
Joe Don Duncan
6 TEs make the cut in terms of athleticism (with the top 2-3 a step ahead of the rest): Leonard, Ebron, Lyerla, Duncan(?), Fiedorowicz, and Amaro; ASJ is a question mark.
Ebron & Amaro also had the college production, and nice YAC. The only flag on Ebron is his high drop rate. Amaro is also less special as an athlete, with more strength than speed/explosiveness.
Seferian-Jenkins's production is a step down from them. He also had a poor YAC this year, and the only measures of his athleticism are rumors.
Leonard & Lyerla are basically the same guy - great athleticism, but character problems got them knocked out of school (which leaves a hole in their college production record). They have risk & upside, and fantasy TE value is all about upside. Leonard gets the edge based on a better combine (by every measure but height) and more indications that his character problems are behind him (he stuck at Tennessee State), even though Lyerla had more FBS production.
Fiedorowicz lacks long receptions (but has ok athleticism & TDs), Niklas lacks athleticism (but has decent production & good YAC), and Duncan is a small school question mark who only benched at the combine (but dominated that one drill). They have enough going for them to at least be on the radar in deeper leagues.