The Long Field Goal

Your team has just stalled their drive at the 35 yard line, and your kicker has a pretty good leg. Send on the field goal unit, right? We're seeing teams sometimes elect to punt or go for it... which is right?

Using average points per drive numbers, we see that pinning the opponent deep means they can expect to score about 0.7 points on the ensuing drive. Missing the field goal pushes this number up around 3.0 for a net loss of 2.3. Even if you make the field goal, your opponent will average 1.6 points on the next drive, netting 1.4 points. Kickers convert on long field goals about 50 percent of the time, meaning the likely outcome is a loss of 0.8 points per attempt. In other words, the long attempt is about as good as pinning the opponent deep, especially when factoring in that your punter might put the ball in the endzone.

But, what about going for it? Getting the first down ups the average score to 3.6, for a net of 2.0 after factoring in the ensuing drive from the other team. Failing to convert yields the same 3.0 to the other team as missing the field goal does, so the conversion would have to succeed about 60 percent of the time to break even.

Turns out that all the options are pretty even, and this is really an area where a coach can make their money by having a good feel for the right play to call.

Buying 4 points

Teams try all manner of improving the defense, but it's a complex machine with many moving parts. What if there were an easier way to keep points off the board? A ball-control offense does the trick, but that tends to score fewer points.

Turns out there's a very simple, side-effect free, but hypothetical way to do this. The Cowboys got it half right last year. I've charted every drive from the first 20 games of this year and quantified a fairly obvious truth: the farther back a team starts its drive, the less likely it is to score. When a team starts inside its own 10, it averages about 0.67 points per drive. When it starts past its own 40, that number rockets up to 3.0. Here are the ranges and average points scored:

1-10: 0.67

11-20: 0.70

20 yard line: 1.00

21-30: 1.60

31-40: 1.75

40+: 3.0

The average starting field position for a team accepting a kickoff is its own 26. 2 yard line.

Suppose we could find a player whose only job it was to kick a ball through the endzone, time after time. The average team in 2009 kicked off just about 5 times a game. According to the chart above, we'd shed about 3 points allowed per game!

Charting offensive yards vs points scored yields a highly correlated best-fit line showing that a team scores 1 point for about every 9.1 yards over 143 they gain in a game. So, a team gaining 250 points can expect to score about 12 points in a game, 360 yards yields 24 points, and 500 yards comes out to around 40. By this metric, a savings of 6.2 yards, 5 times a game, saves about 4.5 points. Even better! (but we'll use the first method)

Want a bonus? Since our kickoff duties have been offloaded to Mr Cannonleg, our field goal kicker can be optimized for accuracy. Teams attempted an average of 1.8 field goals a game, and converted at an 81 percent rate. The best kickers in the league hit about 10 percent more often than that, resulting in an extra 0.54 points per game. Replacing an inaccurate kicker? The bottom of the league is another 10 percent below the average, so the net effect would reach 1 point per game.

And sprinkles on top (though now we're being a bit silly)? The concept extends to punts too. Teams punt 4.8 times per game, of these 1.6 are downed inside the 20 and 0.4 result in touchbacks. If your punter can keep those touchbacks out of the endzone, that's another 0.12 points. Drives starting after punts yield 1.36 points. Mat McBriar was able to punt past the 20 57% of the time, which was 15% better than the league average. If the average team could improve by that much, they could expect to give up 0.72 points less per game. In short, improved punting could improve your team's defense by over 0.8 points per game. Can your cannon-legged kicker always get a touchback? The benefit jumps to 1.73 points per game! Even if your average punter is replaced by McBriar, about half a point is saved.

Points saved per game over average for

always kicking a touchback: 3.0

having an accurate field goal kicker: 0.5

* always punting a touchback: 1.7

* always punting inside the 20: 2.7

being best at punting inside the 20: 0.5

*- these are kinda ridiculous ...

Now for the hypothetical part: there has never been a kicker who could kick that far, that often. I suspect there are some soccer players out there who could achieve results close to these, especially in warm weather/indoor stadiums. They could probably be signed for minimum contracts and the benefit is probably bigger than keeping an extra special teams or backup player on the active roster. How much bigger? There's a very strong correlation: for every 2 point differential a team averages, it gains a win. 3 points, 1.5 wins per season. Tell me that's not worth it.

Draft Metrics: Linebackers

Linebackers are the multi-tool of the defense. Some come blitzing off the edge, others fill running lanes, while some frequently drop back in coverage. The wide variety (or combination) of objectives makes them hard to compare, so I'll be leaning on pro-football-reference.com's Career Approximate Value (CarAV) to help me rank players. Similar to defensive backs, I've broken down picks between 2000 and 2008 into starter quality (starts at least 80% of seasons), journeyman (at least 50% of seasons) and the rest. I've correlated these with CarAV ranges to get an idea of what level of play is required for each bucket, and will look at player yields from the draft using these points of reference.

By inspecting the list of players, the 'elite' range for CarAV is above 9, and 'good' is above 7.5. Starter quality players average about 6, so I'll consider this the cutoff for an 'adequate' starter. The bottom third of the journeyman range is 4.5, which will become the cutoff for a bust ('backup'). Now let's see what the data shows.

Round 7:
Of 45 picks, there are 2 backup level players.

Round 6:
Of 37 picks, there are 1 good, 2 adequate and 1 backup players.

Round 5:
Of 44 picks, there are 3 adequate and 3 backup players.

Round 4:
Of 42 picks, there are 5 adequate and 4 backup players.

Round 3:
Of 53 picks, there are 1 elite, 1 good, 4 adequate and 6 backup players.

Round 2:
Of 39 picks, there are 3 elite, 2 good, 8 adequate and 5 backup players.

Round 1:
Of 27 picks, there are 5 elite, 6 good, 6 adequate and 5 backup players. 5 players were busts.

Conclusion:
We see the similar trend of little differentiation in rounds 5 through 7. Less than 5% of picks are of adequate starting caliber, and only another 5% are destined to backup duty. In rounds 3 and 4, the odds of each double, but even building depth is a slim proposition. Things change drastically from here though, as nearly half of 2nd round picks seeing significant action, with 1 in 3 being starter quality. We also see about 1 in 5 picks end up in the good or elite category. Round 1 yields about 2 starters per 3 picks and those are equally likely to be good or elite. The bust rate is less than 1 in 5.

Based on past pick history, teams should not use a top-10 pick on a linebacker. Brian Urlacher is the only good or elite pick in that range (#9). The other 4 (Arrington, Hawk, Sims, Rivers) have been quality players, but didn't reach the higher status for one reason or another (Arrington and Rivers missed significant time to injury). Looking more closely at the draft history, the quality starts to drop off pretty significantly by the middle of the 2nd. The range is just right for every team to get one good shot at a starting linebacker.

Draft Metrics: Defensive Backs

What good is a strong pass rush if there aren't players to make a quarterback pay for poor passes? Defensive backs are the last line of defense, and have the largest ability to make big plays on the ball, but they're also the ones who get singled out for being burned over the top. So, what can we expect from a player? Most seasons, the NFL leader has 8-10 interceptions. The names are familiar: Darren Sharper, Ed Reed, Antonio Cromartie, Champ Bailey ... and yet, that level of success is incredibly hard to maintain. In fact, the highest per-season interception average over the last decade is just 5.8 (Ed Reed), and only two other players (Asante Samuel and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie) are at 5 per season. 7 more players are between 4 and 5, and there aren't quite enough players total (28) to leave every NFL team with one player averaging at least 3 interceptions per year.

We'll define players averaging 4 or more picks as 'elite' playmakers, 3 or more as 'good', 2 or more as 'adequate' and the rest are freely replacable. Any player starting over 80% of his seasons (to allow for one injured or bad season) in the league will be labeled a 'career starter', and players starting at least 50% of the season will be labeled 'fringe starters'. Of 485 picks made between 1999 and 2008, only 48 meet this criteria. So, based on picks made from 1999 to 2008, where should teams look to find these players?

See full data here.

Round 7:
Of 70 picks, 3 fall into the adequate playmaker category and all others are replacable. 1 player (Finnegan) has made 1 Pro Bowl. 1 player is a career starter and 6 are fringe.

Round 6:
Of 71 picks, 2 are adequate playmakers and all others are replacable. 1 player (Bethea) has made 1 Pro Bowl. 2 players are career starters and 1 is fringe.

Round 5:
Of 69 picks, 4 are adequate playmakers, and 1 player (Azumah) has made 1 Pro Bowl. 3 players are career starters. 3 are career starters, 4 are fringe.

Round 4:
Of 79 picks, 1 (Samuel) is an elite playmaker, 3 more (A.Henry, Vasher, Rhodes) are good and 5 more are adequate. There are 5 Pro Bowl appearances from this group (Samuel: 3, Vasher: 1, McGee: 1). 5 are career starters, 9 are fringe.

Round 3:
Of 67 picks, 2 (Atogwe, Wesley) are good playmakers, and 6 more are adequate. Wilson has made 3 Pro Bowls, C.Hope has made 1. 7 are career starters, 8 are fringe.

Round 2:
Of 73 picks, 1 (Mathis) is elite, 5 are good, and 14 are adequate playmakers. There are 13 Pro Bowl selections from this group, though the 2 belonging to Devin Hester are not for playing defense. 10 are career starters, 32 are fringe.

Round 1:
Of 56 selections, 8 are elite, 7 are good and 14 are adequate. 47 Pro Bowl spots over the last decade are from this group. 20 are career starters, 19 are fringe.

Defensive backs show a fast dropoff in playmaking skill and starting caliber through the rounds. Rounds 5-7 are essentially interchangable, yielding 6 career starters, 3 Pro Bowls and no good or elite playmakers in 210 tries. Rounds 3 and 4 contain 12 career starters, 19 fringe, 8 Pro Bowls, 1 elite and 5 good playmakers in 146 tries. The odds of an impact player stay safely under 10 percent. Round 2 improves the odds, but there's still only about a 30 percent chance of picking up a playmaker, and only about half of those stick as career starters.

Round 1 drastically improves the odds of picking up a playmaker who becomes a starter over a career. Bust rates are very high, barely 1 in 3 first rounders reach this level. Another 1 in 3 are shuffled in and out of lineups, relegated to Mel Kiper's assessment that they are not the long-term future of the position and an upgrade could be made. But Mel, the odds of the new pick beating them out just isn't that high.

It seems drafting defensive backs is a constant struggle, and teams picking well need to treasure that player. Even for just quality depth, picks should come from the top 2 rounds. Because of the high risk involved, these players should not be picked so high that their contracts become prohibitive. A smart team must realize there's a good chance their selection will not pan out, and has to be ready to move on in a few years.

Draft Metrics: Center

The center is the quarterback of the offensive line, and a great player in the middle can really gel the line into a cohesive front. However, centers are valued even less than guards, only 5 having been selected in the 1st round between 1996 and 2008. Yet, finding a center is non-trivial, there are only about 2 starting-caliber centers per draft. I am using the same groupings as for tackles. Full data is here.

Round 7:
Of 23 selections, 2 (K.Houser, E.Amano) are top, 1 is a solid starter and 5 are backups.

Round 6:
Of 17 selections, 1 (J.Sullivan) is top, 2 are solid starters and 5 are backups.

Round 5:
Of 12 selections, 2 (R.Pontbriand, D.Koppen) are top and 2 are solid. 4 more are backups.

Round 4:
Of 13 selections, 1 (K.Lichtensteiger) is a top, 4 are solid starters. 4 more are backups.

Round 3:
Quality picks up a lot here, of 10 selections, 1 (A.Treu) is a top and 7 more are solid starters.

Round 2:
Stacks up like round 2, of 9 selections, 2 (S.Satele, D.Raiola) are top and 3 are solid starters. 3 more are backups.

Round 1:
Only 5 picks have come from round 1, and they have all panned out. 1 (N.Mangold) is a top and the other 4 are solid starters.

Conclusion:
Quality is spread evenly on the first day, with 75% panning out as at least solid starters. Rounds 4 and 5 present about a one-third chance each of picking up a starter or a quality backup. Odds diminish by about half in the last 2 rounds. Teams looking for a starter should stay disciplined and not pick in the first 2 rounds. In 9 of the 13 years, the top player came from the 3rd round or later, and in 2 of the remaining years there was still a starting-quality player available at that time in the draft.

Draft Metrics: Offensive Guard

Guards set the tone for the offensive line. They are the mean ones, the maulers, and tend to have the biggest impact in establishing a physical running attack. Guards are rarely selected in the 1st round, in fact each year averages 1 player taken with a top pick. I'm going to use the same bucketing as for tackles. As expected (since they have similar career lengths as and play every down like tackles), the buckets contain similar hit rates overall. Of 201 selections, we have 18 top, 30 adequate and 47 stopgap starters. 106 (about half) are busts. Full data here.

Round 7:
The last round shows a run on guards. Of 52 selections, 5 are adequate and 4 are stopgap starters. This has been a significantly weaker round for picks than any other.

Round 6:
Of 24 selections, 2 (M.Rivera, R.Hadnot) are top, 2 are adequate and 5 are stopgap starters.

Round 5:
Of 34 selections, 3 (D.Diehl, J.Scott, B.Olson) are top, 7 are adequate and 5 are stopgap.

Round 4:
Of 29 selections, 5 are adequate and 11 are stopgap.

Round 3:
Of 26 selections, 3 are top, 2 more are adequate and 10 more are stopgap.

Round 2:
The quality picks up drastically in the top 2 rounds. Of 23 selections, 7 are top, 4 more are adequate and 8 more are stopgap. The starter hit rate jumps suddenly over 50 percent, whereas it's 25% or lower in the later rounds.

Round 1:
There have only been 13 1st round selections, which reflects the relatively lower value assigned to guards compared to some other positions. Of these selections, 3 are top, 6 are adequate and the remaining 4 are stopgap quality.

Conclusion:
Rounds 3 through 6 are a good place to add depth with the possibility of more. 21% of selections in this range end up being at least adequate starters, and another 27% are quality backups. Round 2 yields about half starters, and almost all picks are at least a quality roster spot. Paralleling tackles, two-thirds of Pro Bowl selections are 1st rounders, but teams can build effectively using 2nd-round picks to save money, or assembling depth and developing starters from rounds 3 and on.

Draft Metrics: Offensive Tackle

Most teams approach building their offense through the trenches, specifically focusing on the offensive tackle. A dominant player can lock down the position for over a decade, and positively impact both the running and passing games. For this study, I've taken draft data from 1996 to 2008 (2009 data hadn't been updated yet). In assessing a player's performance, I'm looking at two tiers: games played per years available to judge whether a player is starting caliber, and Pro Bowls per year available to screen out elite players.

There were 256 tackles selected between 1996 and 2008. 32 of these have played 15 or more games per season (top starter) over their career, and 43 more play 12 or more games per season (adequate starter). An additional 54 appear in more than 6 games (stopgap starter/backup). The remaining half of selections are backups at best, and should be trivially replacable. Full data is here.

Round 7:
Of 41 selections, 1* is strong (J.Richard), 5 more are adequate, and 5 more are stopgap solutions.

Round 6:
Of 39 selections, 1 is strong (C.Johnson), 1 is adequate and 4 are stopgaps.

Round 5:
Of 34 selections, 1* is strong (C.Nicks), 2 are adequate and 8 are stopgaps.

*- both players have been in the league one year, so longterm success isn't guaranteed yet.

Round 4:
We start to see the quality pick up a little. Of 35 selections, 2 are strong (J.Evans, J.Runyan), 6 are adequate and 9 more are stopgaps. Both strong players have made a Pro Bowl, the lowest picks earning this distinction.

Round 3:
Looks much like round 4. Of 35 selections, 3 (A.Snyder, E.Winston, M.Starks) are strong, 7 are adequate and 9 can plug a hole in a lineup.

Round 2:
A noticeable increase in quality again. Of 28 selections, we see 7 strong players, 11 adequate starts, and 6 more stopgaps. Only 4 players (M.Pearson, W.Justice, J.Roque, J.Rogers) in 13 years fall below stopgap. We also see numerous Pro Bowl-level players (M.Roos, M.McNeill, F.Adams, C.Clifton, M.Light, ... )

Round 1:
Scouts earn their paychecks for this position. Of 44 selections, 17 are strong starters, 11 more are adequate and 11 are stopgaps. 5 players are busts. While the bucket numbers are pretty close to round 2, round 1 tackles have earned a combined 53 Pro Bowl nods vs 13 for round 2 picks.

Conclusion:
The late rounds produce about one starter per 10 picks, so don't get your hopes too high for that raw prospect. However, another 1 in 7 picks become decent backups, so there's a combined 1 in 4 chance your team will find a quality roster player here. The odds roughly double when picking in the 3rd and 4th round; per 4 players, 1 will be a starter, another will be a backup. 2 out of 3 players from the top rounds will be a solid starter or better. Though Pro Bowl selections are dominated by 1st rounders, a savvy team can build a strong line with 2nd-round picks and keep costs considerably lower.

Top offensive tackles should be located in the first two rounds, but upgrades to weak players can be readily found in the middle of the draft, and depth behind an otherwise solid line can be addressed with late-round picks.