- Joined
- Apr 7, 2013
- Messages
- 122,393
The SPARQling 2015 Dallas Cowboys Draft Class: Cowboys Top NFL In Athleticism Metrics
By One.Cool.Customer @OCC44 on May 3, 2015, 11:00a 117
You can teach most players to recognize a man or zone defense, but you cannot teach a player to outrun a faster defender. Which is why NFL teams constantly want bigger, faster, and stronger players. The Cowboys got just that in the 2015 NFL draft.
When the Seahawks drafted center Kristjan Sokoli with the 224th pick in the seventh round on Saturday, most people were scratching their heads over the selection, while Seahawks fans nodded knowingly.
Seahawks fans knew that out of all prospects in the 2015 NFL Draft class, Sokoli had the highest SPARQ score.
Over the last few years, the Seahawks have become known for drafting and signing freakishly athletic players. Turns out, that is more than just pure coincidence. In fact, the Seahawks are using a formula to find their future stars.
Their Strength and Conditioning Coach, Chris Carlisle, helped develop Nike's SPARQ rating system, which the Seahawks appear to be using to find athletic freaks - or at least use to supplement their overall scouting effort. Think of it as an SAT score for Football Players. This "SAT" score, or SPARQ rating, does not trump the evaluation of game tape, a person's character and competitiveness, interviews with coaches, and medicals. It is just another tool for coaches to use, but it encapsulates one simple truth about the NFL:
Given the same level of talent, the bigger/faster/stronger players almost always win.
And that's where SPARQ comes in. The SPARQ score is calculated using eight inputs. There is no height or arm length component involved, but SPARQ blends an athlete's size, explosive power, speed and agility into one metric.
(1) Player Weight: this "normalizes" the score, giving credit to a bigger player who displays similar movement skills to a smaller, quicker player.
(2) Explosive power bench press, broad jump, vertical jump
(3) Speed and agility: forty-yard dash, ten-yard split, short shuttle and 3-cone drill.
Unfortunately, Nike never published the exact formula for the SPARQ metric. But an enterprising blogger for Field Gulls, Zach Whitman, reverse-engineered an approximation of the formula, and while he doesn't divulge the formula either, at least he publishes the results of his calculations at 3sigmaathlete.com.
Here's what the 2015 Dallas Cowboys draft class looks like as viewed by SPARQ:
pSPARQ, the single metric designed to summarize a player's athleticism, z-score and NFL% calculates a player’s ranking relative to his peers at his position. 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 Cowboys have drafted some truly superior athletes. Byron Jones, Randy Gregory, Mark Nzeocha, and Laurence Gibson rank among the Top Ten percent of all NFL players at their position in terms of athleticism.
Damien Wilson and Ryan Russell are both above average in terms of their athleticism, while Chaz Green and Geoff Swaim narrowly miss hitting the 50 percentile. Keep in mind that the average NFL player is already pretty athletic, so this designation is not at all a poor result.
So how does this draft class compare against the rest of the NFL in terms of its athleticism?
Zach Whitman has published the results of over 2,000 prospects eligible for the 2015 NFL draft. Those numbers show the SPARQ ratings of 242 of the 256 players selected in the 2015 draft. Here's what you get when you average out the SPARQ scores for those 242 players over the 32 teams that selected them:
[Update: In a previous version of this post, we had averaged the pSPARQ scores. Zach Whitman advised us that averaging the z-score would be more advisable, so we corrected that.]
that.]
By One.Cool.Customer @OCC44 on May 3, 2015, 11:00a 117
You can teach most players to recognize a man or zone defense, but you cannot teach a player to outrun a faster defender. Which is why NFL teams constantly want bigger, faster, and stronger players. The Cowboys got just that in the 2015 NFL draft.
When the Seahawks drafted center Kristjan Sokoli with the 224th pick in the seventh round on Saturday, most people were scratching their heads over the selection, while Seahawks fans nodded knowingly.
Seahawks fans knew that out of all prospects in the 2015 NFL Draft class, Sokoli had the highest SPARQ score.
Over the last few years, the Seahawks have become known for drafting and signing freakishly athletic players. Turns out, that is more than just pure coincidence. In fact, the Seahawks are using a formula to find their future stars.
Their Strength and Conditioning Coach, Chris Carlisle, helped develop Nike's SPARQ rating system, which the Seahawks appear to be using to find athletic freaks - or at least use to supplement their overall scouting effort. Think of it as an SAT score for Football Players. This "SAT" score, or SPARQ rating, does not trump the evaluation of game tape, a person's character and competitiveness, interviews with coaches, and medicals. It is just another tool for coaches to use, but it encapsulates one simple truth about the NFL:
Given the same level of talent, the bigger/faster/stronger players almost always win.
And that's where SPARQ comes in. The SPARQ score is calculated using eight inputs. There is no height or arm length component involved, but SPARQ blends an athlete's size, explosive power, speed and agility into one metric.
(1) Player Weight: this "normalizes" the score, giving credit to a bigger player who displays similar movement skills to a smaller, quicker player.
(2) Explosive power bench press, broad jump, vertical jump
(3) Speed and agility: forty-yard dash, ten-yard split, short shuttle and 3-cone drill.
Unfortunately, Nike never published the exact formula for the SPARQ metric. But an enterprising blogger for Field Gulls, Zach Whitman, reverse-engineered an approximation of the formula, and while he doesn't divulge the formula either, at least he publishes the results of his calculations at 3sigmaathlete.com.
Here's what the 2015 Dallas Cowboys draft class looks like as viewed by SPARQ:
Round | Pick # | Player | Pos. | College | pSPARQ | z-score | NFL% |
1 | 27 | Byron Jones | CB | Connecticut | 150.8 | 3.3 | 99.9 |
2 | 60 | Randy Gregory | OLB | Nebraska | 138.5 | 1.4 | 92.2 |
3 | 91 | Chaz Green | OT | Florida | 102.8 | -0.1 | 45.7 |
4 | 127 | Damien Wilson | ILB | Minnesota | 121.9 | 0.1 | 54.9 |
5 | 163 | Ryan Russell | DL | Purdue | 125.1 | 0.4 | 66.0 |
7 | 236 | Mark Nzeocha | OLB | Wyoming | 140.7 | 1.7 | 95.3 |
7 | 243 | Laurence Gibson | OT | Virginia Tech | 121.3 | 1.3 | 90.2 |
7 | 246 | Geoff Swaim | TE | Texas | 117.0 | 0 | 49.3 |
pSPARQ, the single metric designed to summarize a player's athleticism, z-score and NFL% calculates a player’s ranking relative to his peers at his position. 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 Cowboys have drafted some truly superior athletes. Byron Jones, Randy Gregory, Mark Nzeocha, and Laurence Gibson rank among the Top Ten percent of all NFL players at their position in terms of athleticism.
Damien Wilson and Ryan Russell are both above average in terms of their athleticism, while Chaz Green and Geoff Swaim narrowly miss hitting the 50 percentile. Keep in mind that the average NFL player is already pretty athletic, so this designation is not at all a poor result.
So how does this draft class compare against the rest of the NFL in terms of its athleticism?
Zach Whitman has published the results of over 2,000 prospects eligible for the 2015 NFL draft. Those numbers show the SPARQ ratings of 242 of the 256 players selected in the 2015 draft. Here's what you get when you average out the SPARQ scores for those 242 players over the 32 teams that selected them:
[Update: In a previous version of this post, we had averaged the pSPARQ scores. Zach Whitman advised us that averaging the z-score would be more advisable, so we corrected that.]
that.]
Team | Players | Avg. z-score | .. | Team | Players | Avg. z-score | .. | Team | Players | Avg. z-score |
Seattle | 8 | 1.19 | NY Jets | 6 | 0.25 | Oakland | 9 | 0.03 | ||
Dallas | 8 | 1.01 | Minnesota | 9 | 0.23 | Indianapolis | 8 | 0.03 | ||
Philadelphia | 5 | 0.78 | NY Giants | 6 | 0.20 | Arizona | 7 | 0.01 | ||
Atlanta | 7 | 0.56 | Pittsburgh | 8 | 0.20 | Buffalo | 6 | -0.05 | ||
Tampa Bay | 6 | 0.50 | Tennessee | 8 | 0.18 | Baltimore | 9 | -0.10 | ||
San Diego | 5 | 0.48 | Houston | 7 | 0.16 | Cleveland | 10 | -0.15 | ||
Kansas City | 9 | 0.41 | Cincinnati | 9 | 0.14 | New England | 10 | -0.18 | ||
Miami | 7 | 0.31 | Chicago | 6 | 0.13 | St. Louis | 9 | -0.21 | ||
Green Bay | 7 | 0.30 | Washington | 10 | 0.12 | Denver | 8 | -0.31 | ||
Detroit | 6 | 0.28 | Jacksonville | 8 | 0.09 | Carolina | 5 | -0.32 | ||
New Orleans | 9 | 0.26 | San Francisco | 7 | 0.04 |