Byron Jones: The NFL’s fastest player!

lostxn

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https://www.bloggingtheboys.com/2018/1/25/16931182/byron-jones-the-nfls-fastest-player

Byron Jones: The NFL’s fastest player!

Who knew? The NextGen stats guys, that’s who.

By Michael Strawn@LifeInCharts Jan 25, 2018, 9:30am CST

So, apparently Byron Jones is the fastest player in the NFL. I learned this reading this New York Times article which was published a couple weeks ago. The BTB writers were all over it, noting it on the news post back on January 7th, but I somehow completely missed it. Still, I’m pretty amazed to learn the NFL’s fastest player is on the Cowboys’ roster.

Technically what the article says is Jones reached the highest running speed of any NFL player this year. How do they know that? Well, apparently the NFL placed computer chips in the shoulder pads of every NFL player and can track their movements all over the field. In fact, they’ve been doing this for the last three seasons.

How am I just learning of this? I feel like a Led Zeppelin fan who somehow missed the mid-90’s Page-Plant reunion. This sounds like a treasure trove of raw data that stat geeks and analytical nerds (like me) will obsess over. But all I know so far is Byron Jones, while chasing down Jay Ajayi in the Cowboys’ embarrassing week 11 loss to the Eagles, reached 22.11 miles per hour without mechanical assistance. No NFL player ran faster in 2017.

I have to admit I’m shocked by this. We’ve all know Jones was a combine wonder with “plus stats” in seemingly every physical attribute. But as far as on-field play, I’ve never watched Jones and thought “wow, that guy’s really fast”. And honestly, I didn’t think that when he made the play on Ajayi; instead I thought “wow, Ajayi is slow”.

But, now that I know Byron Jones is the official fastest guy in the NFL as measured by top attained speed (FGINFLMBTAS for short) I can’t help but wonder what else I’m missing? Theoretically, all the information a stat geek could ever want is in that delicious NextGen data.

In addition to tracking every player, there are also chips in every football used by the NFL. Wanna know which quarterback throws the hardest? They got that. Want to know the average horizontal and vertical distance of every pass thrown by Dak Prescott? They got that. Which offensive lineman gets off the ball fastest? Yep. The possibilities seem endless to me.

Sidenote: if there’s already a chip in the football why do we still have those silly guys on the sidelines holding the sticks with the metal chains? Can’t we just use the technology so that, instantly, we know whether the ball crossed the first down marker or the goal line? Wouldn’t this be much easier than Gene Steratore relying upon an index card? (Thinking about how the NFL has implemented replay... no, never mind, the silly guys with the sticks and chains are fine).

If you’re an ambitious NFL data analyst and wish to take a deep dive into such information you should check out SportsRadar. They brand themselves as “the exclusive distributer (sic) of the NFL’s Official Game Data and NFL Next Gen Stats.” So all those cool NextGen charts you see are sourced from these folks:


Of course it’s the NextGenStats site where all this information is staged for fans and media. They have some interesting stuff there but I feel like a passenger in coach, knowing it’s the folks in first class who have access to all the good stuff.

Honestly, I’m feeling a bit like Harry Potter the first time he enters Diagon Alley and gets exposed to wonders he never knew existed. So, what else did this NYT’s article tell me that I didn’t know (or at least wasn’t certain about)?

Let’s see:

Combine speed don’t mean nothing. Want to know which running back achieved the highest speed in the NFL? Leonard Fournette. Yeah, the bruising 240-pounder from the Jaguars reached 22.05 miles per hour. Fournette’s 40-yard time at the combine was 4.51 which ranked 53rd and 11th among running backs that year. Fournette says that being fast in the NFL is different than being fast in shorts and a t-shirt:

“I was 240 and ran a 4.51,” Fournette said, referring to his weight. “There’s guys who ran 4.4s or whatever else and they’re getting caught from behind in a game. Football speed and track speed is a big difference, man.”

The story also has a table with the average speed of each team’s wide receiving corps. I fully expected the Cowboys to rank near the bottom. But no, the Cowboys ranked a surprising 12th. Now, I’m somewhat skeptical that this means anything. This is the “average...top speed of each receiver across” every play. I’m not sure that’s a reliable measurement of the real speed of any given receiving corps. The Cowboys run a ton of go routes, few shallow crossing patterns and fewer screens; that should allows the Cowboys’ receivers to fully run more often than receivers who are navigating traffic closer to the line of scrimmage. Nevertheless, the next time some smartypants starts ripping the Cowboys receivers for their alleged lack of speed you can confidently drop this factoid on their poor, NextGen-ignorant soul.
 

bbgun

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This is like bragging that Byron Bell is the bench-press king.
 

UncleMilti

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WGAF. He could run 25 mph and he'd still suck ass.
 

L.T. Fan

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Because as athletic as he is he has no feeling for the game. Doesn't know when or where the ball is going to be.
??????????? Who does know where the ball is going to be? I don’t understand your response. I understand alignments and schemes but I have yet to run across a system that gives coverage assignments on where the DB reacts based on where the ball is supposed to be. I’m not being sarcastic. I just am interested in knowing this facet of the game.
 

Chocolate Lab

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??????????? Who does know where the ball is going to be? I don’t understand your response. I understand alignments and schemes but I have yet to run across a system that gives coverage assignments on where the DB reacts based on where the ball is supposed to be. I’m not being sarcastic. I just am interested in knowing this facet of the game.
Not to speak for him, but I believe he's talking about the fact that the best safeties have a sense of where the ball is going and they get that extra step towards the play that makes up for a tenth or two of 40 or 3-cone or whatever athletic test you like. Jones is the opposite, he's sort of a paint-by-numbers player.

I've always thought the better safeties have those instincts and it's one reason I always thought Jones should be tried more at corner. He's big and he will tackle (most of the time) but lacks the instincts that the better safeties have.
 

p1_

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Im sure he was clocked chasing someone from behind.
 

Cotton

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Not to speak for him, but I believe he's talking about the fact that the best safeties have a sense of where the ball is going and they get that extra step towards the play that makes up for a tenth or two of 40 or 3-cone or whatever athletic test you like. Jones is the opposite, he's sort of a paint-by-numbers player.

I've always thought the better safeties have those instincts and it's one reason I always thought Jones should be tried more at corner. He's big and he will tackle (most of the time) but lacks the instincts that the better safeties have.
Reactive versus proactive.
 

Cowboysrock55

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Not to speak for him, but I believe he's talking about the fact that the best safeties have a sense of where the ball is going and they get that extra step towards the play that makes up for a tenth or two of 40 or 3-cone or whatever athletic test you like. Jones is the opposite, he's sort of a paint-by-numbers player.

I've always thought the better safeties have those instincts and it's one reason I always thought Jones should be tried more at corner. He's big and he will tackle (most of the time) but lacks the instincts that the better safeties have.
This is correct. A safety needs to be able to read the QB and be in position to make a play on the ball before it gets there. Byron is way too slow to react. It's why he is best in man coverages where he is basically told to just chase a guy.
 

UncleMilti

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This is correct. A safety needs to be able to read the QB and be in position to make a play on the ball before it gets there. Byron is way too slow to react. It's why he is best in man coverages where he is basically told to just chase a guy.
Okay I will go with that but I also see that the alignments for the Dallas DB are usually too deep. The placements almost give up 6 to 10 yards to an opponent if the D.L. can’t disrupt a QB. A lot of the problems with Dallas is that they haven’t had an effective pass rush with any consistency and still place the DBs in a compromising position by a loose alignment.
 

Donpingon

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Okay I will go with that but I also see that the alignments for the Dallas DB are usually too deep. The placements almost give up 6 to 10 yards to an opponent if the D.L. can’t disrupt a QB. A lot of the problems with Dallas is that they haven’t had an effective pass rush with any consistency and still place the DBs in a compromising position by a loose alignment.
Completely - look at the year Carr, Claiborne, and Church had. I’m not hating on Byron until we have a better scheme for the secondary.
 

lostxn

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Completely - look at the year Carr, Claiborne, and Church had. I’m not hating on Byron until we have a better scheme for the secondary.
Well this will be be his prove it year. They have a new secondary coach who is a definite upgrade.
 

DLK150

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Meh. Timed speed is always overrated, it doesn't always equate to football speed or mean you can be a competent FB player. I remember when Dallas tried to draft Carl Lewis in the tenth round or something back in the early 80s, not that he wanted to play football to begin with. Maybe Schramm thought he could be the next Bob Hayes.

Jones could still pan out but it doesn't help when you bounce a player back and forth between positions. I'm not going to hate on the guy too much, it's not his fault that Dallas was wowed by his speed, drafted him too high and threw him into the fire too early. Realistically he was probably a fourth, maybe third round pick, especially coming out of that noted football power UConn(Sarcasm). If Jones gets some good coaching, has an epiphany and turns into an NFL CB, he probably leaves in FA after the 2018 season anyway.
 

L.T. Fan

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Well this will be be his prove it year. They have a new secondary coach who is a definite upgrade.
Just hope he has some input into the alignments for the schemes set up for the secondary.
 

Couchcoach

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Brady Quinn was a combine beast. And the rest is history...
I don't want to give up on Jones. He was incredible his rookie season. So the ability is there. Hoping Richard can find a place for him and get the best out of him.
 

Couchcoach

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Brady Quinn was a combine beast. And the rest is history...
I don't want to give up on Jones. He was incredible his rookie season. So the ability is there. Hoping Richard can find a place for him and get the best out of him.
 
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