Latest / Inside the Birds: A Philadelphia Eagles Podcast / Inside The Data: Projecting Eagles Jalyx Hunt's Year 2 Production

Transcript

Inside The Data: Projecting Eagles Jalyx Hunt's Year 2 Production · Inside the Birds: A Philadelphia Eagles Podcast

0:09
Speaker 1: All right, hello, welcome back to Inside the Data on
0:12
Inside the Birds. I'm Jeff Mosher, and of course we're
0:14
talking data, we're talking analytics, we're talking metrics. So we
0:17
got Sam Finkel, our great analytics expert who does such
0:20
a great job here for the Inside the Birds community,
0:23
and the questions keep coming in, and we got a
0:26
great question that once again, it's like challenging because numbers
0:30
can't tell we as we say all the time, Sam,
0:32
numbers only tell half the story. But we got a
0:35
wonderful question. So today's data question comes from a loyal
0:40
Inside the Birds follower. He's on our Patreon channel. He's
0:43
always reposting our work doing great. We love him. He's Wilton.
0:47
And Wilton has a question Sam about Jal's hunt and
0:51
if there's any kind of metrics or analytics that can
0:55
predict how he'll be in year two given his surprising
0:59
develop in year one to the point where he's in
1:02
the Super Bowl playing, getting sax hurries and winning helping
1:07
the team win a Super Bowl championship. As a rookie
1:08
third round pick out of Houston Christian he was supposed
1:11
to be a project, right. I think he was going
1:14
to be seeing the field like this. So a really
1:16
good question.
1:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great question from a great person. So
1:20
thank you again for the question. Thank you for the support,
1:22
obviously well pre appreciate it. In order to answer this question,
1:28
I kind of had to create a framework. And look,
1:31
not everyone's going to agree with this framework. It's more
1:33
of a thought exercise, right, I don't think I can
1:38
accurately project this. If I could, i'd probably be in
1:42
finance in a millionaire. That'd be really cool.
1:46
Speaker 1: But another not gambling. More than that, you'd probably be
1:49
working for draft kick.
1:51
Speaker 2: Look, there's alternative career paths regardless if I was that
1:55
good at projection. But let's let's go on this journey together.
1:59
Let's do a little exercise while we're doing it. I
2:02
think it's really important to recognize that, you know, a
2:06
second year leap for the Eagles players, for any player,
2:09
really is position. It's volume, it's opportunity dependent. You know,
2:14
there's no way to look at a receiver as like
2:17
a great analog for how an edge is going to
2:21
progress from year one to year two. And honestly, there's
2:24
not a good way to look at an edge one
2:26
edge to another edge because all players are different, their
2:30
opportunities are different, their schemes are different. They're people, right,
2:34
I mean everybody is a little bit different. Everyone's going
2:37
to progress a little bit differently. But let's do it anyway.
2:39
Let's have some fun with it.
2:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I want to remind people. I say this
2:42
all the time. Development in the NFL isn't always linear,
2:48
meaning you may we've seen guys take step backs, we've
2:52
seen guys take a huge step forward. That No, like
2:56
Zach Bond last year, no one could.
2:58
Speaker 2: Have ever, ever, ever predicted that.
3:01
Speaker 1: No analytics, Yeah, no, no, there was no listening to
3:04
The Eagles are as into analytics as any team in
3:06
the world, and they could not have told you when
3:09
they signed him that he was going to be an
3:10
All Pro inside linebacker at the same time, you know,
3:13
to keep it Eagles. I don't know that after Devin
3:17
White made All Pro in his second year, I forget
3:20
what year was, hey, twenty one, Maybe that three years
3:23
later he'd be barely looking for a job, right, you
3:25
know what I'm saying. And he didn't play last year.
3:27
I think it was on a practice squad for the
3:29
for the Texans. So just because your trajectory looks one
3:34
way doesn't mean it's going to follow. Just because it's
3:36
going down doesn't mean it's gonna stay down. So that's
3:37
what makes this all. I love the way you framed
3:40
it a thought exercise. And what you did here when
3:44
we bring up the charts is you thought, I thought
3:46
this was a great idea on your part. Let's just
3:48
take players and see how they did from year one
3:50
to year two at all positions, just to see if
3:52
there's any commonalities or ways to judget. So I thought
3:55
that was a really smart way to go about.
3:56
Speaker 2: It, Thank you. I did limit it to the first
3:58
three rounds just because as we'd be looking at charts
4:02
all day, and you know, some people love that, honestly,
4:04
and I appreciate those people. They're my people. But for
4:07
the sake of you know, just making the point, especially
4:10
because it's not like it's not a great, you know,
4:14
extrapolation opportunity, I figured we just limited a little bit.
4:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, anymore would have been out of your pay grate. Sam.
4:23
All right, so let's take a look at the charts
4:25
that you put together. So we'll bring up the three
4:28
charts that you've done using DeVante smith Landon Dickerson and
4:33
Milton Williams. You have a first round pick, a second
4:35
round pick, and a third round pick. Very well and
4:38
very intentional.
4:39
Speaker 2: Sam, Yeah, listen, I mean this is I did the
4:42
last three years. So you're gonna see the twenty twenty
4:44
one rookies, twenty twenty two rookies, and the twenty twenty
4:46
three rookies, and we'll just kind of go through there
4:48
at least the first three rounds. And listen, these charts,
4:52
even though it's simple, are a little bit confusing, So
4:55
we're going to walk you through each and every one
4:57
of them. And I just think it's it's a good
5:00
way to kind of understand how these players progress. And honestly,
5:03
if that's the only takeaway you have from this is
5:06
how did the Eagles rookies go from rookie year to
5:08
the second year, I think that's a great thing to
5:10
learn and I think it's a great thing to discuss.
5:12
So if that's the greatest takeaway we have from here,
5:14
I think it's a win for us.
5:16
Speaker 1: Yeah. And the contextually, Sam, it helps. I mean, it's
5:18
the same head coach for a defensive player. It'll be
5:22
the second it's it's the same concept concepts of defense
5:25
they've been trying to run a Fangio style defense. It's
5:27
it's obviously different with Vic Fangio and his crew there,
5:31
But the point is it's the organizational philosophy. This is
5:35
not like, uh, give me one second to think of
5:38
a team that's like constantly on a different philosophy or
5:41
a different head coach every year or every other year,
5:43
kind of like the Dolphins are you know like that?
5:46
You know, sometimes there are three four, sometimes four to three.
5:48
Now they're Mike McDonald. A couple of years ago, it's
5:50
a different head coach who I can't Oh, Adam Gase
5:52
was it, I don't remember. But either way, the point is, like,
5:54
what's the Dolphins identity? I have no idea because every
5:58
two or three years are on a different head coach, coordinator,
6:00
and the Eagles have had some obviously they've lost some
6:03
coordinators along the way, but philosophically and organizationally, what they
6:07
do is similar. So I think that that helps in
6:09
just keeping it Eagles oriented.
6:11
Speaker 2: Sure. Absolutely, So let's look at DeVonta. Smith's rookie year
6:16
and his second year. So instead of snaps, I went
6:20
with so again, I used PFF for every single one
6:24
of these except for DeVonta Smith and Sydney Brown. And
6:27
the reason I didn't do that is because I really
6:29
wanted to use NFL Pro for those ones, and I
6:34
just thought the data is more fun for you know,
6:36
receiver and defensive back in that regard. And with that,
6:40
NFL Pro has routes, and I think routes are a
6:44
better indicator than snaps just in this particular context. So
6:49
that being said, in his rookie year he had four
6:53
hundred and sixty two routes run and in his second
6:56
year five hundred and fifty eight routes run. That's a
6:59
difference of ninety six and it is a twenty one
7:03
percent increase from rookie year to second year. Now that
7:07
translated in receptions as well. He had sixty four receptions
7:11
his rookie year and ninety five his second year, which
7:15
is a change of thirty one, which is almost a
7:17
fifty percent increase. So basically that that shows that he
7:25
was being targeted a lot more on these routes, and
7:28
well not just being targeted, he was catching more on
7:31
these routes run. And then his yards went from nine
7:36
to sixteen to ninety six, which is a change of
7:40
two hundred and eighty and is a thirty one percent change.
7:45
Touchdowns went from five to seven, which is two, which
7:50
is a forty percent increase. And you know these that's
7:54
what you see, like when you're on the field more,
7:56
when you're running more routes, those things are going to
7:58
go up. Now with what you'll see it as a
8:01
trend mostly in these charts is typically when your volume
8:06
goes up, you know your relative like stats to the
8:10
yards per reception are going to go down just because
8:12
it's going to aggrest to the mean and there's it's
8:15
going to be a lot more. It's it's a better
8:17
indicator at that point because of the sample size that
8:19
it really all everything comes back to sample size at
8:22
the end of the day. The more reps you have,
8:24
the more anomalists, Like any type of weird whether one
8:29
way or the other, will be kind of mitigated, right
8:31
because like when you have a lot more opportunities, you know,
8:34
the outliers are kind of just you know, they don't
8:37
affect the mean as much. So that's that's what you see. Oh,
8:40
we again a statistics lesson in here too. I love it.
8:43
Speaker 1: I do love that.
8:45
Speaker 2: But as I highlighted what in green what got better
8:48
in each of them? And then you see the receptions
8:52
per routes went up and then the receptions per touchdown went.
8:56
Speaker 1: Up right right, So the case of what you were
9:00
talking about with opportunity, he ran more routes, so therefore
9:05
he caught more passes, got more yards, scored more touchdowns.
9:09
And the what what give us our ec dash rat
9:14
is that reception per routes run, like how many Okay, well,
9:18
that one.
9:19
Speaker 2: Is just it's a pure percentage. It's like how many
9:22
receptions did he get out of the routes run? And
9:25
then the next one is receptions per touchdown? So he
9:30
was catching a touchdown every thirteen receptions his rookie year
9:35
and then thirteen point six right his second year, just
9:38
because you know, there were more routes.
9:40
Speaker 1: So so in four of the six categories you saw
9:45
a progression, yes, and contextually that became a because of
9:51
more opportunities and b because he's a first round pick
9:53
in the year two learning the NFL. So that's that
9:57
was almost expected.
9:59
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, So that's that's kind of your takeaways with
10:03
de Vonta Smith, at least in particular.
10:06
Speaker 1: So now we go to a second rounder in Landon
10:08
Dickerson m hm. And what jumps out at you on
10:11
this one?
10:12
Speaker 2: You see a lot of green, don't Yeah, that's yeah,
10:15
that's not bad. So with this one, what you want
10:19
to see it we did past or, I did past
10:22
blocks snaps, that's the PBS. Uh. He went from five
10:26
thirty five to seven fourteen, which is a change of
10:30
one seventy nine, which is a thirty three percent increase.
10:35
His sacks allowed went down, and you so you see
10:38
a negative number and you see it in green. But
10:39
again remember this is offensive line, so you want those
10:42
numbers to go down. So you know, a fifty percent decrease,
10:46
which again it sounds silly, you go from two to one. Uh,
10:49
the that's but you know it's it's still there. It'll
10:52
it'll be more meaningful for you know, higher volume statistics.
10:57
Hits went from eight to three, which is minus five,
11:01
is sixty three percent decrease. His hurries went from twenty
11:06
three to seventeen minus six, a twenty six percent decrease.
11:11
And total pressures went from thirty three to twenty one,
11:15
which is minus twelve or a thirty six percent decrease.
11:20
And then what's interesting is as these numbers went down,
11:24
but his snaps went up. His relative statistics also improved, right,
11:30
because he had more snaps but he had less pressures. Right.
11:34
That's one of the rare instances that honestly indicates you know,
11:39
significant growth, not growth, significant growth. Right.
11:43
Speaker 1: This is almost the opposite of what we talked about
11:45
with DeVante Smith, where the more volume he got in
11:47
year two, naturally the yards perception came down a little
11:51
bit because there's gonna be some screen you're just gonna see, like,
11:53
you can't keep that number up. But for Landon Dickerson,
11:57
the more that he played, the less snaps and Saxson
12:02
hits some pressures he allowed, which helps his pressure number, his.
12:06
Speaker 2: Percentages absolutely, And I think that's really important to recognize
12:12
because it's one of the rare instances where this phenomenon occurs.
12:17
Got it awesome stuff, all right.
12:19
Speaker 1: So Milton Williams, Now, it's important to remember Milton Williams
12:22
really saw his biggest emergence in year three and then
12:25
let you know, last year, year four, he was unbelievable.
12:28
So the first two years he was really part of
12:30
a rotation.
12:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, and honestly, he was a victim of losing opportunities
12:37
from his rookie here yep, his sophomore season. And I
12:40
think that's really interesting because you know, with you see
12:44
a rotational player, everyone expects, you know, this player is
12:48
going to get more snaps because they're developing, they're growing.
12:52
And that just wasn't the case with Milton Williams from
12:54
year one to year two. But that doesn't mean that
12:57
he wasn't going to grow. I think it goes to
12:59
exactly what you were talking about before, that nothing's linear, right, right, right,
13:03
And I mean it ended up becoming a little bit
13:06
more linear after year three and year four, but it
13:09
was some up and down, right, and so you and
13:12
and look, there's not a huge difference in the past
13:14
rush snaps. It was two seventy two to two sixty two.
13:18
It was a three percent or almost four percent decrease
13:21
in snaps. That's like negligible, that's nothing, right, But what
13:26
was like interesting is that he got better, right, you
13:30
can see he got better because his sacks doubled.
13:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting that his sacks doubled while his hits, hurries,
13:36
and pressures all went a little bit lower.
13:39
Speaker 2: So that's I.
13:40
Speaker 1: Don't know what to make of that. Again, the sample
13:42
size a little a little strange there, but again he
13:46
played basically this, he played fewer snaps, basically the same,
13:49
and he was in a rotation here, So you're deal
13:52
you have to deal with that kind of reality of it.
13:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look when I think the relative stats
13:57
tell a really good story here, and that's why I'm
13:59
glad I had them. Sometimes it's a little bit weird,
14:01
and you'll you'll see places where it's weird. But if
14:03
you see his it took him about sixteen point three
14:07
eight snaps to get a pressure his second year and
14:11
fourteen point three to two his first year, so he
14:13
was pressuring a little bit less, but his sack differential
14:17
it was crazy, right. It went from one thirty six
14:20
he was getting a sack every one hundred and thirty
14:22
six snaps to sixty five point five. Wow, that is
14:26
a huge difference. So it just to me that meant
14:28
he was finishing, right, So he was getting very similar pressures.
14:32
I mean, he got a little bit less, he had
14:34
a little bit less snaps, but he was finishing and
14:37
he was learning to finish, and so I think that
14:40
there you can see the growth in there.
14:42
Speaker 1: Yes, Sam, I also think that we can probably use
14:45
this one out of all three the most to say
14:48
and look forward in the spirit of the question and say, hey,
14:51
even if Jaelex Hunt, remember now you know he's got
14:54
Nolan Smith on the other side, and they brought in
14:56
Josh Ucha. They brought in as he's usual are these are?
14:59
Speaker 2: You know?
15:00
Speaker 1: Oje Lauri is a very good pass rusher. We went
15:02
through when healthy what his pass rushing data is, and
15:05
it's really good. So it's possible. Now the league has
15:09
seen Jaylex Hunt and he's still working on his craft
15:11
a little, it's possible he could maybe not play as
15:15
many more reps as you think he's gonna play this
15:17
year as last year, right, and it's possible he may
15:20
take a small step back in certain areas, But that
15:23
doesn't mean that by year three and four, like Milton Williams,
15:27
he can't put that together and really become an amazing
15:31
pass rusher. Meaning like, don't lose faith in this guy
15:33
if year two is not what you expected in year two,
15:36
because right now, because they he started and they won
15:39
the Super Bowl, I think everybody's expecting to be Trent
15:41
Cole next year. If he's not, that's okay.
15:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that is the right takeaway for sure.
15:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean if they're playing Ojelaari a lot opposite,
15:51
or if they're playing Jiha Campbell, right, like, if they're
15:53
playing other guys a lot, because those guys are doing
15:57
really well too. Okay, that doesn't necessarily mean that all
16:00
hope is lost for Jai Son. Just means that opportunities
16:04
are going to other players.
16:05
Speaker 2: And remember, Hunt was a pretty raw prospect, and he
16:10
did see a lot of success in the playoffs near
16:12
the end of the season, but he's still developing and learning.
16:17
He's he's not even close to his potential yet. And
16:20
so if Fangio and the staff feels like he needs
16:24
more time to develop and less opportunities on the field,
16:27
that doesn't mean they don't believe in him. And I
16:30
think that's important to recognize.
16:31
Speaker 1: Absolutely, all Right, So let's move on to the next player,
16:35
Jordan Davis from the twenty twenty two draft.
16:38
Speaker 2: Correct, Yes, yeah, so first round twenty twenty two draft.
16:42
So again, you know, pressures, I'm sorry, not pressure's pastres snaps. Yeah,
16:47
I got myself there. I gotta went from one twenty
16:51
eight to three h four, an increase of one seventy
16:53
six that's one hundred and thirty seven percent increase, which
16:56
is pretty sizable. I mean, his snap count was more
17:00
than double of what he had, so it's interesting he
17:04
went from no sacks to four sacks. He went from
17:08
two hits to one hit. But again, you know, a
17:11
sack is greater than a hit, so sometimes those like
17:14
pressure snaps cannibalize. I think that's something we don't really
17:17
talk about so much. But like every every sack is
17:22
a hit and a hurry essentially, right, but they don't
17:24
count it that way. They get counted as the most
17:26
complete action. So when you see somebody's sacks go up,
17:32
logically their hits and hurries will also decrease, but you'll
17:37
see that same number will be reflected in that pressure category.
17:40
Speaker 1: Right, So he really had five hits on a quarterback,
17:44
Four of them were sacks and one was.
17:46
Speaker 2: Just a hit. Correct. I think that's a better way
17:48
to kind of frame this, and I think nobody really
17:51
talks that way. I just but I think it's important
17:54
to recognize, right. I mean, every time you're hitting the court,
17:58
every time you're sacking the quarterback, you were doing every
18:00
part of the pressure. It is the most complete pressure
18:03
that you can do right.
18:05
Speaker 1: Right, because he had zero sacks in twenty two his
18:08
rookie year, you could say he really had He hit
18:11
the quarterback twice in twenty twenty two. He hit the
18:14
quarterback five times correct in twenty twenty three, So that's
18:18
I get what you're saying. That could be a misleading
18:20
category where it says only one hit in his second year.
18:23
And I want to remind everybody we don't have last
18:25
year's stats. We know we've talked about his improvement a
18:28
little bit in the pass rush last year, but Sam specifically,
18:31
the question was from year one to year two. So
18:33
Sam only put year one in year two and year
18:36
two for Jordan Davis, while you do see some growth,
18:40
that wasn't necessarily a great year, and he was a
18:42
part of that implosion and didn't play as much down
18:45
the stretch where you know, because of lack of technique.
18:48
Conditioning was a problem, which he acknowledged as well.
18:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think those are all important things to
18:55
recognize it. But you're right. I did very much limit
18:57
the scope of the question because we could be talked
18:59
this thought exercise could go so many different We could
19:01
be talking all day about this.
19:04
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean, if Jill, like someone has a
19:05
really good year too, someone's gonna ask, well, what's the well,
19:08
you know, what's the potential of him being like Pro
19:09
Bowl Hall of Fame by year three? And then we
19:11
got to go through all the all through this all
19:13
over again, where you ask, hey, but keep these charts
19:15
that you made, you just add the extra box exactly.
19:19
Speaker 2: But like, that's why I love these questions. They're they're
19:21
very theoretical, hypothetical, but who knows, right at the end
19:26
of the day, we're just giving our best guess based
19:29
on what we have, right.
19:30
Speaker 1: But I think and a good common thing is in
19:32
all the guys we've the four guys you've presented so far,
19:36
we have generally seen progression and not a whole lot
19:40
of up and down or linear Again, snap size for
19:43
some are hard, but you know, in the case of
19:46
Davis and Williams, they've always been rotational. But yet you're
19:49
still seeing encouraging things from year one to year two exactly.
19:54
Speaker 2: And that's really all you can ask right now.
19:57
Speaker 1: Also from that draft, we have Cam Jurgen and Nikobe Dan.
20:02
Cam Jurgens was the second round pick in Nikcobe Dean
20:04
was the third round pick. So why don't you go
20:07
through the Jurgons and Deans stats here?
20:09
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go through Jurgons very quickly. It's not fair.
20:12
He had nine pass blocking steps in twenty two and
20:15
then four hundred and twenty seven in his second year. Yeah,
20:19
I mean, that's honestly, that's the only thing you need
20:22
to know.
20:23
Speaker 1: Right. Plus, I don't even think of all the ones
20:26
that were. Of all the comparisons we're trying to make
20:28
as far as what we can expect from Jex Hunt
20:31
in year two, Jurgens is the least relative. Not to
20:35
say your work isn't important, I'm just what I'm saying
20:37
is contextually, Not only did Jurgons in year two play
20:41
a different position than he played he played he didn't
20:43
play as a rookie, and then year two played right guard.
20:46
Your three he's playing center. So Jalox Hunt is not
20:49
going to be asked to be playing nose tackle or
20:52
three tech. He's going to be an edge. Maybe maybe
20:55
he'll move inside on like some pass rushdowns.
20:57
Speaker 2: That's maybe he'll go back to safety.
20:59
Speaker 1: Right Yeah?
21:00
Speaker 2: Is that right?
21:02
Speaker 1: Then that would be maybe an app comparison, But it's
21:04
really hard to take Jurgons andokes Hunt right now and
21:07
make any kind of.
21:08
Speaker 2: Comp Well, yeah, I think what shows that is you
21:11
look at that percent change. It's six hundred and forty
21:14
four percent change. Yeah, that tells the story right there.
21:19
Speaker 1: I think that was supposed to be how it was
21:21
for jaikes Hunt right where he went from only maybe
21:23
like nine snaps as a rookie to a lot second year,
21:28
but he wound up playing more.
21:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, so anyway, just fun to throw out there. But
21:33
let's throw that one out the window.
21:34
Speaker 1: Now, Nikobe Dean a lot more because Nikobe also didn't play.
21:39
He didn't play a lot as a rookie either, but
21:44
probably comparable because by year or two he was a
21:46
starter and had the expectations.
21:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, and actually this should be green. Basically what we
21:55
see is from twenty twenty two to twenty twenty three
21:59
he had fourty seven snaps to one hundred and eighty
22:01
two change of one hundred and thirty five two hundred
22:04
and eighty seven percent increase, Like that's what we were expecting.
22:06
You're right, absolutely, Then his tackles went from four to
22:10
twenty six twenty two, a five hundred and fifty percent increase,
22:14
And again the relative stats. Uh, it's we're talking about
22:18
how many snaps until he gets a tackle. So in
22:21
the first year it was every twelve, and then the
22:23
second year was every seven.
22:25
Speaker 1: I think that's the more don't you think that's a
22:27
more telling stat than say, yeah, tackles in general are
22:31
obviously going to go up on more snaps. You know,
22:33
that doesn't tell you whether it's good or bad, because
22:36
you know, tackles aren't like you can make a tackle
22:38
twenty yards on the field. But I would say how
22:43
many snaps you play per tackle, which shows your instinct
22:46
for getting to the ball, right, That to me is
22:49
a more telling stat that that's a good progression there.
22:53
Speaker 2: One hundred percent agreed. I mean it's showing that he
22:57
he's taking advantage of his snaps. You know, he's making
22:59
the most of it. And I think that's why relative
23:01
statistics are good. But again, relative statistics when you're looking
23:06
at forty seven snaps, is I mean like in statistics,
23:12
you want the sample size to be at least forty
23:13
but like for you want it to be more for
23:17
this kind of like for higher volume things like snaps,
23:19
you want it to be much higher.
23:21
Speaker 1: Right, I think I think we can almost assume that
23:24
if he had played say one hundred and eighty snaps
23:26
as a rookie instead of forty seven, that his snap
23:30
to tackle percentage is probably going to be better than
23:33
eleven point seven to five. Yeah, right, because it's playing
23:36
as a rookie, is getting more comfortable, he's understanding, and
23:38
we saw that growth. And I you know, we don't,
23:40
I don't. We don't have the stats intentionally here for
23:43
what it was last year, but I would it's probably
23:46
right around seven or if not better, because he was
23:48
so much better even in year three than he was
23:50
from year two.
23:51
Speaker 2: Sure, absolutely good stuff.
23:54
Speaker 1: All right, the next draft of twenty twenty three draft,
23:59
so we start with Carter.
24:06
Speaker 2: That's that's the first generational player one, especially coming in
24:12
his rookie year getting seven sacks, you know, fifty pressures
24:17
and then coming in his next year getting seven sacks
24:20
again seventy five pressures. And look, his snap count did
24:25
go up, right, he went from four to twenty seven
24:27
to seven to eleven difference to two eighty four sixty
24:29
six percent increase. He deserved it. And you look at
24:33
the that sack again, these sacks are from PFF, so
24:36
something it might again for people that like to follow
24:39
this stuff, this is from PFF, so that's and and
24:42
remember PFF does not count half sacks. That's a really
24:46
important thing. I tend to agree with them on that.
24:49
But that's a completely other time.
24:51
Speaker 1: Like we talked about it, it's tough because there are
24:53
sometimes where you are the main guy on a half sack,
24:57
I know, and then there's times where you're cleaning up.
25:00
So a half sack can be totally different based on
25:03
the sack.
25:05
Speaker 2: No, it absolutely can, and I think there needs to
25:07
be a better metric just in general on it. Yeah,
25:09
maybe we're moving towards that, but I do want to
25:12
point that out specifically with Jalen Carter, because people people
25:17
like to follow are the best players sacks and it
25:20
may not be what they expect. But again this is
25:23
from PFF, who does not believe in half sacks. PFF's
25:27
sack count will always be inflated because of that. Just
25:30
sure important shout out there. His hits went from four
25:34
to sixteen, which is a huge and incredible change. Hurries
25:39
went from thirty nine to fifty two, and we already
25:42
talked about pressures and what's interesting is his relative stats
25:47
remained relatively constant in terms of pressure, right, So he
25:51
went from every eight point five to every nine point five.
25:54
That's like a negligible difference at that volume. The sacks
25:59
was a little bit of a fall, right, So you
26:01
went from a sack every sixty one snaps to every
26:04
one hundred and two. But you got to think he
26:07
was getting double teamed a lot more his second year
26:09
and as continued, So stacks are going to be harder
26:12
to come by. That's just naturally how that works.
26:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's almost it's sort of weird to almost see
26:18
that because the raw data is like, well, wait a minute,
26:23
he hit the quarterback. Take the sacks out. Just the
26:26
quarterback hits went from four to sixteen. That's four times
26:30
as many. So that's a major increase over just playing
26:34
not even two times as many snaps. So the hit
26:38
ratio on the quarterback was way above the snap ratio,
26:42
you know what I'm saying.
26:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, and I think it.
26:45
Speaker 1: Didn't even double your snaps, but you quadrupled your hits
26:48
on the quarterback. That's pretty impressive.
26:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is. It is a testament to how
26:54
dominant Jillen Carter is just in his first two years
26:56
in the league.
26:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, but he is so he I tend to
27:04
also want to say, yes, he plays the same position,
27:07
just like Jayalx someone will plays the same position. You
27:09
can see some good commonalities. But you're talking about a
27:12
top ten pick who is a freaquent nature versus a
27:15
third round pick. So that's where you we we kind
27:18
of reined it in. It's got to be somewhere in between.
27:20
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, Uh, I would argue Jalen Carter might be
27:25
one of the best football players in the entire league
27:28
right now, right so.
27:30
Speaker 1: Now, Nolan Smith might be a really good example because
27:34
even though he's also a first round pick bottom of
27:36
the first UH had to didn't did not play as
27:40
much either as a rookie, and then saw a lot
27:43
of progression by year two. I feel like this is
27:45
what you're expecting from Jelex Hunt, like something in that
27:49
I don't know if he'll get to seven hundred and
27:50
fifty five pass rushing snaps, but something you know, hopefully
27:54
four to five hundred sure around there.
27:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so no Olwen Smith is a fun one
28:01
because he was another one where everything is green, right,
28:04
and I think it's a time where you see significant growth,
28:08
right you're in one tier or two, so right, I mean, listen,
28:11
his snap count went up two hundred and seventy two percent, right,
28:15
from two oh three to seven fifty five. His sack
28:18
count went from two to eleven. His hits went from
28:21
two to five, which isn't great, but his hurries five
28:25
to thirty four, you know, from nine pressures to fifty pressures,
28:30
a difference of forty one at an increase of four
28:33
hundred and fifty six percent.
28:34
Speaker 1: So real quick on the sacks, right on eleven. Now,
28:39
you said you take these from PFF, and they credited
28:44
him with eleven.
28:45
Speaker 2: Sacks also in the playoffs.
28:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, I forgot they combined the playoff Okay, perfect,
28:50
it makes a lot of sense. I'm like this guy
28:51
at six and a half eleven. I don't know what,
28:53
but I forgot they were also taking the playoffs.
28:55
Speaker 2: That's fair.
28:55
Speaker 1: Yes, so that is amazing because it basically had fifty
28:58
percent of his sacks in the playoffs.
29:01
Speaker 2: Hey, when the light shine brightest, you know that's where
29:04
you gotta play.
29:05
Speaker 1: It's exceptional. That's really good. Yes, everything is green, including
29:08
the relative snaps, so the relative stats. Sorry, so he's
29:13
getting a better sack per snap and a better pressure
29:18
per snap percentage from year one to year.
29:20
Speaker 2: Two by far. Yeah, it really increases. It was the probably,
29:25
in my opinion, the best year one to year two
29:27
jump out of anybody, right, Yes, I think that's fair.
29:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt, And that's saying a lot with Jalen Carter,
29:34
who also made a tremendous year one. I think Nolan
29:38
Smith his trajectory here is about as applicable as we
29:44
can get. The Milton Williams one is really good because
29:47
Milton was rotational for the first two years, and I
29:49
do think Jaelex Hunt, even as a starter, will be
29:53
rotational and probably not play as many snaps per game
29:55
as Nolan Smith unless he's just that good, right, But
29:59
we can't. We don't know that for sure yet. So
30:02
I think like something between the Milton Williams and Nolan
30:05
Smith projections to me, are the best way to kind
30:08
of try to get, in the spirit of the question,
30:10
the most accurate judgment on what to expect from Jaylex.
30:13
Speaker 2: Shun sure I would agree with that.
30:17
Speaker 1: So both of those guys were heavily green as far
30:20
as improvement in the areas, and Milton we did see
30:26
some regression because he played fewer snaps in year two,
30:29
so we can expect maybe a little bit of regression,
30:35
although with Milton we did see a progression in at
30:42
least his relative snaps or sack per snaps category. So again,
30:48
it wasn't a nightmare, right it was. It was good regardless,
30:51
even if the snaps weren't maybe what he was hoping
30:54
or wasn't as abundant as you might think for a
30:57
guy going into year two.
30:59
Speaker 2: At that position. Yeah, there's still are three more charts.
31:04
Speaker 1: By the way, why did I stop sharing the screen
31:07
when there were three more charts that hold on one second?
31:11
Speaker 2: To be honest with you, I was just excited to
31:13
talk about Tyler Steen again and I didn't want to
31:18
miss the opportunity to talk about him.
31:19
Speaker 1: Really, that's can't gotta talk Tyler Stein, just like we
31:23
did in the last mail bag.
31:24
Speaker 2: All right, let me go.
31:25
Speaker 1: I forgot you put some space between, so here we go.
31:29
All right, this is also the twenty twenty three draft,
31:32
and we got Steen, Sidney Brown, and of course the
31:35
guy we're talking about jokes hut.
31:37
Speaker 2: Yeah. We can go pretty quickly on these though, because
31:40
they're not as important to the comparison we'll spend a
31:43
little bit more time on hunt obviously, But you know,
31:47
Steen increased his snap count from forty two to one
31:50
seventy nine. You know, he didn't allow a sack or
31:54
a hit last season, but his hurries went up and
32:00
then his pressures went up. Naturally, that's just kind of
32:05
how that works. But really nothing too crazy. Still feel
32:11
very comfortable with Tyler Stein. I think his progression from
32:15
year one to year two is typical considering the amount
32:18
he actually played. So yes, I.
32:20
Speaker 1: Think the important number is overall from year one to
32:23
year two is the relative pressure per snap, which is
32:27
one pressure every seven snaps in year one, which again limited,
32:31
so all you have to do is allow one or
32:32
two and already it's going to be high. But in
32:34
year two, when there was about you as you have here,
32:38
a three hundred and twenty six percent change and the
32:40
number of snaps you played, the number went from one
32:43
pressure to every about fifteen snap. So that's that's pretty good.
32:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, not bad at all.
32:48
Speaker 1: So yeah, now if you extrapulate that right fifteen snaps,
32:52
you probably are going to get thirty pass rush sets
32:58
I guess in a game usually around there. So now
33:02
you're out now you're extrapt like, well, that means you're
33:04
gonna allow about two pressures. Probably not bad for a guard,
33:08
you know, but that number can change both positively or
33:12
negatively when you become a starter.
33:13
Speaker 2: So and will change, yes, assuming he wins the job regardless.
33:19
I mean, they're probably gonna allow more pressure than what
33:23
we see there just by the nature of being starter.
33:27
Speaker 1: Right, what do you how do we make of Sydney
33:30
is a tough one?
33:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not a fair one either.
33:33
Speaker 1: Off the A C L.
33:36
Speaker 2: It's just it's I don't know. I threw it in
33:39
there because he was a third round so it's like
33:41
he fits the criteria, right, I look at this and
33:44
I'd be like, so.
33:49
Speaker 1: So your data shows that he improved from your one
33:51
in two as far as how many yards and receptions allowed.
33:54
Obviously a lot of that is because he didn't play
33:58
much on defense last year, but even the sixteen for
34:01
one eighty as a rookie, like he was playing nickel.
34:05
He was playing in it. I'm sorry, he was playing
34:07
like dime safety. And that's and he was asked to
34:11
cover man a man a lot. And at that point,
34:13
Matt Patricia's wonky defense, he was just miscast. So I
34:18
can't even look at giving up the one hundred and
34:20
eighty yards on two touchdowns and sixteen receptions as some
34:23
kind of you know, foreshadow or of what he's like
34:28
in coverage, because he wasn't even in the right kind
34:30
of coverage.
34:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, for sure. I listen, I look at that,
34:33
and I'm like, this chart means absolutely nothing, but I
34:36
had to put it because it fit with the theme.
34:38
But please just ignore that one.
34:41
Speaker 1: I like that you did the work anyway. You could
34:43
have easily said we're not going to count Sidney Brown
34:45
because why right, But.
34:46
Speaker 2: People deserve to see it, but they also deserve me
34:49
telling them to ignore it.
34:53
Speaker 1: Just don't go round and be like, man, you know,
34:54
Sidney Brown played only eighty snaps last year, but he
34:57
didn't even allow a catch or a touchdown or yards.
35:00
I had a really nice interception against the Giants. Man,
35:02
that's compared to your one. He was amazing. Wow, It's
35:05
really not like that, all right, So Jaelex, what do
35:09
you want to how do you want to explain these
35:10
extrapolated twenty five steps?
35:13
Speaker 2: So listen, you gotta bear with me here, Okay. My
35:16
extrapolation methodology is not my favorite. Okay. I've had better
35:22
extrapolations in the past. I felt more comfortable about my
35:25
extrapolations in the past. I don't feel great about this.
35:28
I actually like the way you said it a little
35:30
bit better about how it's probably gonna be somewhere between
35:32
Milton Williams and Nolan Smith's change. But let me talk
35:36
you through what I did anyway, because I do actually.
35:38
Speaker 1: Think these extrapolations are are are completely normal. I'm surprised
35:41
that you're down on them, but I think it's pretty good.
35:44
Speaker 2: Okay, So here's the I did two methods, right, So
35:47
I have the twenty twenty five with the one star
35:49
and the twenty twenty five with the two stars. So
35:51
the way I came up with how much past rush
35:53
snaps they they're gonna get is I took the average
35:57
of the defensive lineman that we showed above, and they
36:01
on average increased ninety seven percent, almost double from what
36:05
they had. And that's including Williams who went down, right,
36:09
but it's also including Nolan Smith, who went up a
36:12
significant amount. So like, yeah, just that number, we're looking
36:16
at like four guys and the average of four guys.
36:19
Don't feel great about that. I'm gonna be honest. But
36:21
for basis what we're doing, it's fine. Let's just say
36:24
he he basically doubles goes from one ninety four to
36:28
three eighty three. That was the basis. That's how we
36:29
got it. Right now, if you took his relative stats
36:34
and then you extrapolated out, you get eight for twenty
36:38
six and thirty eight. That's that's as simple as that
36:41
one came that. That's where that extrapolation came from. But
36:44
it's just it's just math, by the way, right, Yeah.
36:49
Speaker 1: It listens multiplying by two by two.
36:52
Speaker 2: That's why I don't like it, because.
36:53
Speaker 1: I to it's too basic for you. I get it.
36:56
I get it for me. I'm like, this makes total sense.
36:59
I love it, like eh.
37:02
Speaker 2: But the second number comes a little bit differently. Okay,
37:06
So I took that three hundred and eighty three number
37:11
and then I took ten percent of it, because you know,
37:14
it's pretty close to what the average is for edge
37:17
rushers getting pressure on ten percent other snaps. And you
37:21
would say that's thirty eight point three, it's not thirty nine.
37:25
But guys, I when I when I break round everything up,
37:28
because you're gonna have to run everything up. The numbers
37:30
thirty nine, it's not gonna be thirty eight point three.
37:33
I wanted round numbers. I'm sick of these. You know,
37:36
we're not going past that. Who's going to talk about
37:39
one point three snaps? You know at one point three sacks.
37:41
Speaker 1: That's the you can't play a third of a snap
37:44
in a game, right, So we're trying to like imagine
37:48
what this is like per a game or per a season.
37:50
Speaker 2: So yeah, so that's that's why it's thirty nine. That's
37:53
not why it's thirty eight. Then I took that thirty
37:56
nine number and I multiplied it by certain numbers. So
38:01
I think the sack one I did was like eighteen
38:03
percent of the pressures were sacks, and then I think
38:07
I took whatever I did the same thing with hits.
38:10
I don't remember what the number I used for hits was,
38:12
and then I just took the rest and I put
38:14
them as hurries. That's where that came from. It's that's
38:17
a total estimation based on some numbers that I saw
38:21
were like consistent with league average, but again, league average
38:25
changes and it's not really a great indicator, but that's
38:27
where those numbers come from assuming that Jaylex' hunt plays
38:32
four hundred snaps. I think it's safe to say his
38:35
sacks will be anywhere from six to eight. I think
38:38
his hits will be anywhere from you know, four to ten,
38:42
who knows, And the hurries will be anywhere from like
38:45
twenty two to thirty. I think that's a fair Those
38:47
are fair numbers. Now, you guys can come back at
38:51
the end and tell me how wrong or how right
38:53
I am. That's fine.
38:54
Speaker 1: Honestly, this is about as fair. I mean, you put,
38:57
I appreciate that you gave the scenarios here and just
39:02
try to be as real with the context as possible.
39:05
All this is dependent upon opportunity that you've already showed
39:11
with empirical data of other guys drafted the first, second,
39:13
and third round, where almost all of them had more
39:16
opportunity from year one to year two because they were
39:19
higher picks, right, because there were expectations, because they grew
39:23
in year one Like that's you know, the only way
39:28
you look at this, Sam and say, and this is
39:31
must but probably what's frustrating for you as I'll come
39:34
back to just us. Now you do all this work
39:38
and then a guy goes out third day camp and
39:42
tears his achilles and he's done for the year. And
39:44
it's like, well, we'll never have this discussion again because
39:49
it'll be a loss and knock on what I hope
39:51
nobody tears your achilles. But my point is this happens, right.
39:54
I mean, we could have done this last year or
39:57
two years ago whatever on Sydney Brown coming off his
40:00
rookie year, and then of course or right in the
40:02
middle of his rookie year, what can we say for
40:04
year two? And then bam, you know, he obviously tears
40:07
his acl.
40:09
Speaker 2: So right, theoretical and hypothetical, it's a it can be.
40:14
Speaker 1: A very dark and ugly chamber to enter, Sam when
40:18
things don't go well.
40:20
Speaker 2: We're optimists or at least so we're going to stay
40:23
in that you know, sunshine and rainbow land, right.
40:27
Speaker 1: But I mean to counter your almost your skepticism over
40:30
your own great work is like if somebody came back
40:33
at you and said, well, I don't know, I could
40:35
probably find projections from some edge rushers who did this,
40:38
and then the next year they had like no sacks
40:41
and they were benched. Like fine, okay, you already said
40:44
at the beginning, Like, there's a whole lot of variables
40:47
that can happen here. You're just trying to go off
40:49
data from being a high draft pick in an environment
40:52
where there have been other high draft picks. How much
40:54
opportunity did they get compared to what we're expecting from
40:57
Jylex Hunt and if he were to get this opportunity
41:00
the data said, This is like when we talk about
41:02
Greg Oseel when people get upset with him. It's what
41:04
the tape show. The tape shows this player didn't do
41:07
this well in this game. It doesn't mean he'll never
41:09
do it well. It's just literally, in this game he
41:12
didn't do it well or he did it great. Doesn't
41:14
mean he's going to be doing it great all the time.
41:16
So I think that you've done the best you can
41:20
to be objective based on the evidence, which is what
41:23
the show is about.
41:24
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, absolutely, And that's that's important to us. You know,
41:28
we want to be as objective as possible. That's why
41:31
we're never going to make up stats or anything crazy
41:34
like that. Right, But I will tell you when there
41:37
are assumptions and when I honestly there are too many
41:41
assumptions that I feel comfortable putting my stamp on it. However,
41:45
we had a fun thought exercise and I hope you
41:46
guys learned something.
41:49
Speaker 1: I love it. Sam, you did a great job. Thank
41:51
you so much. Really appreciate it. And let's keep this
41:53
thing rolling throughout the summer and into camp again. Send
41:56
your questions to Inside the Birds at gmail dot com,
41:59
direct them to Sam Finkle, and we will continue producing
42:02
this wonderful content for you. That's going to do it
42:04
for this episode of Inside the Data for Sam Finkel.
42:07
I'm Jeff Mosher. You've been watching Inside the Data on
42:09
Inside the Birds