2012 NFL Draft – Matt Waldman & The Rookie Scouting Portfolio (RSP)

RSP Flashback: Alshon Jeffery Pre-Draft Analysis

Alshon Jeffery showed all the potential to be a top-five talent at his position in the 2012 draft class. Photo by Case Rhee.

How did I grade Alshon Jeffery in the 2012 NFL Draft? A potential cross between Michael Irvin and Cris Carter if Jeffery demonstrates he wants to work like a pro.

Alshon Jeffery, South Carolina (6-3, 216)
Cris Carter-Michael Irvin is also a good best-case scenario for a player of Jeffery’s talents. However, where Criner has a dash of Marques Colston and more Carter to his game than Irvin, Jeffery has the strength and physical style that leans heavier to the Irvin side of the equation.

Big, strong, agile, and powerful, Jeffery can make defenders miss in tight spaces and run through wraps. He has a good, tight spin move, that helps him continue moving forward in traffic. He also has the power and balance to bounce off hits delivered by much bigger defenders and he has little fear of working over the middle against physical coverage.

Although strong and agile, he doesn’t run with great pad level and will be prone to taking hits that he should be able to avoid. His effort isn’t as high energy as it needs to be. The WR believes his size and strength is elite and doesn’t consider that his speed and quickness is not. He doesn’t appear fast and his gait is not smooth at all. He’s a long strider.

Jeffery can high-point passes and over power defenders in tight coverage. He has enough build-up speed to threaten the intermediate range of the field. He’s especially good on fade and corner routes where he can use his height and strength to maintain separation and adjust to the football in the air.

However, he’s also good at being first with his hands to prevent defenders from getting their hands into his body on quick-hitting routes like slants and short in-cuts. When game officials are willing, Jeffery will bully a defensive back downfield to establish separation. Jeffery should be able to develop very good hand techniques to release from the line of scrimmage, but right now they are hit or miss. He needs to work on his rip move and swim move.

Frequently, the CB can ride him up field and eliminate quick throws. This is because he relies too much on his size/strength and he’ll have to learn more of a finesse game so he doesn’t incur penalties at the next level. He wins balls where it appears the defender has the better position with the ball in the air. His skill at tracking the ball is good and he has a basketball forward’s mentality to get the rebound. This is also where he reminds me of a Michael Irvin type of player – not really fast, but very physical with good timing.

Jeffery has to do a better job of securing the ball immediately after the catch. Otherwise, he’s susceptible to getting stripped when trying to run with the ball before he has tucked it safely away. Although I’m not around Jeffery, it seems from his work on the field that if he dedicated himself to becoming a top-conditioned athlete he could become fast enough to get deep because the work will help him add explosiveness as well as strength. If he adds an extra dimension of foot speed to his game, he can develop into a versatile route runner and become a highly productive NFL starter for a long time.

I think Jeffery has great potential to become a counted on, chain moving possession receiver with strong red zone skills, but only if he works at it and develops a high motor. At this point he doesn’t and that could mean he doesn’t endear himself to a team and risks never making the impact he’s capable. What he has shown at times in his career places him high enough on this list, If he demonstrated it consistently, he’d be be in my top-five, easily.

Jeffery highlights.

Alshon Jeffery’s 2012 RSP Play-By-Play Reports and Grading Checklist: Alshon Jeffery Sample

For analysis of skill players in this year’s draft class, download the 2013 Rookie Scouting Portfolio.The 2014 RSP will available April 1 and if you pre-order before February 10, you get a 10 percent discount. Better yet, if you’re a fantasy owner the 56-page Post-Draft Add-on comes with the 2012 – 2014 RSPs at no additional charge and available for download within a week after the NFL Draft. Best, yet, 10 percent of every sale is donated to Darkness to Light to combat sexual abuse. You can purchase past editions of the Rookie Scouting Portfolio for just $9.95 apiece.

On Scouting Wide Receivers

If you're trying to find the next Dez Bryant, then data has a vital place but if you take the approach that tries to reverse engineer a process that is unintentionally based on the idea that all productive receivers are like Dez Bryant, it's misguided. Photo by A.J. Guel. — If you’re trying to find the next Dez Bryant, then data has a vital place but if you take the approach that tries to reverse engineer a process that is unintentionally based on the idea that all productive receivers are like Dez Bryant, it’s misguided. Photo by A.J. Guel.

I believe analytics have value, but the grading of wide receivers based heavily on speed, vertical skill, and production is an ambitious, but misguided idea. Further the application is the torturing of data to fit it into a preconceived idea and making it sound objective and scientific due to the use of quantitative data. Unless the data is getting into some Nate Silver-like probability analysis, analytics is going to arrive at conclusions that are safe based on the past, but lack game-changing predictive value.

Some of my colleagues and friends at Football Outsiders, Pro Football Focus, and RotoViz will disagree. And many of you will too, because you’ve bought the idea that what’s being studied is objective and scientific. There is often an air of certainty and black-and-white finality to the communication of this “quantitative” information that readers find more palatable than if “qualitative” information is delivered with the same tone. Numbers make people sound more powerful and intellectual even if the quality of the information isn’t well designed.

I can tell you that I write because I put words together in a pattern that you can read. It doesn’t mean that I’m writing well. The NFL has bought into analytics for reasons that are both sound and naive. Analytics should only get better over time and I believe in its future. I just don’t buy into it lock, stock, and barrel. I think in this area of study with wide receivers, analytics needs to raise its standard and find another way.

The NFL will realize this about some methods of analytics sooner than later. Many teams are seeking a magic pill without fully understanding the manufacturing process that goes into it. Since they have been able to get this information for a modest fee and oftentimes at no charge in the early days (and we’re just emerging from the earliest of days in the era of analytics) because these individuals and companies found the payment of notoriety an acceptable alternative to money.

It only makes sense that “quants” figured they could make the money off readers later if they couldn’t earn it from teams now. This dynamic is also changing, but it’s worth understanding the nature behind their relationship with the league. Fortunately for both parties, they will continue to work together and only deliver better products on and off the field.

I’m trying to do the same from a different vantage point. The more I watch wide receivers, the less I care about 40 times, vertical results, or broad jumps. Once a player meets the acceptable baselines for physical skills, the rest is about hands, technique, understanding defenses, consistency, and the capacity to improve.

I liked Kenbrell Thompkins, Marlon Brown, Austin Collie, (retired) Steve Smith, several other receivers lacking the headlining “analytical” formulas that use a variety of physical measurements and production to find “viable” prospects. What these players share is some evidence of “craft”. They weren’t perfect technicians at the college level or early in their NFL careers, but you could see evidence of a meticulous attention to detail that continued to get better.

This video does an excellent job of explaining why speed is the most overrated part of a wide receiver’s game. Speed should be seen as the icing and not the cake. Technique is the cake. It’s a great instructional guide on route releases and breaks, how they differ on the NFL level. Check it out. I continue to on a regular basis.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/ZLjgZc0sYIc]

For analysis of skill players in this year’s draft class, download the 2013 Rookie Scouting Portfolio available now. Better yet, if you’re a fantasy owner the 56-page Post-Draft Add-on comes with the 2013 RSP at no additional charge and available for download within a week after the NFL Draft. Best, yet, 10 percent of every sale is donated to Darkness to Light to combat sexual abuse. You can purchase past editions of the Rookie Scouting Portfolio for just $9.95 apiece.