Ethan Young's Slaytics [The Tool That Predicted Bradberry's Success] Are Out

[Saca312]

The tool that helped predict Bradberry's success and potential is now out.

Effectively, it combines SPARQ data with other variables from the combine concerning athletic and frame potential to initiate a grade based on pure potential athleticism of a prospect. It's a more refined tool to better determine an athletes standing on their physical potential, and success based on that

It does not account for film, nor is it a true big board. It's based purely off of athleticism, and is supposed to be a supplemental to film. There are athletes out there that are freaky in nature, but their film does show a project player rather than instant success. However, those such as James Bradberry and Jalen Ramsey had the film to back up their likely success in the NFL, with freaky physical traits to boot. This tool helps emphasize potential and athleticism of athletes and predict success.

Even so, Ethan Young better explains everything in the following:

https://www.fanragsports.com/nfl/2017-nfl-draft-slaytics-report/

What Is Slaytics?

Slaytics are macro-measurable composite formulas designed to quantify the size, length, and athleticism profiles of professional football players. Slaytics drew initial inspiration from the SPARQ rating system. SPARQ stands for speed, power, agility, reaction, and quickness, and the rating system was created as a general athleticism test for athletes by a company of the same name in 2004.

SPARQ was purchased by Nike in 2009 and has since been disbanded. SPARQ ratings were mostly used in high school football recruiting but application elsewhere has been sporadic. While the original SPARQ formula has never been released, I was able to recreate something very close to it through a series of regressions models.

The equation was then changed to use drills performed at the NFL Scouting Combine and pro days, instead of inputs such as the kneeling power ball toss and the beep test. The total list of inputs for this SPARQ football variant includes the 40-yard dash, 10-yard split, bench press, short shuttle, three-cone, vertical jump and broad jump. I have always been fascinated with the predictive potential of SPARQ concepts, but Slaytics really started to kick off because I felt like something was missing.

While SPARQ takes many athletic factors into account, it does not measure any size or length measurables other than weight. Size and length are desired traits in football players, yet they are ignored in SPARQ. Take DeForest Buckner for example. Coming in at 6-foot-7 with more than 34-inch arms, you can tell that he has a rare blend of physical traits just by looking at him. But, Buckner only tested in the 55th SPARQ percentile among interior defensive lineman since 1999, so clearly there is a disconnect somewhere.

Players such as Buckner are why I created True Freak Rating, a composite formula named to capture the “freaky” players that SPARQ misses or devalues. Think of True Freak Rating as SPARQ for size and length, rather than athleticism. It takes height, weight, arm length, and hand size into account to develop a size and length composite score.

Anyway, back to Buckner. He ranks in the 98th percentile in True Freak Rating among interior defensive linemen since 1999, which paints a better numerical picture of his natural traits. Buckner is a one-off example, but NFL scouts and coaches place an importance on size and length, and because these traits are predictive in composite form, we shouldn’t ignore them in our analysis. We should not have to rely solely on the human eye and broad scouting terms to communicate these concepts either. But like SPARQ, while True Freak Rating is useful on its own, it does not fully capture a prospect’s complete macro-measurable profile.

To better capture a player’s complete physical trait set, a third formula was created. This third formula blended aspects of SPARQ and True Freak Rating, so it was named size, length, and athleticism (SLA) score. Essentially, SLA is a weighted blend of the previous two composites. SPARQ tends to rate small explosive players very highly, and True Freak Rating rates long, lumbering players high. On the other hand, SLA serves to showcase desirable blended measurable sets. These three equations give us a good set of size, length, and athleticism composites to quantify each prospect’s measurables for predictive purposes.

New Slaytics updates this year:

1. Draft capital adjusted return (DCAR) replaces Return on draft capital (RODC).
2. Future regression crosscheck table.
3. Threshold probabilities for prospects with incomplete measurable testing

What Happens If A Prospect Doesn't Participate In Some Combine Drills?

To deal with the issues that arise when top prospects like Myles Garrett skip drills they do not want to participate in, a new feature of Slaytics this year is to determine the probability that these prospects will place over or under the Slaytic threshold group they are trending towards based on the tests they have completed and comparable profiles. The baseline rules of this process:

1. Player must have the corresponding planar pair drill result to the missing data point completed to base probabilities on for Upper Bound Projections, or else a variance penalty will be applied (IE: Vertical and Broad pair, or Short Shuttle/3-Cone pair).
2. Players with placement probabilities over 50% will be included in designated threshold grouping results.

So even though testing wasn’t completed for Justin Evans and Ahkello Witherspoon, they were both sent to the Upper Bound as the odds were in their favor to land there. On the other hand, Sidney Jones was sent to the Lower Bound. None of the other players had a high enough to clear or fail, although Marlon Humphrey and Myles Garrett both obviously clear the Lower Bound Slaytic Threshold at their positions with no issue given how close they were to the Upper Bound.

What Slaytics Fundamentally Should Be Used For:

The results of this research make it clear that NFL teams should avoid selecting “red” Lower Bound prospects. With each team having only seven picks in a typical draft, there should be enough players that check the boxes on tape and in the interview process that selecting “red” Lower Bound prospects is not necessary in the current market. These results also make it clear that teams should make drafting “blue” Upper Bound prospects a priority, especially ones that aren’t crossed off for medical, schematic, or character reasons.

While these thresholds serve as a useful bucketing tool for predicting the success of college football players coming to the NFL, it is important to note that not all players in each tier are equal. This is most significant in the “green” group, which is made up pf players between tiers or above or below the singular one at a position. Obviously not all “green” players have equal physical measurables, and individual analysis should be done with any prospective players to see if they have the traits necessary to have a high chance of performing their intended role at the next level. This is more of note with the “green” players, because their color designation is vaguer of their base physical traits than the other Slaytic threshold groupings.

Slaytics is not meant to be an isolated evaluation system or big board. The thresholds are not rigid rankings, but rather an elimination system to cross players with the lowest chances at becoming successful and impactful draft picks off on the Lower Bound, and an enhancer to highlight names with the highest chances of success based objective measurable data on the Upper Bound. There will always be a couple of outliers, but it’s about optimal draft strategy. There are 32 NFL teams, and if you are drafting for one, the other teams will always end up with players who do well. You can’t have every successfully player, so it’s okay to have eliminated a couple of players that end up beating the odds of their macro measurables profiles. But what you can’t afford is to miss when you get your pick of the draft litter. And by eliminating the blanks from the chamber by taking prospects with such low odds of success off the board, you can limit those misses.

While Slaytics predictive ability can stand up to anything football based currently in existence, when implemented in concert with other crucial parts of the NFL Draft evaluation process such as tape breakdown, medical checks, interviews, and scheme fit: Slaytics reach their full potential as a competitive evaluation advantage ready for NFL teams to exploit.

All this information can be found compiled in this nice PDF he has available for personal use for free:

https://d3d2maoophos6y.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/22085915/Slaytics-2017-Final.pdf

2017 Slaytics Result Table Key:
tFREAK% = Size and Length Positional Percentile
SPARQ% = Athleticism Positional Percentile
SLA% = Size, Length, and Athleticism Positional Percentile
Note: Prospects that did not attend the Combine or an All-Star game, that also have a SPARQ score
below the 5th percentile at their position, have their results moved and their percentiles calculated
externally out of sample to avoid skewing the percentiles for the everyone else at that position. This
can cause multiple players moved out to have percentiles of zero at the same time, and low end
athletes left in sample to be slightly passed over in percentile.

Essentially, the true "athleticism" ranking portion is near more-so towards the bottom, where he determines those that are upper-bound in his system, good enough, and those that should be avoided if possible.

So, some interesting things to note for this year:

1. He Has 20 Total Upper Bounders For This Year

This basically means he predicts these players to have some of the most success in the NFL. Based on athleticism, frame, and potential, these athletes have a chance at having a high level impact in the NFL. What's interesting is that OJ Howard is no-where on the list (isn't far behind on TE rankings though), while guys like Njoku, Engram, and Kittle are. Obi Melifonwu is also on here (obvoiusly), and Marcus Williams. 

Kevin King and Ahkello Witherspoon both seem like the type of corners he likes, and Forrest Lamp is one of his top olinemen this year.

2. Robert Davis (Thomas Davis' Cousin) Is The Freakiest WR

Based on an athleticism standpoint, Thomas Davis' relative appears to be the freakiest of this class' WRs. Now, this does not predicate complete success obviously, but goes to show you that there's potential out there. Robert Davis has the measurables to be a success in the NFL, and these numbers like him a lot. 

Thomas Davis seems to endorse this as well.

3. Tanoh Kpassagnon Has Low SPARQ, But High Slaytics

What this chart does best is identify some players that have a lot more potential than what their SPARQ shows them. Tanoh Kpassagnon is one of them. He scores pretty high on the list, above guys like Thomas.

ABOUT MYLES GARRETT AND OTHER PROSPECTS: Myles Garrett opted out of some drills, hence why he isn't ranked. Otherwise, he's easily the top prospect. This is the case for other prospects as well. The data determines those who were able to participate in the sufficient amount of drills needed to create its formulated ranking and numbers.

 

[The Huddler]

[MHS831]

I agree.

[Zithers]

yeah these players will be successful until theyre drafted to a team with terrible coaching, forced to fit into a scheme where they don't belong, or are just unable to pick up the finer aspects of the NFL.

i mean, the panthers tend to like DEs who are 265+ and corners who have super long arms. does this mean they'll be successful? no. does this means players who don't fit our metrics will suck elsewhere? no.

sabremetric stuff like this has no place in the NFL. too many variables compared to baseball or the other major sports where there's just five people playing. just watch the tape and pick what you like. this is all fluff.

[Kevin Greene]

But how does this relate to our round one lock pick Fournette?

[Toomers]

38 minutes ago, Zithers said:

yeah these players will be successful until theyre drafted to a team with terrible coaching, forced to fit into a scheme where they don't belong, or are just unable to pick up the finer aspects of the NFL.

i mean, the panthers tend to like DEs who are 265+ and corners who have super long arms. does this mean they'll be successful? no. does this means players who don't fit our metrics will suck elsewhere? no.

sabremetric stuff like this has no place in the NFL. too many variables compared to baseball or the other major sports where there's just five people playing. just watch the tape and pick what you like. this is all fluff.

Have to agree with all this. I'm not too interested in who's the best at exercising.

  I predicted Bradberry's success last year when we chose him and the rest of the board was losing their minds. Wasn't hard to see when Samford played AU, that he was the best DB on the field(including AU's and Tartt). Does that mean I have to "magic touch"...lol. 

[top dawg]

@Saca312, I like the info a lot, but you quote way too much stuff in my opinion (so much so that one day someone might take issue with @Jeremy Igo).  If a person so chooses, they can hit the link. Now sometimes it may be warranted, but some people just skip walls of text as a matter of course here. Quotes and/or quote boxes are encouraged (when they're not screwing up). Some key bits and pieces here or there and more of your opinion/analysis would likely be more appreciated.

I'm not trying to be a smartass, just provide some helpful criticism. It's totally your option to take it or leave it. Again, I appreciate the information, and effort.

[Saca312]

11 minutes ago, top dawg said:

@Saca312, I like the info a lot, but you quote way too much stuff in my opinion (so much so that one day someone might take issue with @Jeremy Igo).  If a person so chooses, they can hit the link. Now sometimes it may be warranted, but some people just skip walls of text as a matter of course here. Quotes and/or quote boxes are encouraged (when they're not screwing up). Some key bits and pieces here or there and more of your opinion/analysis would likely be more appreciated.

I'm not trying to be a smartass, just provide some helpful criticism. It's totally your option to take it or leave it. Again, I appreciate the information, and effort.

Fair point. Lately, I've indeed swayed past utilizing quote boxes just because of my feel for formatting, but yes I probably could've shortened some of it.

I'll keep that as a future reminder. Thank you for the concern.

[tiger7_88]

2 hours ago, Saca312 said:

What Is Slaytics?

Slaytics are macro-measurable composite formulas designed to quantify the size, length, and athleticism profiles of professional football players. Slaytics drew initial inspiration from the SPARQ rating system. SPARQ stands for speed, power, agility, reaction, and quickness, and the rating system was created as a general athleticism test for athletes by a company of the same name in 2004.

(Joking!  I just felt like using the WTF gif because this thread seems to be a good fit :P )

[Saca312]

Just now, tiger7_88 said:

(Joking!  I just felt like using the WTF gif because this thread seems to be a good fit :P )

To be fair, half the stuff in there was over my head as well.