Pump the brakes on the Senior Bowl risers
Every year, there are players that wow at the Senior Bowl and everybody races to move them up on their boards. This year, it’s this group:
- RBs Tyjae Spears and Chase Brown
- WRs Tank Dell, Jayden Reed, Michael Wilson
- OL Dawand Jones, Cody Mauch, O’Cyrus Torrence, John Michael-Schmitz
- CBs Julius Brents, Darius Rush, Riley Moss
- DL Keanu Benton, Will McDonald, Keion White, Adetomiwa Adebawore, Karl Brooks
- LBs Daiyan Henley, Aubrey Miller Jr.
But just being a riser from the Senior Bowl doesn’t translate to draft success. Over the past three years, only a third of “risers” turned out to be above average players and a large number don’t look destined for any NFL success.
Everybody has a different list of “risers”, but below are the most commonly mentioned players that popped at last year’s Senior Bowl, where they were drafted, and their value percentile their first year in the league:
NOTE: If you are unfamiliar with player AV and value metrics, a description is included at the bottom of this article
Only 3 of the 13 had first-year success in the league – Christian Watson, Jalen Pitre, and Abraham Lucas. And 7 of the 13 were below 30th percentile in value, including both 1st rounders and three on day 2.
It isn’t fair to judge a player just on their rookie season as plenty of very good players have had bad first years or just didn’t get on the field. The below list includes the 2020 and 2021 risers with their value percentile over their first two or three years in the league:
Success definitely improved over the rookie-only list, but it is still really mixed with more misses than hits.
- Only 30% (6 of the 20 risers) were 60th percentile players or better
- 40% (8 of the 20) were below 20th percentile in value
- Half of the day 1 or day 2 picks were below average players (below 40th percentile)
What should we take from this?
First, film matters as a lot of the Senior Bowl workouts make it easy for players to shine.
Every year, wide receivers always make up a big part of the “risers” list but this doesn’t translate to the NFL as their one-on-one drills favor the receiver. Same with one-on-one pass rush drills which show such a limited part of what is success on the DL or OL.
This is why player film matters and for many risers, their game film does not show the same thing that people take away from Senior Bowl drills.
And, second, age matters.
Player age and the draft
Players can miss for a hundred reasons but one thing that has become a bigger issue – and something to consider with the Senior Bowl in particular – is age.
Ever since the rookie wage scale was introduced, the draft has been getting younger and younger as college players try to enter the league as soon as possible to maximize their time on subsequent (bigger) contracts.
With Covid redshirts and extra years of eligibility, 2022 was a bull market for older players. Of the entire 2022 draft class, 55% were 23 years of age or older, up 16% from 2021 and higher than any level since 2000.
Even with 2022’s uptick in older prospects, the top of the draft continues to be dominated by youth with 80% of the 2022 first rounders being 22 years or younger.
2022 will most likely be a momentary blip, not a change in trend even with growing NIL deals.
How the older prospects fared
Looking at the last five drafts (2018-2022), players aged 23 and older significantly underperform younger players:
- 23+ year olds have an 11% higher bust rate
- 23+ year olds are almost half as likely to be above average players (7% vs. 12% for 22 or younger players)
- 23+ year olds underperform the most at the top of the draft, trailing younger players in value percentile in round 1 by over 6% and in round 2 by almost 4%.
These stats absolutely have selection bias in them – better players are more likely to enter the draft younger. Not a surprise. But this still doesn’t explain everything.
Comparing a player’s actual value vs. expected (using the historical expected value at each draft pick spot) helps level the comparison by having higher expectations on players taken earlier. And when you do this, younger prospects have a 5% higher value vs. expected than older players. And again, this is more pronounced in rounds 1 and 2.
There are reasons for this. First, younger players have more room to improve. But second, many older players have “late breakouts” – their “good” year in college is their 22-23 age year when they are competing against 18-19 year olds.
What can we expect from the 2023 draft class?
This year several of the risers are age 23 or higher, including Cody Mauch, John Michael-Schmitz, O’Cyrus Torrence, Will McDonald, and Daiyan Henley. Other risers have college film that doesn’t show anything near what the excitement level is for them after the week.
I won’t go through every one of them, but if I had to place a bet on a third of these guys – which is around the historical hit rate – these would be who I would pick:
All the OL guys: The one position (besides kickers) that doesn’t have an age drop-off is OL so if you are unsure, just take a lineman. Mauch has great footwork and showed he can play across the line… Schmitz is my top center… Dawand moves way better than most give him credit for and gave up 5 pressures this year… O’Cyrus may not fit the Eagles scheme but I like him. If I had to pick, I’d take Dawand and Mauch.
Keeanu Benton: I don’t love this DT class after Carter, but Keeanu has both one of the better pass rush win rates and run stop rates on the interior. Really good explosiveness and hands.
Will McDonald: One of the oldest guys in this class, he will be 24 to start the NFL season and EDGE has one of the worst track records for older players in the draft. Last year I cautioned on Jermaine Johnson for this reason, but unlike Johnson, Will is not a late breakout guy – he has the highest win rate in this class and was just as good at Iowa as a 21 year old. I may regret this but think he bucks the history on age.
And I’ll add two Honorable Mention guys I love but they were not consistently mentioned as risers: Georgia safety Chris Smith II and Iowa State WR Xavier Hutchinson.
I dove into Chris Smith earlier in the year here and think he is one of the most polished deep safeties in this class. He plays deep 70% of snaps but despite that, has one of the highest run stop rates. And he has the highest pass breakup rate in this safety class. For what Philly wants in a safety, Smith fits it well and is going to be good value day 2 or early day 3.
Hutchinson has a Sirianni connection and embodies what he wants. He’s big with good crispness on his routes. Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell, who was college teammates with Nick Sirianni, raves about Hutchinson’s work ethic, desire for perfection, and willingness to work with the younger players on the team. He would be a nice potential upgrade at WR3 for Philly, especially if Pascal leaves in free agency.
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Background on player value data
All player value metrics referenced here use ProFootballReference’s Approximate Value (AV) metric, which puts a single value on a player’s season and is created for all positions. AV is highly correlated to EPA but, unlike EPA which is only directly available for QBs, RBs, WRs, and TEs, AV is created for all positions, allowing valuationg of players across positions.
Player value percentiles are simply comparing player value against all other players either in aggregate or within their position. A player percentile of 60 means that player generate more value than 60% of other players.