Predicting the draft and career success of tight ends in the National Football League

Abstract

National Football League teams have complex drafting strategies based on college and combine performance that are intended to predict success in the NFL. In this paper, we focus on the tight end position, which is seeing growing importance as the NFL moves towards a more passing-oriented league. We create separate prediction models for 1. the NFL Draft and 2. NFL career performance based on data available prior to the NFL Draft: college performance, the NFL combine, and physical measures. We use linear regression and recursive partitioning decision trees to predict both NFL draft order and NFL career success based on this pre-draft data. With both modeling approaches, we find that the measures that are most predictive of NFL draft order are not necessarily the most predictive measures of NFL career success. This finding suggests that we can improve upon current drafting strategies for tight ends. After factoring the salary cost of drafted players into our analysis in order to predict tight ends with the highest value, we find that size measures (BMI, weight, height) are over-emphasized in the NFL draft. Predicting the draft and career success of tight ends in the National Football LeagueAbstract: National Football League teams have complex drafting strategies based on college and combine performance that are intended to predict success in the NFL. In this paper, we focus on the tight end position, which is seeing growing importance as the NFL moves towards a more passing-oriented league. We create separate prediction models for 1. the NFL Draft and 2. NFL career performance based on data available prior to the NFL Draft: college performance, the NFL combine, and physical measures. We use linear regression and recursive partitioning decision trees to predict both NFL draft order and NFL career success based on this pre-draft data. With both modeling approaches, we find that the measures that are most predictive of NFL draft order are not necessarily the most predictive measures of NFL career success. This finding suggests that we can improve upon current drafting strategies for tight ends. After factoring the salary cost of drafted players into our analysis in order to predict tight ends with the highest value, we find that size measures (BMI, weight, height) are over-emphasized in the NFL draft.

Data‐driven Drafting: Applying Econometrics to Employ Quarterbacks

“…Despite the difficulty of predicting NFL performance with observable pre-draft characteristics or with proxy variables for unobservable ones, there have been limited successes. Treme and Allen (2009) show that data can help teams evaluate wide receivers, and Mulholland and Jensen (2014) show the same for tight ends. However, for the reasons stated in Section I, we focus on quarterbacks.…”

“…But the draft is currently not an efficient sorting mechanism. For example, Mulholland and Jensen (2014) show that the best predictors of where tight ends are drafted are not particularly good at predicting future NFL performance. As a result, teams overvalue physical traits such as body mass index, weight, and height (Mulholland and Jensen 2014).…”

Predicting plays in the National Football League

“…Studies focused on analyzing individual NFL players often attempt to predict their potential and their impact on the field. For instance, Mulholland and Jensen (2014) employed linear regression models and recursive partitioning trees on pre-NFL draft data to predict the career success of tight-ends in the NFL. In another study, Dhar (2011) found that college game statistics and body mass index were significant factors that influenced wide receivers' success in the league.…”

Citius, Altius, Fortius; Is It Enough to Achieve Success in Basketball?

“…It has been stated, that beyond anthropometric and fitness variables, there are other factors that have an important prediction power on future performance. Mulholand and Jensen [ 21 ] described “football intelligence” as the ability to learn offensive schemes, memorize routes or recognize patterns in the defense to attack or catch passes. McGee et al [ 1 ], establish that quickness to react and the ability to read the offense is fundamental in football, as well as an athlete’s determination, toughness, and ability to work as part of a team.…”