Cowboys Draft '09 -- Managing the Vertical and Horizonal Controls
by Rafael Vela on Apr 8, 2009 2:00 PM CDT
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PrintThe National Football Post's Michael Lombardi writes a long and illuminating piece on the deliberations the New York Jets are having with respect to Miles Austin. Lombardi breaks down the two types of ratings every team creates when it puts together a draft board -- horizontal ratings and vertical ones.
Vertical ratings refer to a top-to-bottom listing of players at a particular position. Think of the hubbub last year when a photo showing then defensive coordinator Brian Stewart leaked onto the internet. The photo showed vertical listings of several defensive positions, most notably cornerbacks.
The key to effective drafting, as Lombardi points out, comes from the horizontal listings of these players. Say you have the top ten outside linebackers. Which ones deserve a first round grade? Which ones deserve a second round grade, and so on?
What's more, within the round, where do those linebackers rank with similarly graded players at other positions? How does that linebacker rank relative to a second round rated guard? Or offensive tackle? Or safety? Or quarterback? Lombardi sees this horizontal ranking ability as the make-or-break skill for an organization:
The key to setting up the draft board lies not in the vertical ranking of the positions but rather having someone who can value the horizontal value of the whole board. That person must have a full command of the board and know, for example, that the need might be at wide receiver but the value is to take the corner. I know most of you feel that line of thinking is a given, but in the draft rooms I’ve been in, this is not always handled very well. Most mistakes come from the horizontal value of the board, not from the vertical ranking.
Bloggers on this site reacted to Grizz's piece last night by analyzing whether Dallas should match a Jets offer sheet to Austin in mostly vertical terms -- many asked, "is there a wide receiver who can be obtained with the 52nd pick (the pick the Jets would forfeit to Dallas if the Cowboys failed to match a potential offer) who is better than Miles Austin?
Lombardi cautions that the bigger question appears to be "is there a player on the board at the 52nd spot who rates better than Miles Austin?" The fans may feel the wide receiver spot could be weakened but if Dallas can get a player they feel is better than Austin there, even if he happens to be a defensive end, or linebacker, then they are better off letting him go.
I spoke to Dallas scouting director Tom Ciskowski last summer and he explained the way the team self scouts:
Yesterday Jerry Jones told the press that his scouts had completed their preliminary report on the team before heading out onto the road. Today I asked Tom Ciskowski, the Cowboys’ Director of College and Pro Scouting to describe the process.
He told me that in the initial [training camp] practices each scout is assigned a single position to evaluate. They then produce a unit evaluation, where each unit is ranked from its best player on down. The scouts do not write full reports but offer “one liners” of each player’s game.
When the Cowboys begin playing opponents, the scouts are sent DVDs of the games, so that they have an understanding of each player’s performance in live action. The reports are used as baselines; when the scouts evaluate college players, they do so in relation to the talent on the roster. “For example, if you’re grading a center and he’s similar to Andre Gurode,” he said, “you would compare him to Gurode.” “You don’t want to bring in players who are not as good or who can’t compete with the talent you already have on your squad.”
You can see vertical scouting goes on at the college and the pro level. If the scouts have done their work effectively, they have been building vertical lists since last fall which not only rank college prospects relative to one another but relative to the players already on Dallas' roster.
Ciskowski and his guys should know today how many wide receivers waiting to be drafted are better than Miles Austin, or Roy Williams or Patrick Crayton, because they've been making these comparisons all along.
They'll have a firm opinion on whether Miles Austin is worth the 52nd pick in the draft. Their actions -- assuming New York actually gives Austin an offer sheet -- will tell us everything we need to know.
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I'm an Austin fan, and have always wanted him to do well, as I have with Hurd. But, if losing him
means the team will be better, then I’m for it. Nice to know what the scouting staff is up to while the Austin/Jets thing plays out. Thanks Raf.
Family, Friends, Cowboys, Beer & BBQ. Life is good!
Thats a pretty interesting article
I understand his point, but we badly need wr depth. If we don’t have a wr rated above him in the 2nd round, I think we need to resign him.
Remember, Roy had injury issues last year. We are one injury away from fielding one of the worst starting wr tandems in the league, and losing austin without a replacement would make us probably by far the worst.
pats, eagles, who else?
idk but point is we dont need superstars at every position. If losing austin meant we might get a great backup/potential starter at LB NT S or OL then im all for it. We have RW, Crayton, Witten, MartyB, MBIII, El Gato, and Choice thats plenty of stars for me
What the French?! Toast!
not saying we need superstars
Miles Austin by no means is a superstar. But your reasoning about needing depth at linebacker, safety nose tackle and ol – the same logic goes for a wr. We don’t need an all star receiver, but austin seems to be growing into a dependable player. If we lose him, we’re a roy injury away from having zero deep threat and the effect that has on our offense will be greater than the effect of one defensive player getting hurt.
you can’t have 3 stars at rb and effectively utilize all of them to make up for say, the lack of competent starting wrs.
If we knew for sure that Roy would be as good as we all think he could be, my opinion on this would be different. But he didn’t exactly show much last year.
but you can
you can over shadowing the fact that you not have much depth at wr by using double TE sets having all 3 backs on the field the sky is the limit. We have enough talent you dont need to bomb it down field as we seen felix can take it to the house anytime.
But on the other hand you can’t do that with the defense. Everyone needs to do their part and all work together. Same with OL. If its up to crayton stanback and hurd teams have gone far with worse.
What the French?! Toast!
Question
With getting the 52 pick, what is the value of combining the 51st and 52nd pick and how would that let us improve our overall draft position that puts us in a position to get a better WR?
Raf isnt saying get a better WR.
He’s saying horizontal movement meaning if cowboys feel there is someone at 52 with better value then miles then make the trade. So even though there isnt a better wr at 52 if they feel they can get a LB S NT or OL with better value they will let him go.
Right?
What the French?! Toast!
That's what I got
From what I read I think that is what he is saying. What I am saying is combining our two picks and trading up in the draft (if possible). What I was asking was what kind of value would thouse two picks get us and who may be available if we trade up.
That's essentially what he's saying...
but the one caveat I would add is that you have to make certain assumptions about the draft to make that evaluation, and those assumptions don’t always pan out come draft day. Which makes the decision on whether to keep Austin or not a tad more difficult to assess.
The main assumption
I see is, the player selected going to be able to make the team. The draft, and draft rankings mean absolutely nothing until you step on the field. We have had our share of first and second round busts.
When did I become a Cowboy fan? When my mom told me I was.
The only thing I would add...
…is that WR is not a monolithic position, so I don’t imagine scouts compare prospect WRs to current WRs in the same way they would compare a prospect C to Andre Gurode. The reason for that is that not all WRs do the same thing for their teams.
An extremely highly rated prospect wide receiver who is a possession receiver, for example, may merit a high second round grade (higher than pick #52). However, this hypothetical possession WR might not be as valuable to the Cowboys as Miles Austin, because while we have a number of possession receivers already, Austin is our only receiver who is a real deep threat. Miles Austin the wide receiver does things for us that that Hypothetical Possession Receiver would not, even if the possession receiver graded out higher in an absolute sense.
That’s vertical stuff, though. The horizontal grading is tougher to project. I will say that I think part of the horizontal grading process should take into account the following: even if an outside linebacker is better (relatively) at his position than Miles Austin is at WR, what is the potential upgrade if we acquired the OLB over whoever he would replace in the lineup, versus the potential downgrade we would experience between Miles Austin and the player who would replace him at his position.
That seems like a complicated horizontal measurement to me, because you’ve got to measure a potential defensive upgrade against an offensive downgrade, essentially comparing apples and oranges because, unlike baseball, you don’t have reliable advanced statistical tools to measure how many points or yards per game are gained or lost in such a comparison.
I’m sure GMs have their hands full dealing with all of these decisions. Seems like it’d be interesting stuff to contemplate, though.
Larry Allen benched 700 pounds. That is Leonard Davis times two.
I'll give you an excellent example of one such recent decision
F. Jones vs. R. Mendenhall
I think the Jerry decided that Mendenhall had the starting RB measurables and hype, but Jones brought more to the table with respect to the Cowboys.
Everything's looking up, Milhouse!
by accidental innuendo on Apr 8, 2009 5:52 PM CDT up reply actions
very interesting post Raf, excellent as always
If the Jets do offer Austin a contract and the Cowboys feel they could get a better player at #52 who more than likely will not be a WR, then Jerry will for sure sign another FA WR that is still out there, I would prefer Holt myself.
There is no way you go into the season with just RW, Crayton, Hurd and Stanback.
In Romo we Trust
There's still a few FA veterans if Austin goes
Matt Jones, Torry Holt, etc. could all replace Austin…at least for a year or two.
Res firma mitescere nescit
Holt isn't going to be in Dallas's price range.
And Matt Jones will probably be suspended for 6+ games.
They've done studies, you know. 60% of the time it works, every time.
Horizontal rankings are the key to any draft...
I figured that out years ago in fantasy football. It’s not enough to know that you think QB A is going to have a better year than QB B, but you also have to be able to determine whether, at the time you’re picking, QB A is a better value than RB C or WR D.
Not entirely analogous to the NFL Draft, since you don’t have to fill out all the positions before you’re done, and because you pass on a WR at one point you’re going to get another later, but the idea of horizontal value assessment is a key concept to grasp.
I agree
I would think vertical rankings are much easier to create than horizontal rankings and its these horizontal rankings is where the head scout like Ciscowski really earns his money.
In Romo we Trust
True...
It would be easy to say RB1 is better than RB2 but it would be quite a stretch to say that RB2 is lesser than or equal to WR3. The positions are different so it seems to be quite a challenge
by nicholas.rodriguez on Apr 8, 2009 4:03 PM CDT up reply actions
Interesting
According to the draft value chart found [url=http://www.draftcountdown.com/features/Value-Chart.php] here[/url] it says we can combine the 51st and 52nd pick for a value of 770, 10 points higher than the 23rd pick.
Wonder what we could do with that…
Oops
that was supposed to say [url=http://www.draftcountdown.com/features/Value-Chart.php]here[/url] damn computer illiteracy
23rd pick of the draft is valued as a 2nd round pick - if someone exquisite falls that far, great
but otherwise I wouldn’t expect it
by AustonianAggie on Apr 9, 2009 11:04 AM CDT up reply actions
Good read
Trust that Jerry and staff knew what they were doing when they put a 2nd round tender on Miles, and when they spent all off season touting him to the media. They’re not fools, well, mostly not.
How fun would that be to be a pro scout? Talk about a job worth having!
Let's get serious...
…we need Austin. I respect the excellent arguments made by us fans, but the bottom line is this: we need a fast receiver with some experience and good enough hands. There’s only one such player on the squad – Austin. There is no replacement for him. And there’s absolutely no guarantee we can find that player in the draft beginning with the 51st pick.
The only way we lose him is if we (a) think he’s damaged goods who will continue to have injuries limiting him or (b) the Jets give him a silly contract (that’s ought to be disallowed by the NFL) with a clause the Cowboys can’t match — e.g., Austin will be the highest paid WR on the team or Austin will be a guaranteed stater, etc.
Raf...
This was one of my favorite all time posts, if for no other reason that it was highly educational. And I like Michael Lombardi.
I always wondered how teams put all this stuff together. But what strikes me is just how much goes into this, and just how hard it is to attempt to correlate the horizontal rankings with the vertical rankings into some form of matrix that can be used to gauge existing players and need. Gives you a headache just thinking about it. I guess preparation is the key, but when the draft clock is ticking (especially when it goes down to five minutes), and the phones are ringing, and the cameras are rolling, it’s not hard to see how teams can make mistakes.
How bout this to further complicate things
As difficult is it is to do the horizontal rankings at a pure position to position comparison, now throw in someone who projects at multiple positions. For example a WR/KR, or CB/PR, or CB/S hybrid, or OLB/ILB hybrid. You have to rank the player vertically for each individual skillset relative to others with the skillset and then vertically rank him with the combined skillset, then horizontally rank him against himself in the individual skillsets, then horizontally rank against other players with a single skillset, then finally horizontally rank against other players with the combined skillset.
PHEW!! Someone got an Advil?
Nice Work!
I am a Broncos Fan, and I think one of the things that ultimately cost Mike Shanahan his job was horizontal rankings. He repeatedly took defensive players in the first round who would likely have been available in the 2nd round. The most recent example is Jarvis Moss, but that also includes Willie Middlebrooks among others. He had the same problem with wide receivers.
Keep Moving Forward.
hurting
they boyz are in serious problems if the loss of Austin has any impact on the offense’s effectiveness. for God’s sakes, he had 18 catches last year and while the catches were nice, Austin definitely benefitted from having TO, Witten, etc on the field. Austin has stiff hips and shoulders and will only elude the most clueless cornerback; aside from the fact that his open field instincts appear on the shortside.
cut this talk about Austin because it is a red herring just like the talk about TO and chemistry. lesser teams have won and they have won because they believed in themselves, worked hard, and had clever coaches who never forgot the fundamentals. let Austin go – his departure would be good for the team because it will force them to realize before too much blood has been shed that Austin’s shine was just glitter.
Random Thought...but Isn't it crazy that...
with Plax and TO out of the NFC East….that Santana Moss arguably becomes the best reciever in the division?…thats kinda sad…
Moss is no slouch
But I’d say that he’s on equal footing with Roy Williams. One had it, and has lost a little bit, whilst the other has the promise but has yet to fulfill it.
Everything's looking up, Milhouse!
by accidental innuendo on Apr 8, 2009 5:56 PM CDT up reply actions
The stiff hips thing is becoming redundant.
He is not a RB. He is not in the slot. He is not looking to play Wes Welker. He is a one cut and go guy. He gets open. He is a burner, not a dancer. His 18 catches may be slight and not alot to bank on but he has barely played his first 2 years and has been dinged up alot last year. He wont be an 80 catch guy. He is our deep threat who needs a couple of good short routes to set up his deep stuff. Its a limited body of work but enough to give him another year to build on. His speed makes Witten and RW have more room to operate. A guy in the draft you have no clue about his ability on this level.
Ok
We trade the 51rst and 52nd pick with a 5th and go and get Michael Crabtree, or what ever it takes. Sorry im biased my last name is Crabtree and would love a Crabtree Jersey lol.
09+24+28+23+82+11+94+41+26+31+90+32+56=2009 Success!!!!
Forget Crabtree
We could trade all 9 picks (two are compensatory picks) and couldn’t get anywhere near what it would take to move up that high.
Unlike a Cowboys' season, in life, there may not be a next year.
that wouldn't be enough to get Crabtree
anyone who wants Crabtree, give it up, will never happen
In Romo we Trust
Gosh guys
I just want a Michael Crabtree Jersey for xmas… is that asking to much…..
09+24+28+23+82+11+94+41+26+31+90+32+56=2009 Success!!!!
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