THEANGEL&THEGAMBLER
Rookie
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/marcus-mariota-is-projected-to-be-better-than-jameis-winston/
We’ve heard the debate for so long that its edges have nearly gone dull: Jameis Winston or Marcus Mariota? Who should go first?
If there were a formula for how to choose a No. 1 quarterback in the NFL draft, Tom Brady would have gone No. 1 overall and JaMarcus Russell would have been lucky to be selected 199th. This stuff is hard, especially when you consider the stakes. Missing on a first-round quarterback can set a franchise back for years. Because of the “boom or bust” nature of the position, selecting a quarterback, particularly in the first round, is riskier than selecting a player in any other position.
What, then, to do about Winston versus Mariota this Thursday? Build a model, of course. This year, ESPN’s Production Analytics crew created a QB model to help teams reduce the risk of drafting the wrong quarterback. Like all models, this one had a few outliers, but it would have predicted that Andrew Luck would be the top QB in the last three draft classes, that Russell Wilson would be far better than his third-round grade, and that first-rounders Brandon Weeden and EJ Manuel would be below-average quarterbacks — and of course that’s without using those years of data to fit the model.1 The model’s opinion on this year’s top two: Mariota — not Winston — is the top prospect.
We’ve heard the debate for so long that its edges have nearly gone dull: Jameis Winston or Marcus Mariota? Who should go first?
If there were a formula for how to choose a No. 1 quarterback in the NFL draft, Tom Brady would have gone No. 1 overall and JaMarcus Russell would have been lucky to be selected 199th. This stuff is hard, especially when you consider the stakes. Missing on a first-round quarterback can set a franchise back for years. Because of the “boom or bust” nature of the position, selecting a quarterback, particularly in the first round, is riskier than selecting a player in any other position.
What, then, to do about Winston versus Mariota this Thursday? Build a model, of course. This year, ESPN’s Production Analytics crew created a QB model to help teams reduce the risk of drafting the wrong quarterback. Like all models, this one had a few outliers, but it would have predicted that Andrew Luck would be the top QB in the last three draft classes, that Russell Wilson would be far better than his third-round grade, and that first-rounders Brandon Weeden and EJ Manuel would be below-average quarterbacks — and of course that’s without using those years of data to fit the model.1 The model’s opinion on this year’s top two: Mariota — not Winston — is the top prospect.