How Much Can The Packers Expect From Their Rookies?

Training camp always brings a little bit of youthful optimism; not only are young players overly optimistic about their chances in the NFL, but coaches, front office executives, fans and media alike all chatter about how player X is ahead of the curve/looking like a veteran/going to be the next superstar. 

Training camp always brings a little bit of youthful optimism; not only are young players overly optimistic about their chances in the NFL, but coaches, front office executives, fans and media alike all chatter about how player X is ahead of the curve/looking like a veteran/going to be the next superstar. 

Of course, we all know we should temper some of those expectations, Aaron Nagler wrote a poignant article about how much value we really should put into comments made around this time.  The flip side of this is the time-honored statement of a player struggling early on because “that position has a steep learning curve”.  We like to point out the quarterback position and Aaron Rodgers, who famously sat behind Brett Favre for 3 years as an example of not rushing a player’s development but the underlying idea behind it all is that quarterback is just so hard to play and learn. 

Is this really true, are certain positions easier to learn, easier to play or easier to transition to?  To find out, I compiled a list of every rookie who saw the field from 2014-2012 and indexed their PFF scores based on position.  I did not make a distinction between sides (i.e. LT/RT) and SS/FS since it would only make the results more confusing (and in reality often times rookies play multiple positions as coaches figure out what works best and often times they end up playing somewhere else for their careers) and kickers and punters were excluded since I, like everyone else, don’t care about them.   

Observation 1: Rookies suck.

Now that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone; just like a person starting a new job, the beginning is always unproductive as people are learning how to do their job, how the corporate structure works and the ins and outs of working with a new set of people.  The same is true with NFL rookies; both offensive and defensive players are both equally poor in their rookie years.  Rookies on average saw about 295 (offense) and 235 (defense), which is roughly 25% of all snaps, so while rookies didn’t see much of the field, when they did they weren’t very good.   

 

Observation 2: Some positions are harder to play than others

On defense, 4-3 outside linebackers and inside linebacker are the only two positions where rookies perform on or above average.  I can’t think of any particular reason why linebackers seem to have the best production as rookies; I assume since most 3-4 OLBs are college 4-3 defensive ends the transition makes it hard for them to produce right away but its possible that linebackers on a whole are so multi-faceted in their game that most college linebackers are decently competent at just about everything from run defense to coverage to pressuring the quarterback. 

The worst group appears to be the defensive line as defensive ends and defensive tackles have pretty poor rookie performances.  It’s possible that the distribution of talent in college allows a lot of defensive linemen to get away with pure strength or be a one trick pony so perhaps going up against NFL caliber offensive linemen game in and game out requires some time to adjust to.

On offense, the story seems to follow what we’ve all been told; quarterbacks and offensive tackles have the worst track record as rookies.  The only position that has a positive grade on average is running backs which brings up an interesting idea

Corollary 1: Teams put more value into positions where rookies perform poorly

While this might seem counter-intuitive at first, it would make sense that if a position was easier to play (say running back), then it wouldn’t take as good of a player to play the position well.  As we’ve seen, running backs are a largely fungible position mainly because it seems like teams can find good running backs all over the draft (and in undrafted free agency) and due to the short shelf life of the position.  It’s quite possible that another explanation is that running back is simply an easier position to play or that playing running back in college versus the NFL isn’t too different, therefore why bother to invest heavily in an easy position. 

To flip this around, quarterbacks, offensive tackles and defensive linemen (who can rush the passer) are considered the premium positions with a lot of picks in the 1st round.  These same positions are also ones that struggle the most as rookies, which may be a reason why teams choose to pick more talented players as to reduce the gap between production between rookies and veterans. 

Corollary 2: Again Ted Thompson doesn’t value inside linebackers

A while back I wrote an article stating that Ted Thompson just doesn’t care all that much about inside linebackers because 1) the Packers like to convert not great outside linebackers into inside linebackers 2) the position has been devalued somewhat in 3-4 defenses with so much time being spent in sub-packages where there aren’t 2 inside linebackers and 3) Thompson historically has never drafted inside linebackers high.  I might want to add that it appears like inside linebacker is also an easier position to play and therefore again it isn’t efficient to devote heavy resources into the position. 

Of course a lot of who a rookie performs depends on the people around him, wide receivers need good quarterbacks to feed them the ball and running backs need good offensive lines to run effectively.  However, in the broader picture of the NFL, it definitely seems like certain positions have a steeper learning curve than others.  While this is probably bad news for Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota, this is great news for the Packers since if Jake Ryan does happen to see the field, there’s a better chance he will do well as a rookie. 

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Comments (16)

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aaronqb's picture

June 22, 2015 at 03:40 pm

Over the past few years the Packers have gotten great value from their rookies and as Thomas points out this is not necessarily the norm. Lacy, Bakhtiari, Hyde, Linsley, and Clinton-Dix all had very productive rookie seasons. Others like Daniels, Adams and Rodgers (hopefully), and Barrington bloom after their rookie season.

The Packers are most likely going to need major contributions from either Randall or Rollins at CB to sustain the defense we saw in the last part of 2014. And with Joe Whitt coaching them, I expect one or both to "not suck."

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hobbes's picture

June 22, 2015 at 05:22 pm

I wouldn't particularly say that either Bakhtiari or Clinton-Dix were all that productive during the rookie season; Bakhtiari was productive in the sense that he started the whole season but in reality he was the 67th ranked tackle in his rookie year. Clinton-Dix was somewhat similar where he ranked 60th among safeties last year, and you have to consider he wasn't able to beat out Hyde for the beginning of the year. Linsley is the very very rare case of a rookie performing consistently and productively right from the get go.

History would suggest that neither Randall or Rollins will be all that good in their rookie year, no matter who is coaching them.

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jeremyjjbrown's picture

June 22, 2015 at 10:59 pm

Linsley has a very good chance to be an All-Pro.

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aaronqb's picture

June 24, 2015 at 11:36 am

I disagree.

It's not that rare. During the Packer Super Bowl season in 2010, several rookies played very prominent roles - Shields, Bulaga, Starks, Quarless, and even CJ Wilson.

Clinton-Dix had 2 picks against Seattle in the playoffs. I would call him productive. His play also (predictably) improved during the season.

Bakhtiari wasn't great in 2013, but he was playing a premium position going up against Julius Peppers, Jared Allen, and Ziggy Ansah twice per year. He has been a godsend.

Linsley performance is a very high bar. He arguably performed at a Pro Bowl level as a rookie. If you are suggesting this is the bar for the new CBs, then I agree with you, but your article said productive.

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hobbes's picture

June 24, 2015 at 11:55 am

This really depends on what you mean by "productive". What I meant by productive in the article was not playing a lot of snaps but playing at an above average level. In that regard the 2010 rookie class wasn't that great: Shields 6.1, Bulaga -17.1, Starks .9, Quarless -2.1, Wilson -3.1). Only Shields played above average while Starks was average but was hampered for the majority of the season with injuries.

If you are using Linsley as your standard I'm not sure many rookies in the NFL have every played as well as he did as a rookie.

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jeremyjjbrown's picture

June 22, 2015 at 05:31 pm

"I assume since most 3-4 OLBs are college 4-3 defensive ends the transition makes it hard for them to produce right away"

Sure but the 4-3 DE's did even worse. I assume because the talent level at Tackle goes way up in the Pros vs College. Either way that was a suprise to me. I would have expected the hardest jump for college defenders to make would be at Safety (complexity and speed) or DT (strength and quickness.)

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hobbes's picture

June 22, 2015 at 06:14 pm

To be honest I have no real explanation as to why some positions seem to worse as rookies, I will say that 4-3 DEs converting to 3-4 OLBs would seem to be schematically the most difficult transition outside perhaps of a spread QB going to a pro style offense. Since both NFL 4-3 DEs and 3-4 OLBS are going up against NFL-talent offensive linemen that should be the same so I don't know if that accounts for the difference.

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Idiot Fan's picture

June 22, 2015 at 10:30 pm

I would be interested to see how each player's score changed from year 1 to year 2 to year 3 (which, I guess, you would need to look at older data to see). There would be some survivor bias in there, since the really bad ones would get benched, but it would still be interesting to see. Is it the norm for players to vastly improve from year 1 to year 2? Or are the rookie-year numbers somewhat of a reflection of who the player will always be?

As a side note, I'm also just curious to know how much variation in rating from one year to the next there tends to be for the average player. Is it common for players to have positive grades in one year and negative the next, or do they tend to be either one or the other?

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hobbes's picture

June 23, 2015 at 12:46 pm

I had thought about this as well but the one issue that I couldn't think of a way to factor out the survivor bias. One possibility is to only look at players drafted in the 1st 3 rounds since they almost always make it to their 3rd year but I'm not sure that's all that indicative of the population as a whole considering that college talent decays exponentially (based on the draft at least), so you'd be selecting players already more likely to perform well.

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AllenB's picture

June 22, 2015 at 10:32 pm

From Coach Whitt' s Bio
Three examples of coaching to level to
"Not Suck"

With second-year CB Casey Hayward limited to just three games in ’13 due to a hamstring injury, Whitt’s preparation of rookie CB Micah Hyde became crucial for the defense. Hyde led the team’s rookies with 54 tackles on the season and posted a sack, a forced fumble and four passes defensed.

In 2012, with veteran Charles Woodson shifting to safety in the team’s base defense and Shields and House both missing time due to injuries, Whitt was charged with preparing Hayward to contribute immediately. Hayward led all NFL rookies with six interceptions (tied for No. 5 overall), becoming the first Packer to lead the league’s rookies in the category since Mike McKenzie in 1999. Hayward was named to the All-Rookie Team by Pro Football Weekly/PFWA, becoming the first Green Bay CB to be honored since the team was first selected in 1974, and finished third in voting for the NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year by The Associated Press.

Whitt also was instrumental in the rapid development of the rookie Shields, another undrafted prospect who became the team’s nickel back by the season opener – despite playing the corner position only one season in college – and helped the Packers advance to the Super Bowl with two interceptions in the NFC title game at Chicago.

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hobbes's picture

June 23, 2015 at 12:50 pm

I wouldn't trust a Packers bio to be unbiased

From Shawn Slocum's bio at Arizona State:

On February 6, 2006, Slocum joined the Green Bay Packers, becoming the assistant special teams coach. He was promoted to special teams coordinator in 2009. The Packers won Super Bowl XLV in 2010, 31-25 over the Pittsburgh Steelers in Arlington, Texas. During his tenure the Packers won five division championships (2007, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014), played in three NFC Championship games (winning one, 2010) and appeared in the NFL Playoffs seven times (2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014). Slocum also was invited to coach in three Pro Bowl games.

I would think that most people think the Packers did all that in spite of having Slocum as a coach.

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Thegreatreynoldo's picture

June 23, 2015 at 01:06 am

Nice article. It confirms conventional wisdom in some areas, but there were a few surprises.

Thomas, I always feel bad when despite what looks like a fair amount of work, I wonder about something that would require even more work. That said, I would have liked to have seen the results broken down by rounds, perhaps just rounds 1-2, then round 3-4 combined, and 6-UDFA. Since I gather that you averaged (indexed?) the grades, I'm thinking that the PFF grade assigned is corresponds to that of the 4th best rookie or so. My hints (father's day was also my birthday) for a subscription to PFF, NFL rewind or All-22 not having been heeded, I can't go back and do just the packers' draft picks.

Also, love Idiot's idea to check to see how many rookies make a 2nd year leap, and what magnitude that jump tends to be.

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hobbes's picture

June 23, 2015 at 12:55 pm

Unfortunately PFF doesn't include draft round in their charting (it's in player bios, which is a separate page), which means I would have to pull a list of all the drafted players from another source, combine that with the PFF grading and then hope that player names aren't different between the two lists.

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RCPackerFan's picture

June 23, 2015 at 06:55 am

I expect to see 4 players getting a quite a bit of playing time as rookies. Randall, Rollins, Montgomery and Ryan.

I believe we will see Randall and Rollins both in the dime starting the season. And one of the 2 at the very least will be in the Nickel if not in base defense.
Montgomery will be more of a role player on offense to start out but I expect him to make a huge improvement on special teams as a return man.
Ryan, at the very least I see him being a special teams demon. I think he could be a darkhorse to come in and play right away. He may not start, with Mathews playing ILB, but I could see him playing a lot.

As far as the other rookies, Hundley will likely be the 3rd QB. Ripkowski will likely be a special teams player and come in on some short yardage plays as a 2nd FB. Ringo could become a role player on defense if he can come in and show that he can rush the QB. Backman likely will be the 3rd TE and will be mostly a special teams player to start.

For this year, their rookie year, I would say we should see a quite a bit from Randall, Rollins, Montgomery and Ryan. They may not all start, but I think we will see a quite a bit of play from them.
I think the rest (other then Hundley), Ripkowski, Ringo, and Backman will be special teams type of players and will be groomed for bigger roles next year.

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Idiot Fan's picture

June 23, 2015 at 10:31 am

"I believe we will see Randall and Rollins both in the dime starting the season. And one of the 2 at the very least will be in the Nickel if not in base defense."

If this is the case (ignoring injury), does that mean that Hyde is the odd man out?

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hobbes's picture

June 23, 2015 at 12:58 pm

I don't think it's really a question of whether or not we will see Randall, Rollins and some of the higher round rookies play, it's more about how well they play. Rookies on average see about 25% of snaps, (naturally higher round draft picks will see more than lower round picks) and I would expect to see something similar with the Packers rookies.

As for Ripkowski, I'm not entirely convinced he even makes the 53 man roster. From the Packers perspective, if Kuhn is still good enough to play, there's basically no risk in placing Ripkowski on PS since no team is ever going to sign off a FB.

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