(Recruiting) Star Wars: Eagles are far "better" than Patriots
As we debate and debate our current recruiting class, and its relative bevy of three-stars, I thought this recent SB Nation article was interesting.
https://www.sbnation.com/college-football-recruiting/2018/1/23/16920720/super-bowl-2018-patriots-eagles-high-school-recruiting-ratings
To sum up: the Pats team is dominated by 3 stars, with only 1 five-star (Malcolm Brown) and only 4 four-stars (incl the incomparable Tom Brady).
In contrast, the Eagles are much more slanted towards the top end, with 5 five-stars (including the awesome Brandon Graham) and 7 four-stars.
This does not prove recruiting rankings don't matter (it is of course better, on average, to have on your team five-stars instead of a three-stars, Kevin Grady and Mike Hart notwithstanding, as predictor of success in both college, not to mention the NFL), but it is interesting that the most dominant franchise in the last 25 years of pro football does not lean on "can't miss" players nearly as much as you might think.
January 24th, 2018 at 12:40 PM ^
I know recruiting rankings matter (for college), but do they really matter for the NFL? We're talking about players who were evaluated at least 4 years ago, and many more than that in a lot of cases. A lot can happen in that time frame.
January 24th, 2018 at 12:41 PM ^
January 24th, 2018 at 1:08 PM ^
I mean, if we're being honest the Patriots roster outside of a few players isn't all that good. Brady makes up for a lot of deficiencies on that team. So yeah, I suppose if you have the greatest QB of all time on your team then starz don't really matter.
January 24th, 2018 at 4:47 PM ^
January 24th, 2018 at 1:24 PM ^
Pats by double digits.
January 24th, 2018 at 1:47 PM ^
January 24th, 2018 at 1:49 PM ^
By the time they get to the NFL, who cares how many "stars" some recruiting guy gave them in high school? Do companies recruit you based on a 4-5 year old SAT test score?
NFL teams are looking at film/production in college. They couldn't care less what players did against high school competition, nor should they.
January 24th, 2018 at 3:36 PM ^
January 24th, 2018 at 9:26 PM ^
Besides that in college they do matter. The trophy holders every year make that a fact.
January 24th, 2018 at 10:01 PM ^
Starz become an increasingly less valauble predictor of success as you get further and further from a player's junior year in high school.
Less than 50% of the supposedly "can't miss" 5* star recruits end up eventually being drafted by an NFL team. Sure, that's a much better percentage than 4 or 3 stars, but there are only 15-20 5* ranked recruits per year and over 224 draft picks. With only 15-20 five stars, you would expect them all to be first or second round locks - instead half of them don't get drafted AT ALL.
Then by the time you start talking about becoming a key player on a championship football team - players who are 10 years away from their high school rankings, there are too many variables to predict future success for any individual player with such a wide range of possible outcomes (injuries, work ethic, weight gain, height gain, depth chart, position switches, etc.)
It would be like trying to predict people's salaries based on their SAT scores - sure its probably true that higher SAT scores are slightly correlated with future salary in the aggregate, but if you walked into a specific company and looked at their highest paid employees, you'll probably find that little correlation to SAT scores.