Remember this guy?
Kyle 'Pro' Boller
Well, maybe most Ravens fans remember this guy:
SACK
The Ravens drafted Kyle Boller in the first round of the 2003 NFL Draft 19th overall, giving up a future no.1 draft pick to get him. It is rumored that then-Ravens coach Brian Billick fell in love with Boller during workouts, where boller threw a ball 50 yards through the uprights from his knees.
Read this article excerpt from the California college newspaper (the school Boller attended) from the Spring of 2003:
“I didn’t want people to see me,” Boller said. “I would get really sarcastic comments like, `Hey, you going to win a game, buddy?’ But when you have that record, you have to expect people to say that stuff.”
Even after a senior year that saw his numbers improve dramatically under new coach Jeff Tedford, Boller was considered a borderline first-day pick. An impressive performance at the Senior Bowl in January put him in the second round. After proving to be the most athletic of the top quarterbacks in the draft at the NFL Combine in February, he moved into first-round territory.
–Read the Entire article here.
Boller was considered to be a below average quarterback at his own school back in 2003. Even after his rise with Jeff Tedford in the fall of 2002, people still considered him a reach for a first day pick. I clearly remember reading Mel Kiper, ranking Boller a 4th rounder, after the Senior Bowl.
Then it happened.
The NFL Combine.
After its over, Boller is a FIRST ROUND PICK!
WHAT?!
How does a quarterback, who was considered average at best and heckeled on his OWN campus, go from being a second-day draft pick to a top 20 selection in ONE weekend! It’s because the NFL Combine is the place where all the GM’s get together and try to pretend to be the smartest guy in the room.
Let’s not be naive here, all of the GM’s in the National Football League are looking for that next diamond in the rough. They all want to be the guy who saw what someone else didn’t.
The other end of it is that it can lead to catastrophic decisions that set franchises back for decades. The decision to draft Boller hamstrung the Ravens for 5 years. The Ravens were a good team during that stretch for the most part, but just think if they hadn’t had missed so bad on Boller.
Instead Billick fell in love with the 50 yard throw from Boller’s knees thru the uprights. When did throwing from your knees matter? AREN’T YOU DOWN? What Billick did ignore was the horrible track record of college QB’s who have a lifetime completion percentage of less than 60% in the NFL. Boller’s was 53%.
It’s not just the Ravens that do it, some team will do the same thing every year. In 2008, the New York Jets fell in love with the potential that the measurables of Vernon Gholston showed. Well guess what? All those measurables like the standing long-jump and bench press statistics have translated into Gholston being one of the worst draft picks from the 2008 draft.
Vernon Gholston wears this outfit more than his pads
In two years he has barely contributed to the Jets defense; He hasn’t even recorded a sack!
Guess what his combine numbers were? 4.58 40-yard dash time and a 455 bench press. Impressive, but the NFL isn’t a weight lifting competition.
The point is that there is no science to drafting NFL players, but every year there will be one player that will make a meteroic rise to the top of the draft based on work-outs, while the college production was not there.
This years unfortunate culprit is Jason Pierre-Paul of South Florida. Pierre-Paul was productive as a first year junior college palyer at the College of the Canyons in 2007 at South Florida amassing 14 sacks, then as a second year player at Fort Hood Community College gaining another 10, but as teams schemed to stop him this past season, he was only able to produce 6.5 sacks.
Pierre-Paul hitting Christian Ponder of FSU
Pierre-Paul was considered a second rounder until his Senior Bowl workouts wowed scouts. Now he will go to the combine and wow them again. All the while, people will forget that when people tried to take him out of the game in college they were able too.
If he can’t break free of college blocking schemes, how will he beat those schemes in the the NFL?
Scouting directors forget what the guy did in college and look at the workouts because they all believe they can milk that potential. What happens is that leads to mistakes and lost money and draft picks. While productive players get ignored and get drafted much later due to their lack of measurable statistics.
Two of the best teams at ignoring the workout-hype and drafting on the production in college are the Chargers and Colts. So, is it any surprise that these two teams are two of the best in the AFC year after year?
No!
It is because GM Bill Polian of the Colts and GM AJ Smith of the Chargers avoid the temptation of looking at the numbers in a workout sheet and remember that producing in college matters too. If they couldn’t catch a football in college, it doesn’t matter how fast they are, but they probably aren’t going to be able to hold onto it in the NFL either.
It’s when they take guys like Austin Collie of BYU, that you see the difference in maximizing the efficiency of draft picks. Collie was incredibly productive at BYU, and led the nation in may receiving categories. On the other hand, Darius Heyward-Bey was oftened schemed out of Maryland’s offense in 2008. Bey went 7th and Collie in the 4th round.
Collie was the slot receiver for a Super Bowl team, Heyward-Bey was on a milk carton.
Pay attention to what you see with your eyes sometimes, or you just might fool yourself.
