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Harrison-Hunte Update

All I know is that DT performances usually correlates with athleticism and both JHH and Blisset are athletic af. Are they super explosive, probably not, but that is something you can work on, especially if they are athletic. U can't work on someone's athleticism.
 
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Ethnicsands said:
For you to know that as certainly as you think you know it, you must believe in Fate and the Book being written already. What you are missing here is variance. Here’s an illustration:

Two bets:

- Option (a) pay a dollar, have two equal probability outcomes: $2 or $0.
- Option (b) pay a dollar, have two equal probability outcomes: $1.5 or $0.60.

It’s an absolute fact that option (b) is a better choice. All sane people would rank it superior to option (a). It’s also an absolute fact that Option (a) will pay out more than option (b) literally 50% of the time. If you contend that Option (a) was a superior choice because of something unknowable at the time you made the choice (how it would pay out), you’d be wrong. I could easily construct the payouts so the lower ranked option is superior more than 50% of the time. Mean and variance are different parameters.
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You and @PalyCane are skipping Step One to go to Step Two.

This is not an issue of math. Obviously, you can make a good bet based on probability that gets a bad result.

The issue here is the assignment of probability itself. Rivals alone decides how "probable" it is that a player succeeds. It's an opinion.

In your hypo, the probabilities are already defined and absolute. That's not the case here, which is the whole point.
 
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DMoney said:
Again, this is an individual evaluation. Outliers don’t come into play. Rivals set the wrong "expected value" on McIntosh.

Nobody is saying that four-star v. three-stars don’t matter because McIntosh outplayed a bunch of four stars. I am saying that they got McIntosh wrong.
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They only got McIntosh "wrong", depending on what you think the measure of "right" is. They got McIntosh wrong if you think star ratings are intended to be the perfectly exact ranking 1-300 of the top HS recruits. Yes, if you think that's what getting it right means, then they got it wrong with McIntosh. Yes, if that's what you think the rating services claim with their star ratings, you should simply go back and re-rank every recruit by his ultimate draft position.

I on the other hand don't think that's the definition of being "right" that the rating services try to hit. I believe (as I've continually stated throughout this discussion) that the star ratings are meant to be a sort of probability index for future success. And by introducing probability into the discussion it allows for some results to exactly hit the expected outcome, some results to over-perform the expected outcome (such as McIntosh), and some results to under-perform the expected outcome (such as Ermon Lane). That creates a "range" of possible outcomes. None of those results necessarily invalidates the probabilities represented by star ratings as for any one individual recruit. Rather the star rating places a given recruit in a particular range (5 stars, 4 stars, 3 stars, etc.) as to expected outcome. And the recruit can perform along the range...there isn't one single point on the range.

That's what I believe rating services are signaling by their star ratings. They can't be dead-nuts perfect with every single recruit in the US. And they don't try to do so. The star ratings represents a range of expected outcomes for given cohorts of recruits. The range of expected outcomes for a 3 star recruit includes the possibility of being drafted, just like McIntosh was drafted. By itself, being drafted doesn't mean his 3 star ranking was incorrect in hindsight.

Flipping a coin is a 50/50 proposition in coming up with heads or tails. If I flip a coin four times and get heads three of those tries, it doesn't mean that the original odds of 50/50 were wrong. Same with McIntosh. You claim that the fact he was drafted is dispositive and he should therefore have been a 4 star recruit. But the rating services fully acknowledge that "a significant number of three star recruits go on the play in the pros". So I and the rating services consider McIntosh to simply have been a kid who had a greater level of uncertainty compared to 4 star kids, but who ended up performing near the top of his range, while other 3 star kids performed at the midpoint of the range and still other kids performed at the lower end of the range.

So I guess I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make anymore. McIntosh absolutely fits with the rating services definition of a 3 star. He was a top player regionally and he was drafted. But again, if you believe that the rating services are thinking that they're coming up with a perfect 1-300 ordering of all HS recruits then yes you'd say McIntosh's ranking was wrong. And of course you'd have to re-rank after the fact about half (maybe more?) of the 5 & 4 star kids because a whole lot of them never get drafted and a whole lot of 3 star and below kids do get drafted. So per the definition of "right" that you're trying to hit, there'd have to be massive re-assessment of the rankings, not just for McIntosh.

Even if you're correct and star ratings should represent the perfect ordering of future draft selections, how could the rating services ever be expected to be so precise so as to perfectly predict each and every HS recruits ultimate college and NFL draft success? How could you or anyone presume to have been able to focus on RJ McIntosh back in 2015 and come up with the exactly correct comparison of his ultimate success in college and NFL draft, against some other kid who was 6'1" and 295 pounds from Hawaii? Or some kid who was a highly productive WDE from Kansas? You can't do it and I submit you'd never attempt to try. This why the rating services represent at best a sort of grouping of kids based on various metrics and with different ranges being represented by the different star levsls. And within any of the ranges, some kids will over or under-perform and some will perform at the mid-point. That's the best it can be for now based on the current state of the art, and in the context of this current system.

But again, if you think the rating services got it wrong in 2014/2015 here's the revised rankings: All college eligible draft choices now re-ranked in order as HS recruits. The rating services obviously should have had Baker Mayfield as the number 1 recruit in America coming out of HS. Shame on them for getting it wrong. https://www.nfl.com/draft/tracker/picks
 
Here's an article from a few years ago addressing how the big 3 handle rankings. Interestingly, only 247 admitted to using offers as part of its ranking system, but claimed it was only about 10% of the ranking.
 
PalyCane said:
They only got McIntosh "wrong", depending on what you think the measure of "right" is. They got McIntosh wrong if you think star ratings are intended to be the perfectly exact ranking 1-300 of the top HS recruits. Yes, if you think that's what getting it right means, then they got it wrong with McIntosh. Yes, if that's what you think the rating services claim with their star ratings, you should simply go back and re-rank every recruit by his ultimate draft position.
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I think the disconnect is that I am addressing the individual evaluation and you are addressing the process as a whole.

For example, if someone was forced to pick between a 4-star DT and a 3-star DT (without knowing anything about the players), they should always pick the 4-star DT. As a group, four-star DTs have the higher probability of success. The fact that the individual 3-star DT might outperform the 4-star DT does not invalidate the decision nor does it invalidate the star system as a whole. We agree on this point.

My issue here is Rivals' evaluation of the individual, RJ McIntosh. This is a pure opinion from the recruiting service that should be subject to scrutiny. Your argument is that: (1) every ranking presents a range of outcomes; (2) McIntosh fits within the vast range of outcomes for a three-star player; and (3) Rivals was thus correct.

But if we accept that approach, how can one possibly challenge Rivals' opinion on a player? Rivals' definition of a three-star includes every possible outcome except first round pick and All-American. There are hundreds and hundreds of three stars and only 66 All-American spots. Are we saying that Rivals was right about every other three-star, because they set such a wide range of outcomes? That gives them an absolute free pass and virtually eliminates the discussion of whether Rivals' initial opinion was correct.

This is why I focus on their Top 300 criteria. This is the only approach that holds them accountable for their opinions, which is the fun part of the process. They have roughly 300-400 blue-chip rankings to give out. Did they bet on the right guys?

I used the McIntosh example because we made that argument in 2015. It does not rely on hindsight. If someone challenges a recruiting ranking, what they are really saying is "you should bet on my guy." And if the player becomes a success, that's the best evidence they were right in the first place. It's not perfect evidence (his success may actually have been improbable) but it is the best evidence we have. Every other approach simply takes Rivals' assignment of probability at face value.
 
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Love a DT that coming out of HS is under 300lbs so u can build his body up to that instead of having to trim them down
 
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