We do a deep statistical analysis to see if the Lions made the right decision with Hockenson."T.J. Hockenson is a pick that not many can criticize when talking about the individual player. As a prospect Womens Barry Sanders Jersey , he’s pretty darn clean. He can block, he can catch, he can run routes and create separation. He checks every character box and doesn’t have much of anything in the way of red flags—from personality to injury history. He’s about as safe of a pick as you can make, if there is such a thing as a safe pick in the NFL Draft.But the question that keeps coming up is one that has little to do with Hockenson as a prospect at all; it’s more of a fundamental question that’s absolutely worth considering: Is any tight end worthy of a top-10 pick? Picking that high in the NFL Draft is a rare opportunity to get an impact player that can transform your franchise. It’s an opportunity to potentially nab yourself a potential All Pro player—or if you’re lucky, even a Hall of Famer. When thinking of transformative players, tight ends very rarely come to mind. But let’s not rely on heuristics to base our judgement of tight ends. Let’s take a close look into the history and present value of tight ends in the NFL.HistoryNFL history has provided us with just five instances in the past 30 years of a tight end being selected in the top 10 of the NFL Draft. That’s an incredibly low sample size, but it speaks to the general sense that tight ends don’t (shouldn’t?) be drafted so high.As for the five players that have gone in the top 10, the results are inconclusive. Eric Ebron obviously didn’t work out in Detroit, but he certainly helped the Colts a lot last year. Kellen Winslow II busted, but that had more to do with unfortunate injuries and serious character flaws—two outlying factors that don’t seem to be a risk with Hockenson.The most successful case has undoubtedly been Vernon Davis. Davis was a key part in the San Francisco offense that led the team to back-to-back NFC Championship games. He’s made two Pro Bowls, been named to the second-team All Pro team, won a Super Bowl with the Broncos, and remains in the league 13 years after being drafted. He hasn’t exactly put up Hall of Fame numbers, but since entering the league in 2006, only four tight ends have had more receiving yards: Jason Witten, Antonio Gates, Rob Gronkowski and Greg Olsen. And he has undoubtedly made his teams better along the way.The other two examples—Rickey Dudley (1996) and Kyle Brady (1995)—come from a lost era of football. Their careers were both modestly successful. SalaryOne way to gauge a position’s value is to simply look at how much NFL teams are spending on the position. Quarterbacks and defensive ends are considered the most important positions on the field and they have the salaries to match.So where does tight end rank among the most “valuable” positions? I took the top-10 cap hits from each position—since the Lions are expecting Hockenson to have top-10 value among tight ends—for the 2019 season and averaged them out. Here are the results:Top 10 cap hit averages by positionQuarterbacks: $26.1 millionWide receivers: $16.0 millionEDGE: $15.7 millionOffensive tackle: $15.5 millionCornerback: $14.2 millionDefensive tackle: $13.8 millionSafety: $12.0 millionGuard/Center: $11.8 millionInside linebacker: $10.1 millionTight end: $8.3 millionRunning back: $7.9 millionSo, yeah, NFL teams are clearly not shelling out for tight ends, and the Lions aren’t getting nearly as much of a bargain for Hockenson as they would have a top-tier defensive lineman. Approximate valueIt’s almost impossible to create an all-encompassing statistic that works across every position, but Pro-Football-Reference attempted to do just that with “Approximate Value.” In their own words, Approximate Value “is an attempt to put a single number on the seasonal value of a player at any position from any year.” It far from an exact science, but it’s a good baseline to see how valuable tight ends are compared to their positional counterparts. Again, I took the top 10 players at each position from the 2018 season and averaged their Approximate Value. Here’s how the positions ranked:Approximate value average of top 10 players at each position in 2018:QBs: 16OT: 13.7WR: 13.5RB: 13EDGE: 12.5DT: 12.1G/C: 11.4LB: 11CB: 10.2S: 9.1TE: 7.5Tight end comes in dead last and it’s not even particularly close. Again, Approximate Value is a flawed statistic that tries to do the impossible Womens Levine Toilolo Jersey , and even by the site’s admission, good blocking tight ends specifically are undervalued by this statistic. But it’s another piece to the puzzle and not exactly a promising one.Recent NFL trendsOne thing that stuck out to me from Thursday night was this quote from head coach Matt Patricia when addressing the crowd in attendance at the Detroit Lions’ official draft party (full context here).This is a statement that, if true, would render a lot of the previous points moot. If the league is trending towards an increasing value in tight ends, who cares that the NFL hasn’t valued them highly in the past? Maybe the Lions are ahead of the curve. And in some cases, it seems like that may ring true. Several young tight ends have recently made big impacts on the game, including fellow former Iowa alum George Kittle, Evan Engram, O.J. Howard, and even Eric Ebron. But it’s tough to see any sort of league-wide trend. Here’s the offensive production of the top-10 tight ends by the last five seasons.2018: 8,559 yards2017: 7,671 yards2016: 8,404 yards2015: 9,286 yards2014: 8,748 yardsThere’s no clear upward trajectory there.And when it comes to tight end usage, there’s clearly been no league-wide increase. The frequency of 12 personnel (one running back, two tight ends) has remained dead-flat since 2010, sitting around 20 percent. On the other hand, 11 personnel (one running back, one tight end) frequency has been exploding over the past 10 seasons, as teams are much more inclined to spread their offense out with three receivers. That number has jumped from 34 percent in 2008 to nearly 60 percent in present day. So unless Patricia is talking about a very recent trend that we won’t see for several years down the road, it’s hard to believe him at face value.ScarcityIf you’ve made it this far, it seems like my conclusion is undoubtedly going to be: No, a tight end isn’t worth a top-10 pick. And, if I’m being honest Eli Harold Jersey , that’s pretty much how I felt last night.But while recording last night’s PODcast after the first round, Mansur Shaheen brought up a really important point: Indeed, if a talented player at a position is so scarce, one could make a legitimate argument that if you’re convinced you’ve actually found one, that sort of value would be great high in the first round. So is that true? Is an elite tight end harder to find than at other positions? For here, I decided to look at 2018 PFF grades for each position, comparing the top five players to the next five players. The bigger the difference in grades between those two groups, the more scarce the top-tier talent. Here’s what I found.The top five tight ends averaged a PFF grade of 84.66. The tight ends ranked six through 10 averaged a grade of 76.0. That difference of 8.66 points is by far the biggest disparity among all positions. Take a look:Average PFF grade disparity from Top 5 ranked players to 6-10, by position:TE: 8.66S: 7.06LB: 6.96G/C: 5.5QB: 5.42CB: 4.86OT: 4.62RB: 3.26WR: 2.74EDGE: 1.96DT: 1.72So if you’re looking for an elite player at every position, tight end is undoubtedly the hardest to find. OverallWhat does that mean overall? Well, generally speaking, no, a tight end is not worthy of a top-10 pick. Their value in terms of production on the field just doesn’t have the kind of value that positions like quarterback, defensive linemen or wide receivers have. But if the Lions believe that Hockenson can be in that elite tier of tight ends—and obviously they do—this pick does make some rational sense. Finding an elite tight end is hard to do, and if Detroit has finally hit on a first-round tight end, Hockenson will be worth it. The Detroit Lions entered the 2018 season with an entirely revamped tight end room. Eric Ebron and Darren Fells both joined another team last spring and the team had to replace them. Enter Levine Toilolo (and Luke Willson), a tight end with 74 career receptions in five NFL seasons. A tight end who played in one of the greatest offenses in the modern era, the 2016 Atlanta Falcons. Toilolo had a fairly quiet year in Detroit. He caught 21 passes for 263 yards and a touchdown, but low production was expected from the Stanford alum. Toilolo was primarily brought in to be a blocker. And a great blocker he was.The tight end finds most his success as a run blocker. He is great at getting low and driving defenders out of a gap. Toilolo is really strong and can push a defender all the way across the formation when he is asked to. He is a smart blocker as well, and rarely does he end up shoving the man that he is blocking into the path of the running back. He has great awareness, and when he is forced to go in motion to find someone to block, he usually is able to find his assignment in time to make a good block to support his running back.While Toilolo is very strong and has all the physicality anyone would ever need to succeed in the NFL, he is one of the stiffest players on the roster. He has virtually zero explosion, he is not at all agile and he is incredibly slow. There may be a few NFL tackles with better athleticism than Toilolo. This should hurt him a bit as a pass blocker, as tight ends are usually matched up against quick T.J. Jones Jersey White , agile and bendy defensive ends. Toilolo still manages to make it work, though. The tight end is often beat out of his stance by his opposition, but his footwork, football IQ and technique allows him to recover quickly enough to seal the edge anyways. This play against the New England Patriots is a good example.The Patriots rusher clearly gets the jump on Toilolo. The linebacker gets beneath the tight end and drives him back. Toilolo’s strength allows him to hold the block long enough to give Matthew Stafford a clean pocket, though, and the play results in a touchdown.On this play against the Patriots, he is forced to hold a block in open space as he is lined up as a receiver. He is basically the only thing between a sack and a touchdown on this play, and he comes up big for the Lions. While his lack of athleticism does not detract from his skills as a blocker much, it kills any chance at contributing a large volume as a receiver. Toilolo had a few stand out games as a receiver last season, but when watching the games back, it feels more like the opposing defense was allowing him to. They were willing to let Toilolo have a huge day if it meant not letting Stafford find receivers like Kenny Golladay open downfield. While you can commend Toilolo for being able to get open and catch passes, the big days he had towards the end of the season seem to be more of an indictment of the tight end room’s failures to produce all season rather than an indication of the skill of Toilolo. In reality, Toilolo is a very slow, stiff route runner. He gets a majority of his work as a quick outlet for Stafford underneath. He rarely gets anything after the catch, and when he is forced to run a route deep downfield, he cannot get open against man coverage. This isn’t a huge issue, though. Toilolo was never supposed to be a big part of the Lions receiving game anyways.Does Toilolo have a future in Detroit?Toilolo is a player made to play for new Lions offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell. His ability as a run blocker should help the ground attack that Detroit really seems to be leaning towards and with question marks across the Lions offensive line at the moment, his ability as a pass blocker will be of great use as well. The tight end will be an unrestricted free agent this offseason. He signed a one-year deal worth $1 million last spring. Expect a contract for him this year to cost slightly more and maybe even have a few extra years on it. He will not be a starter going forward, and Detroit will still need to add an athletic receiving tight end, but Toilolo deserves another contract with the Lions. He was brought in to do one job, and he did that job really well.
