Price on front of ESPN Draft page
Former UCLA defensive tackle Brian Price is on the front of ESPN's NFL Draft page, as the experts break down the defensive tackle in the draft.
Draft day in the NFL often can look similar to a highly publicized IPO stock offering on Wall Street -- just as buyer's frenzy can drive the price of a new stock to ridiculous heights, professional football franchises often can overvalue players whenever there is a run on prospects at certain positions.
The 2008 draft offered a perfect example of this. Everyone knew the Dolphins were going to select Michigan Wolverines LT Jake Long with the No. 1 pick in the draft, but Long was only one of eight highly touted left tackles. This volume of talent caused a lot of teams to believe that they could land one of these cornerstones for their roster even if they had a late first-round draft slot. That mindset was the primary reason why seven left tackles were selected from picks 12-26 in that draft, even if some of those players were considered reaches.
The problem for teams in this scenario is the same as someone purchasing the IPO stock. Just as the most successful stockbrokers set a value point on a stock that they won't go over regardless of how trading goes, NFL teams do best when they establish a value point for the prospects at the run position that they adhere to as draft day gospel.
I bring this up because today's Draft Lab subject, UCLA defensive tackle Brian Price, could end up being on the precipice of that value point for many teams. He is one of those prospects who is graded quite high in some circles (No. 13 on Mel Kiper's most recent Big Board) but who is perceived as having less value in others (No. 30 in Todd McShay's initial mock draft).
That means he could end up on either side of the defensive tackle run that is almost certain to happen in this year's draft.
So which side of that potential run do the metrics and scouting-eye review say he should land on? Let's start with the numbers.
Price's run-stopping metrics in the five games I broke down (at Tennessee, at Stanford, vs. Oregon, vs. Arizona State, at USC) are very impressive. He won 18 of the 57 point of attack (POA) run blocks directed his way and also drew two holding penalties. Put the two together and it equals a 35.1 percent POA win rate; that is almost equal to Ndamukong Suh's 35.3 percent POA win rate (read more on Suh here).
Price was also comparable to Suh in his POA win rate when blocked by a single defender. He won 16 of the 36 single-team POA blocks, or 44.4 percent, versus Suh's 14 wins in 32 POA blocks (43.8 percent win rate).
Where Price doesn't match up with Suh is in splash play volume (a splash play being defined as when a defender does something to negatively impact a passing play -- sacks, tipped passes and hurries being chief among these). Suh had 36 of these in seven games versus Price's 13 in five games, but Price did have a higher splash play percentage on pure pass-rush plays (15.5 percent versus Suh's 13.6 percent).
That shows Price's potential upside -- but it also illustrates part of his downside. Suh's splash play rate was achieved in 272 pass-rush attempts. Price's came in only 97 attempts. Part of that is due to my having broken down seven of Suh's games versus five of Price's, but that still doesn't account for the huge gap in play volume.
To look at that from another angle, Price was on the field for 234 of the 318 defensive snaps the Bruins faced in those contests, or 73.5 percent of the time. Suh was in 496 of the 508 Cornhusker snaps, or 97.6 percent of Nebraska's plays. Price's on-field percentage total is one of the lowest of any of the defensive tackles in the Draft Lab series, and that suggests durability could be something of a concern.
Another concern is that Price is a two-trick pony from a pass-rush move perspective -- and only one of those tricks seems to work well. Eight of his 13 splash plays came as a result of a very effective "rip" move, but he gained only one splash as a result of the bull rush that serves as his primary pass-rush technique. If he didn't see much success with his power move at the collegiate level, it stands to reason that he'll see even less success with it in the NFL, so developing other moves should be high on his offseason training list.
The Football Scientist Lab Result: Any favorable comparison to Ndamukong Suh is obviously very noteworthy. The durability and pass-rush move concerns may keep him from cracking the top 10 on draft day, but overall, it looks like Price should land on the positive side of the value point scale. He gets a TFS seal of approval
With all due respect, I think you should simply post the link rather than cut and paste another writer's intellectual property.
Some may find a link less convenient, but it's always best to set a good example and respect the hard work of others.
Alternatively, you could copy the lead-in and link to the rest.
actually, if it comes from espn, i'm happy not to pump up their web hits. they shamelessly promote suc as their main western football 'power', and report nothing negative about the sucsters unless forced to do so.
I agree with Newspaper Guild--especially considering that it appears part of what you cut-and-pasted is behind ESPN's paywall.
At the very least, you should credit the ESPN author and provide a link to the story on their site. It's poor blogging form to do otherwise.
well that's one way around the insider subscription firewall...
would have to agree with NG, without his comment was under impression you had done the breakdown of defensive play.
have you done this in the past? used info from another source and not credited it in your article?
That was pretty interesting stuff, how they analyze these kids so deeply. I always wondered how they broke down the linemen, the kids you normally don't watch during a game. I knew there had to be some objective testing they used, but I did not know it was this precise. Of course, the millions they throw at these kids, I am sure they want to be as objective as possible.
I have to agree with the other commenters.
Your presentation of the ESPN story is misleading. I thought you wrote the article until reading the comments and checking at ESPN.
It must be a slow day on the blog...
This blog is seriously disappointing...Bruin fans want to know the inside scoop about our recruiting/offseason efforts...we don't need to see here stuff we can get elsewhere...
i dont know why everyone is harping on gold for providing us with free reading material that others have to pay for. lighten up
"This blog is...", blah, blah, blah, waaaah. Maybe Bruin fans DO want to know about UCLA related info we can get elsewhere. How could you complain about Jon doing all the work and filtering through the crap on BSPN? Jon is an inside scoop and filter journalist...what more could you ask for?
Everyone needs to leave Jon alone. If you don't like it then don't read this blog and GO TROLL SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!
Keep up the great work Jon! I on the other hand don't mind the link/re-post from ESPN because I rarely read college football news from the Pro-U$C writers. Their bias makes for an unpleasant read right up there with the dumb writers of the LA/Trojan Times.
Jon, there's a line in the movie "Wall Street" that is all too applicable to you. Gekko tells wannabe emulator Bud Fox, when he forwards him canned reports, to "Stop sending me information and start GETTING me some."
While you're writing style is cutesy and more accessible than Dohn's, your work ethic in terms of digging in and turning this blog into a meaningful, alive first look resource that trumps other sites is lazy and underachieving. You should go back and review when Dohn was running the blog...you could visit it every hour and find something fresh...even at late hours (his night owl specials)...and mostly it was stuff he himself discovered. Here we find you, as a beat writer, can't even trouble yourself to attend some of the pressers of your beat---which is the barest minimal expectation..go and replicate some quotes...big deal...
And today you put up someone else's article giving every appearance of palming it off as your own. Interesting piece? Sure.
Attributable to Jon Gold? Nope.
Even when you woke up on the wrong side of the Chow "hire" you purloined the unfounded speculation of others instead of being able to tap your own insiders.
You've had some time now to set up your own network. But you've been "self-satisfied" enough to just record the talking heads and show up for pressers...sometimes...and provide chunks off the cadavers of other people's work. And, as most Bruin fans might site GG: Stop sending us information and start GETTING us some. For your own self-esteem if nothing else...
Jon,
Although I agree with citing work, I wholely am against the thesis of Anonymous 7:49, who may be Dohn's ex-lover.
The only aspect of this site that infuriates me is that there are so many "Anonymous" contributors. Isn't there a way you can force an identity (like on the Times website) so these chickens can't hid behind each other's cloaked presence?
Anon, 7:59.. You have an option to not come here and get information that you yourself may or may not be too lazy to find for yourself.... please, do not kill the messenger for posting information on a great bruin that everyone is hoping for the best. It is you that comes here looking for answers and it is Jon who is trying his best to find it for us.... so just relax. If you are so infatuated by Dohn, go troll on his Rutgers blog...
I'm a little confused by the commenters who seem to think that it's okay for Jon to pass off someone else's work as his own because it's about a "great Bruin" or because ESPN has a supposed anti-UCLA bias. That's ludicrous. It's not okay regardless who the source is, and as a "journalist," I'd think Jon would be particularly sensitive to that. His work could just as easily be pasted onto someone else's blog.
As for "filtering," plenty of blogs do that. They usually quote just a small piece of the original article, cite the source, and add a link. Jon could easily have done that here.
The fact that this entire ESPN article has remained on this page speaks poorly of Jon's work as a journalist and of the Daily News as an organization. Sorry, but reading ESPN doesn't constitute original reporting.
I too am disappointed that an ESPN article was copied and pasted here with no citation. I'm sure the folks at ESPN wouldn't be too happy to know that the Daily News is posting articles from its subscription based Insider section.
Since Dohn left, this blog hasn't been much of a source of original information, but has basically been a place where I can come and find everything around the net relating to UCLA bball and fball, confirmed stories or not. That's fine, I just go to Scout now to get that "breaking" news. I hope as Jon continues to develop as a journalist he'll be able to develop the inside sources that once made this blog the go-to place for breaking UCLA news.
What a bunch of whiners! To make an issue out of something like this shows you clearly have nothing better going on. For those of us with common sense, the tagline, "Price on front of ESPN Draft page," is a pretty clear indication Gold did not write the entry.