Hey everyone! We hope you are having a good offseason given the current state of the world. Last year was the first year we created rookie projections. This post is going to look back and see how we did.
I don't think I'll have time to review all of them, so I'll pick a few to start.
Note - The 2019 points are approxmately correct. Sometimes some data issues cause them to be off by 4-6 points.
Below is a link to the projections from last year if you are interested in reviewing them.
General Comments
Our model was all over the place with playing time predictions which makes an apples to apples comparison difficult
I'll try to add helpful commentary when I can, but most of the commentary will be me pontificating on what went wrong.
This is also a quick look due to limitations caused by inadequate archiving on my part. For the 2020 projections, I plan on doing a complete analysis and publishing of holistic results.
QB
Dwayne Haskins
- 2019 Project Pts - 254
- 2019 Actual Pts - 79.6
- Commentary - Haskins only started a handful of games and even if he ended up a day one starter, 254 might have been out of reach. He was starting to look good at the end of the year, though.
Kyler Murray
- 2019 Projected Pts - 224
- 2019 Actual Pts - 283
- Commentary - We were at the low end here too. He played all season; we only had him starting 13 games. If our model were normalized for the full season, we'd have landed around 256. The points are still lower but much closer to his actual performance!
WR
Jalen Hurd
- 2019 Project Pts - 142
- 2019 Actual Pts - :(
- Commentary - Hurd didn't play a snap.
Marquise Brown
- 2019 Projected Pts - 132
- 2019 Actual Pts - 166
- Commentary - Brown started hot and faded toward the end of the season. We had him as our 2nd highest projected rookie behind Hurd. If you remove Hurd, Brown was valuable when not injured.
N'Keal Harry
- 2019 Project Points - 131
- 2019 Actual Pts - 44
- Commentary - I didn't follow Harry when he returned from injury, but the per-game production seems underwhelming.
RB
Josh Jacobs
- 2019 Project Pts - 148
- 2019 Actual Pts - 193
- Commentary - We had him ranked 1; we underestimated points, but he was the most explosive rookie RB when he was healthy.
Justice Hill
- 2019 Projected Pts - 144
- 2019 Actual Pts - 54
- Commentary - His value was tied to being a starter, which he was not last year; thus, we missed big.
Damien Harris
- 2019 Project Points - 143
- 2019 Actual Pts - :(
- Commentary - Like N'Keal Harry, I didn't follow his season. We missed big, but he didn't play so until he gets a starting role it's hard to evaluate our model.
TE
- T.J. Hockenson
- 2019 Projected Pts - 114
- 2019 Actual Pts - 81
- Commentary - He didn't play in every game, but we were spot on with having him ranked as the highest projected points to 2019.