NFL rookies today must deal with much more media attention than ever before. Their names are plastered on draft boards across ESPN and social media. The hype behind some of the young athletes lead fans to expect an immediate impact on the field. Star rookies from the past few seasons like Ezekiel Elliott, Carson Wentz, Dak Prescott, and O’Dell Beckham Jr. are among those responsible for the high expectations set today.
Data on these athletes is greater than ever before. NFL scouting teams measure just about every attribute they can measure. Players are asked to take the Wonderlic Test - a 50 multiple choice intelligence test that needs to be completed in 12 minutes. Players are also interviewed with questions that don’t seem to have anything to do with performance on the football field. This includes questions like “Would you rather be a cat or a dog?” given to Western Michigan’s OT Willie Beavers and “Do you find your mother attractive?” asked by an NFL Scout to one of the rookies of the 2016 Draft. Along with these methods of scouting an athlete’s personality and intelligence, performance-driven statistics are measured as well at the NFL Combine, College Pro-Days, and film throughout their careers.
This abundance of data is digested by NFL scouting departments in order to make a decision come Draft Day. The expectations of rookies to immediately perform at a high-level is built from this huge amount of data. These high expectations sometimes lead to disappointing fan bases based on unexciting rookie years. An example of this can be based off of the 582 Wide Receivers drafted in the past 17 years. Of those 582 players, 35% didn’t catch a single pass in their first year. Of those few WRs chosen in the first round, 7% have not caught a pass in their rookie campaigns.
An NFL Reporter’s ability to quickly tweet out and report on this data gives NFL fans an analysis of what to expect from each player declared for the draft. This public access to NFL data is what allows a community of fans to analyze players much more closely than ever before. This allows fans and teams to build off of the excitement of young athletes possibly having an incredible impact on the field immediately.
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