Month: April 2021

(the following is a significant update to part 1 of this series)

Sometimes methodological breakthroughs happen at inopportune times. Like, for example, the day after one has published one’s findings using older methodology. In this case, on Saturday (the day after part one of this series went up), a breakthrough was made seemingly finally enabling reliable measure of the most lateral anterior thoracic pathway. Although it’s only been a few days since then, rigorous testing seems to back up the reliability of this method, with measures correlating strongly with expected results (although more testing is obviously needed).

As such, I went back and applied this measure to the current crop of lateral anterior oriented quarterbacks. And the results were somewhat surprising.

Continue reading Biomechanical Draft Guide 2021 Part 2

(to read the intro to this series, click here)

After studying tape of QBs drafted from 2014-2020, the one universal trend that emerged (albeit from a necessarily small sample size) is that QBs showing more than one area of full thoracic efficiency became star QBs. The full list of such QBs (in rough order of thoracic efficiency) is Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert, and Deshaun Watson. Josh Allen took a few years to overcome accuracy issues (noted when he was drafted as posterior cervical thoracic overlap, generally correlated with issues targeting specific depths of field), but in the end every QB who showed more than one area of full thoracic efficiency when drafted eventually became an NFL star (or shows such promise, in the case of Justin Herbert).

So if there’s one QB prediction that I feel most confident making for the upcoming draft, it’s that

Continue reading Biomechanical Draft Guide 2021 Part 1: Quarterbacks

This year’s draft guide will be focusing primarily on QBs, since this is a lauded draft class at QB, and my methodology for analyzing QBs has been heavily revamped over the past couple months (there will also be a second part to this guide, discussing standout options at other positions). The primary basis by which these QBs will be judged will be by measuring areas of full efficiency. After revisiting college film of QBs drafted 2014-2020, clear trends emerged– almost every QB who showed at least one area of full efficiency in their thoracic areas was able to eventually find success as a starting QB. QBs who showed more than one area of full thoracic efficiency universally became stars.

Continue reading Intro to Draft Guide 2021

Hi guys, on Tuesday, SteveS asked an excellent question, one to which I’ve given a lot of thought over the years. So I wanted to give his answer the time and space it deserves. SteveS asked, “To what degree do you think [biomechanical] physical characteristics versus mental processing speed figure into overall success as an NFL QB in today’s NFL?”

Continue reading Biomechanical Q & A