Weekly Commentary & Review #6

Johnny Football destined for failure? How to judge the quality of information: Are you incentivized for accuracy or engagement?

This post looks at 2-4 relevant articles, analyses or other content from the week that provide useful insight to be absorbed, or have missing context needing to be added. I’ll add my takes on the material, while heavily quoting the relevant passages.

WAS THERE A PATH TO SUCCESS FOR JOHNNY FOOTBALL?

Netflix released a new documentary on the rise and fall of Johnny Manziel

The rise and fall of Johnny Manziel is an uncontroversial and universally accepted narrative of a talented player (maybe some questions of how talented) who never had what it took to make it in the NFL. Manziel’s failure was pre-ordained. Even Manziel himself in a newly released Netflix documentary says, “… at that point and time in my life, I was incapable of being a good NFL quarterback.”

There was a lot of insight into Manziel in this documentary that paints the picture of a lost cause, but also examples of how he had succeeded and loved the game before coming to the NFL, where the structure didn’t fit what he had thrived under in the past. I’ve always wondered if Manziel’s failure is such an open-and-shut case of player inability, as opposed to how environment can be structured to motivate different types of players to compete. Like all player projections, prospect evaluations, etc there are stochastic effects that don’t allow us to reduce uncertainty to zero - meaning outcomes can’t be assumed, even for a clearly immature prospect like Manziel.

The documentary crew got lengthly access to Manziel, his family, his former best friend and co-conspirator in signature-for-cash schemes, and, most interestingly, college offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury. Due to either necessity or a rational calculation, how Kingsbury and the larger A&M structure treated Manziel was very different from the regimented structure of the NFL, perhaps enhancing his results. I’ll get to that in more detail later.

The story really starts with Manziel earning the starting job at Tivy High School in Kerrville, Texas four games into his sophomore season. Manziel was part of a quarterback committee the rest of that year, eventually going on to take the full-time role as a junior. In Manziel’s senior season, he threw for 3,609 yards and 45 touchdowns, adding another 1,674 yards and 30 touchdowns on the ground. Manziel was named The National High School Coaches Association (NHSCA) Senior Athlete of the Year in football and Mr. Football (Texas).

Manziel wasn’t recruited by his ideal school, The University of Texas, and instead took a full-ride to play at Texas A&M. It’s likely that size concerns were the motivating factor for Texas and other programs to pass on Manziel (6’0”, 193 lbs coming out of high school), with so much of Manziel’s value generated on the ground.

I think the documentary did a poor job of putting proper context around how good, at least offensively, A&M was built around Manziel, instead focusing on the school’s move to the SEC and improbability of competing - or, at least, questions around them being able to compete - with the best conference in college football. In truth, A&M was stacked on offense, especially at offensive line and wide receiver. Manziel wasn’t the singular savior of the program. Bomani Jones makes the point well:

A&M actually had six first-round picks, including Manziel, play significant roles during his two starting seasons (2012-2013): Luke Joeckel (No. 2, 2013), Jake Matthews (No. 6, 2014), Mike Evans (No. 7, 2014), Cedric Ogbuehi (No. 21, 2015), and Germain Ifedi (No. 31, 2016). Now, not all of his teammates overlapped, and they weren’t all success. But Matthews and Evans were at A&M with Manziel for both seasons, and both have been very good in the NFL. Evans’ career qualifies, at least, for Hall-of-Very-Good, producing over 1,000 yards in each of his nine NFL seasons, tied for 30th all-time in receiving touchdowns with 81.

It’s fair to discount Manziel’s accomplishments due to surroundings, but I think it’s often used after-the-fact when a prospect fails to explain away the general uncertainty of translating college performance to the pros, and not hugely predictive. if Joe Burrow failed, I’m sure the “obvious” explanation would be that he only played at such a high level because he had two of the best receivers of the last decade, Justin Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase.

Manziel’s performance at A&M was very strong, even with some built-in discount for surroundings. As a redshirt freshman in 2012, Manziel was a top-20 passer by efficiency (adjusted yards per attempt). Using ESPN QBR, which includes rushing contributions and discounts for sacks and fumbles, Manziel led all of CFB in value added (91.3 out of 100 scale). In an admittedly weak quarterback year, Manziel won the Heisman trophy, the first ever freshman to do so.

In 2013, Manziel’s overall value by QBR fell slightly to sixth (86.7), but his passing improved significantly, averging 9.6 yards per attempt, fourth among all college quarterbacks. Manziel’s rushing contribution fell significantly, but it was still a huge value-add to his game. Over two seasons, Manziel showed that he could be effective running, that he could improve his passing (20-plus yards per completion to Mike Evans will help), and stay healthy (played all 26 games). The hype didn’t match the player with Manziel. But how could it when he was the maybe the most hyped player in college football history?

Manziel’s teammate advantages were probably more than built into his prospect assessment from NFL teams, and his off-the-field issues were other factors that seem to obviously explain his lack of success in the NFL ex post. Fantasy Life’s Anthony Reinhard makes a point many must have been wondering watching the documentary and getting confirmation of just how much Manziel partied in college and during the draft process (including right before the combine), and his disinterest in studying the game like a professional.

Reinhard does acknowledge the selection bias of who gets the most focus on stories of off-field improprieties: the NFL busts. A propensity to party, or a lack of studying skills become endearing anecdotes for uber-talented, Hall-of-Fame quarterbacks like Brett Favre or Sonny Jurgensen, but they’re definitive evidence of no other fate but failure for those who do fail. Favre didn’t know what nickel defense was until mid-way through his third NFL season, his second as starter for the Packers. Jurgensen was famous for all-night drinking sessions, even until 4 a.m. the night before a game. It’s not that I’d argue Manziel’s party and shitty preparation wasn’t to his detriment, we just don’t know it was a knockout blow under all circumstances.

Another poor piece of context when discussing the risk-reward decision with drafting Manziel is that the cost for the Browns, in terms of draft capital, wasn’t really that high. Manziel was the 22nd pick in the draft. Manziel’s name litters “Biggest NFL Busts” lists, even though his draft position and cost was much lower than the truly huge busts taken at the top of drafts, like Jamarcus Russell or Ryan Leaf. The hype around Manziel makes it feel like he was one of the worst picks you could make, but a swing-and-miss on a talented (and troubled) potential franchise quarterback at the end of the first round isn’t objectively a big risk. In the same 2014 NFL draft, the Browns used the No. 8 pick on cornerback Justin Gilbert, who the Browns traded away after two seasons for a measly sixth-round pick, and was out of the NFL a year before his rookie contract ended. Gilbert won’t make an biggest busts lists, but he cost the Browns roughly 50% more draft capital and $4 million in cap dollars.

The intense media focus on Manziel added the perception of additional costs, but those costs were external to the core function of the team. The negative externalities are the same situation with any first-round quarterback pick - thereby making them undervalued in a purely objective sense - but on steroids with the Manziel hype.

Okay, I think I’ve established that you can’t completely write of Manziel as a prospect and that the Browns investment in him wasn’t objectively massive. But the interesting question for me is how things could have gone differently. You can’t be certain what type of coaching and system would have worked for Manziel, but looking at how A&M and Kingsbury treated him (maybe entitled him) could be instructive.

In the documentary, Manziel describes his rough first start against Florida, losing 20-17 and passing for only 173 yards with zero touchdowns. According to Billy Liucci, editor of TexAgs, Kingsbury took the feedback from that game and immediately shifted by adjusting his scheme to the player, realizing that the more regulated and controlled approach he ideally wanted wasn’t ideal.

“I remember Kliff telling me after that first game, ‘I should have just let him do his thing.’ And from that point on, I think he did that.”

In the more regimented NFL, and with Browns coaches who probably didn’t even want Manziel on the team, letting him “do his thing” was not going to be an option.

Kingsbury tells another story later of Manziel showing up hungover, sweating like crazy during the warm-ups against Mississippi State, and his only admonition to Manziel was: “Well you better play fucking good.” It was perhaps Manziel’s best game of the year, completing 83% of his passing for 311 yards, adding 126 yards and two touchdowns on the ground.

Kingsbury and A&M may have been too lax about Manziel’s behavior according to the generally accepted rules of coaching, but the results paint a different picture. The general rules and expectations for player behavior work best for most players, which makes it easiest to apply them universally and get good results. But some players need different environments, and for a player with Manziel’s upside, it could be worth catering to those needs. Kingsbury seemed to understand this:

“I always felt you had to be careful on trying to tell Johnny how to live his life. Wasn’t ideal, I think, for us as coaches, but it was kinda like, that’s the dark side he needed to play good, and as long as he wasn’t getting in trouble, do your deal.”

There might not be a way to structure a system around Manziel to give him freedom to off-field partying, being less diligent in the film room, and him staying out of trouble considering the intense media scrutiny he was under. But Manziel, at least at that point of his life, needed less structure to have fun playing, which was a key to his success.

Even in the non-ideal circumstances of Cleveland, where Manziel admits he wasn’t having fun and didn’t want to play football, he was okay statistically his second season. Manziel’s his passing numbers weren’t good (5.2 adjusted net yards per attempt versus league average of 6.2), but he ran for 230 yards while starting only six games, including gaining 11 first downs on 37 carries with zero fumbles. ESPN’s QBR, which gives quarterbacks proportionally higher credit for rushing production, had him at 58.6 (50 is average).

And it wasn’t like Manziel was surrounding by studs on offense or a defense that could cover for bumps in his play by holding down opponents’ scores. The Browns were third to last in opponent EPA per play that year. Their highest targeted receivers in 2015 were Taylor Gabriel, Gary Barnidge and Brian Hartline. Hartline was out of the NFL the next season, Barnidge a year later. The Browns didn’t score a lot of points with Manziel, but his highlights were a lot of fun.

It was such a contrast the way Manziel was treated in Cleveland versus College Station. He started Week 2 in 2015 after an injury to Josh McCown, completed 8-of-15 passes at 10.5 yards per attempt (They had a big lead and heavy run game), and won the game. The Browns proceeded to send him back to the bench, not giving him another start for two months, forced by another McCown injury.

The week after he had his best throwing performance in the NFL (Week 10, 2015, 372 yards at 8.3 yards per attempt at the Pittsburgh Steelers), video surfaced of Manziel partying over the bye week and the Browns demoted him to third string. The framing was that Manziel “lied” to the Browns management about the incident and that led to his benching. But what are you going to say when you’ve been told that the bye week was a test and you shouldn’t party? Reports were that Manziel “wasn't arrested over the weekend, nor was there any indication he caused trouble in Austin.” It could be viewed as setting him up to fail by forcing him to agree to behave out of character, not the typical standard of staying out of trouble, which he did.

There may have been no path to success for Manziel in the NFL, but we can’t say that definitively. Manziel showed improvement in his second NFL season, despite perhaps the NFL’s worst supporting cast of receivers. But his performance alone wasn’t the measure the Browns were most fixated on, it was his behavior matching what they believed the starting quarterback had to live up to. That was never going to happen with Manziel, so then you have to decide whether to give up or adapt your approach. The Browns did the former, while Kingsbury and Texas A&M chose the latter.

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P.S. Not relevant to this post, but the most jarring thing about the documentary was the money that college athletes generally, and Manziel specifically, made for others will being amateurs. Texas A&M reportedly received $300 million more in donations during one of Manziel’s years than they had ever before, and they funded a long-term capital asset (new stadium) largely on the back of Manziel mania. Putting together the increased sales of tickets, jerseys (45 million No. 2’s sold), aforementioned donations, and longer-term repetitional benefits to Texas A&M, I think it’s fairly easy to get an estimate over $1 billion in value that Manziel created, seeing none of it officially while he was at the university.

WHEN ANALYTICS AND INCENTIVES COLLIDE

395 touches for Christian McCaffrey is more his ceiling than median projection

I’m going to be picking apart work of another analyst here. Maybe I’m being unfair in calling out someone specifically, so let me know in the comments if it feels this way. That said, I think this example illustrates a larger point about the mainstreaming of “analytics” and how you can’t assume that to be synonymous with accurate predictions, if the incentives push you elsewhere.