Rosenhaus In Review

One of the many wonderful people we've begun to follow on Twitter (follow us here [1] is prominent agent Drew Rosenhaus [2], who uses Twitter mostly as a way to do PR for his clients.

A sample Rosenhaus post might be something like this one [3] about Lions running back Kevin Smith:

I like Kevin Smith's guarantee that the Lions will make the play-offs in 09. You must have confidence to succeed in the NFL and Kev has it

It's hard to confirm or refute the point one way or another; it's true that if Smith literally had no confidence, he probably would not be a successful NFL player. He might also be afraid to leave, say, his bed.

Some of Rosenhaus' Tweets, though, are extremely quantifiable. Take this recent one regarding Rams punter Donnie Jones:

It was a shame that punter Donnie Jones of the Rams did not make the Pro Bowl last season. He put up the best numbers in the NFC by far.

Looking at our numbers from last season for punters, St. Louis only gained 3.95 points of field position on punts, which isn't particularly impressive. If we look at the points gained or lost strictly on the punts without considering returns, though, Jones' 11.85 points gained are actually the best in the NFC by a wide margin; 49ers punter Andy Lee was second, with 6.48 points gained on his punts.

So you can score one for Rosenhaus on that one, but how frequently are his claims accurate? Well, welcome to a new, potentially reoccurring feature here at FO: Rosenhaus In Review. We'll break down a few of Rosenhaus' most recent Tweets and analyze them using our numbers and research.

I expect LeSean McCoy [4] to be a big contributor this year for the Eagles. The Eagles offensive scheme is the perfect fit for his skill set.

Well, this one isn't provable statistically, but we can look at the research done by our friends at NFL Draft Scout [5], which is freely available on NFL.com for this year's class, to see what they think [6] about McCoy's skill set.

To work in Philadelphia's version of the West Coast offense as a back, it's pretty obvious that you need to be a versatile back, capable of receiving and pass blocking in addition to simply running the ball. McCoy is certainly a superb receiver, as the profile notes, "Very natural hands as a receiver; will excel on swing and screen passes. Uses his quick feet to run crisp out routes."

As for his blocking skills? Well, to put it nicely, not so much. "A liability in pass protection, throwing a shoulder instead of moving his feet to take on or even just get in the way of a rusher. Whiffs on his cut blocks against blitzing linebackers."

We suppose that as blocking might not be part of McCoy's skill set, Rosenhaus isn't including that in his discussion.

Look for Eric Winston [7] to make the Pro Bowl this season. The Houston Texans' right tackle is one of the most underrated players in the NFL.

Perhaps Winston will, and perhaps he's underrated. But that doesn't play out in our numbers. As a pass protector, Winston is unimpressive; among right tackles, only San Diego's Jeromey Clary allowed more sacks, according to our game charting project, than the seven Winston allowed. As a run blocker, there's no signature in our Adjusted Line Yards indicating that he has a huge impact; the Texans were 21st in the league on runs behind right tackle and 13th on runs to right end, and were 31st on runs behind left tackle (where Winston might pull to on runs). Their best performance was on runs up the middle, where they were seventh.

While the Cardinals insist [8] they won't trade him, I feel several teams would give up a 1st round pick and more for my client Darnell Dockett.

Well, we can't say that Dockett is or isn't worth a first round pick and more without polling all 32 NFL GM's, although it's hard to fathom that teams who were only willing to give up third and fifth-round picks for players like Shaun Rogers and Marcus Stroud a year ago would give up a first-round pick and more for Dockett.

With that being said, Dockett's performance last year was reasonably impressive. He ranked 18th in the league amongst defensive tackles by making 6.4% of his team's plays, while his 40 stops ranked 13th. What was most impressive, though, were his 20 defeats; that was behind only Jay Ratliff and Kevin Williams amongst interior linemen. He was also second amongst defensive tackles with 14 quarterback hits.

It's hard to see a team giving up a first-round pick for Dockett, but he was a very good defensive tackle a year ago.

Our client Travis Fisher [9] was released today by the Lions. Travis is a top notch cornerback and he will not be out of a job for long.

It seems strange to suggest that a cornerback who was only a starter for half the season with the 2008 Detroit Lions is top-notch, but we can examine Fisher's performance on the field regardless.

Fisher put up the best numbers of any regular Lions cornerback a year ago, allowing 9.1 adjusted yards per pass and a 42 percent success rate. Leigh Bodden was at 9.6 yards per pass with a 38 percent success rate, while Brian Kelly held up the rear with a dire 11.2 yards per pass and 34 percent success rate.

While it's not possible to totally extricate Fisher's performance from the players around him, players with similar statistical profiles in 2008 would include Dunta Robinson (franchised, 9.2 yards per pass with a 44 percent success rate), Leon Hall (former first round pick, 8.8 yards per pass with a 41 percent success rate) and Terence Newman (given a huge contract last offseason, 9.3 yards per pass with a 40 percent success rate). Those statistics don't mean that Fisher's on a level with those cornerbacks, but it does point out that it's not impossible for a top-notch corner to put up those sort of statistics.

Fisher might not be as good as Rosenhaus presents him to be, but he's also probably better than anything else the Lions had at cornerback, either in 2008 or in 2009.