The 2013 NFL Draft has come and gone and the New England Patriots decided to attempt to break their trend of drafting ineffective Wide Receivers. The original article can be found here: The Patriot Way and Wide Receiver Evaluation
Typically a player is challenged with tougher competition, but not always. And the utilization of a player in easier versus more challenging games provides another measurable view on a Wide Receiver. These things bring into light three proprietary metrics, known as Competition, Reliance, and Challenge, isolated towards the player to provide a clearer picture of their on the field production and what their college coaches really thought of them. It also helps identify system players versus players that would likely succeed outside of their system.
Using these measures along with other analytics and science, it is a good bet that the Patriots broke their string of bad WR selections when they selected WR Josh Boyce with the 102nd pick in the 2013 NFL Draft. Boyce was an arbitrage selection, one which will pay off in the long term. In the games measured, his competition score was just shy of the top 10% of all WRs historically in the system, and his challenge score indicates he was challenged heavily on his way to a high Wide Receiver production score. His reliance score was neutral, showing that there were no major red flags in the production. This combined with his physical measures profile a WR with a high likelihood for success.
The New England Patriots did take a WR earlier in the draft with the 60th pick in WR Aaron Dobson, and while he has a solid production score, it was about 10% lower than Boyce’s score and Dobson faced weaker competition and it was just as much of a challenge for Dobson. Thus, it is a red flag for when his challenge level is raised. Physically, he has a good skill set, but so did a few other Wide Receivers the Patriots have busted on in the past.