Late Round NFL Sleepers Do Include a Lot of Small School Guys

Joe Banner, in a Q&A with Sheil Kapadia on the Athletic, talked about a study that Philadelphia Eagles did when he was with the organization, on increasing the chances of finding late round sleepers.

"So this is what we did, and it came out of some studies that we did, and at the time was something we held pretty close to the vest. We found that players in rounds five, six and seven that turn out to be quality starters came from three categories. One, they came from a small school. Two, they had been injured their last year in school so they were undervalued. Or three, they were undersized but for some reason overcame it. If you’re in the sixth round and you’re picking some guy from Ohio State that has great height, weight and speed, your chances that everybody missed him and he turns out to be a starter are miniscule."

Banner went on to say that it was a general philosophy, and that “the odds are still that you pick somebody in the sixth round, they’re never gonna be playing a major role for you.”

I’m going to get to the small school idea in a second, but I do want to point out that it’s hard to identify that philosophy as manifesting with the Eagles prior to Banner’s departure, or since. He doesn’t say when that study was done or became part of the organization philosophy, but the draft record does not show an emphasis on small school players. Here are the Eagles draft picks since 2004. From 2013-2017 (after Banner left the organization), every pick in the 5th round or later was a major conference BCS player. From 2009-2012, every pick in the 5th round or later was a major conference BCS player. From 2004-2008, they took 10 players from schools outside the BCS conferences. The best by far was Trent Cole of Cincinnati (Cincinnati was still in Conference USA at the time, would move to the Big East a year later). The other 9 started a combined 48 games in the NFL.

The Eagles best late round picks during that time were Cole, Jason Kelce, and Brent Celek, all out of Cincinnati, along with Kurt Coleman of, yes, Ohio State.

That doesn’t mean it’s not or wasn’t an accurate assessment; it’s just hard to see the small school portion as being a key factor for the Eagles. Now, let’s look at that school comparison.

If we go back to the 1990 draft, only 28 players drafted in round 5 or later was selected to an all pro team (excluding kickers and punters). Here’s a general breakdown of where those players came from:

National Power Programs* (10): Tom Brady (Michigan), Richard Sherman (Stanford), Jessie Armstead (Miami), Dave Szott (Penn State), Jay Ratliff (Auburn), Carl Nicks (Nebraska), Barry Foster (Arkansas), Tom Nalen (Boston College), Dante Hall (Texas A&M), Jason Kelce (Cincinnati)

Other Major Conference Programs (3): Terrell Davis (Georgia), Zach Thomas (Texas Tech), Merton Hanks (Iowa).

Non-Power School, FBS Programs (6): Antonio Brown (Central Michigan), La’Roi Glover (San Diego State) Adalius Thomas (Southern Miss), Michael Turner (Northern Illinois), Jamal Anderson (Utah), Brian Mitchell (Louisiana).

Non-FBS Programs (9): Shannon Sharpe (Savannah State), Rodney Harrison and Bryan Cox (Western Illinois), Ben Coates (Livingstone), Robert Mathis (Alabama A&M), Bryce Paup (Northern Iowa), Larry Centers (Stephen F. Austin), Cortland Finnegan (Samford), Josh Norman (Coastal Carolina).

*Programs that were ranked in Top 15 in either of player’s last two years at school

There are an inordinate amount of small school players who surprised. Yes, they are still long shots but the biggest booms came from schools that are not well known. Over half of the all-pros came from outside the Power conferences. If you expand it to multi-time pro bowlers (who weren’t on the all-pro list) you get Matt Birk (Harvard), Blaine Bishop (Ball State), Joe Horn (Itawamba CC), Antoine Bethea (Howard), Donald Driver (Alcorn State), Brock Marion (Nevada), Michael Sinclair (Eastern New Mexico), Delanie Walker (Central Missouri), Al Harris (Texas A&M Kingsville), Leon Lett (Emporia State), Keenan McCardell (UNLV), Alfred Morris (Florida Atlantic), Lee Woodall (West Chester),

That said, it’s the *other* BCS programs who produce few surprise picks, not the equivalent of the Ohio State’s. A decent number of stars also came from power programs who were among the best in college when they played. Many of them also have stories that explain how they fell. It may have been competition or position switches. Tom Brady platooned with Drew Henson at Michigan (as did Mark Brunell, not listed here because he was never first team all-pro, at Washington with Billy Joe Hobert). Richard Sherman switched positions at Stanford. Terrell Davis was a transfer into Georgia and buried on the depth chart.

This philosophy does make sense–guys who are not scouted as much, who don’t play the same level of competition, or have some extraneous factors, provide greater uncertainty. At the bottom of the draft, you do want to gamble on upside. As I showed in my draft value chart exercise, upside is way more beneficial than whiffing is costly, and the late round picks do have more value than commonly believed because of those rare diamonds in the rough.

If we take another sport, if I had two baseball hitters that looked the same, but one had been getting high-end training from age 6 and focusing on the sport, playing in the top tournaments, and another had played it more casually and played other sports until recently, I would probably take a chance on the player who had less experience/training.