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A closer look at the traits of Day 3 high performers: 2019-2022

By KyleSmithforGM
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Las Vegas Raiders v Pittsburgh Steelers Photo by Justin Berl/Getty Images

Earlier in the week, as so often happens, I had an interesting conversation in the comments with posters where we took a closer look at the “overachievers” from Day 3 of the 2022 draft. The idea was to look at the group and see if any trends might emerge. And, among that small sample size, they did appear to do so. For this piece, I wanted to go a bit further back to see if those trends held, and if others might emerge

For the purposes of this piece, an “overachiever” is a player who was drafted in round 4 or later, and who has averaged an “approximate value” (AV) of “5” or over during his years in the league. This translates roughly to a “plus starter or high quality back-up,” and represents very good value for a Day 3 pick.

The full listing of those players, drafted since 2019, is below:

Players Averaging 5+ AV Taken After Round 4: 2019-2022

Year Round Player Position School wAV wAV AVG
Year Round Player Position School wAV wAV AVG
2022 4 Dameon Pierce RB Florida 6 6
2022 4 Spencer Burford OL Texas San-Antonio 7 7
2022 4 Cordell Volson OL North Dakota St. 9 9
2022 5 Tariq Woolen CB Texas San-Antonio 10 10
2022 5 Tyler Allgeier RB BYU 8 8
2022 5 Braxton Jones OL Southern Utah 8 8
2022 6 Malcolm Rodriguez LB Oklahoma St. 6 6
2022 6 Jamaree Salyer OL Georgia 7 7
2022 7 Isaiah Pacheco RB Rutgers 7 7
2022 7 Brock Purdy QB Iowa State 6 6
2021 4 Michael Carter RB UNC 10 5
2021 4 Amon-Ra St. Brown WR USC 21 10.5
2021 4 Rhamondre Stevenson RB Oklahoma 14 7
2021 4 Dan Moore OL Texas A&M 15 7.5
2021 4 Marco Wilson CB Florida 10 5
2021 4 Royce Newman OL Mississippi 12 6
2021 5 Talanoa Hufanga S USC 15 7.5
2021 5 Adetokunbo Ogundeji DL Notre Dame 10 5
2021 6 Roy Lopez DL Arizona 13 6.5
2021 6 Trey Smith OL Tennessee 18 9
2020 4 Gabe Davis WR Central Florida 19 6.3
2020 4 Tyler Biadasz OL Wisconsin 17 5.7
2020 5 Darnell Mooney WR Tulane 20 6.7
2020 6 Michael Onwenu OL Michigan 18 6
2020 6 Donovan Peoples-Jones WR Michigan 16 5.3
2020 6 Jon Runyan Jr OL Michigan 18 6
2020 7 Tae Crowder LB Georgia 16 5.3
2019 4 Maxx Crosby EDGE Eastern Michigan 34 8.5
2019 4 Tony Pollard RB Memphis 25 6.3
2019 5 Dre Greenlaw LB Arkansas 22 5.5
2019 5 Hunter Renfrow WR Clemson 20 5
2019 5 David Edwards OL Wisconsin 23 5.8
2019 5 Darius Slayton WR Auburn 20 5
2019 5 Cole Holcomb LB UNC 22 5.5
2019 6 Gardner Minschew QB Washington State 20 5

Well, the first thing we see is the value of a bigger dataset. Based on just the 2022 data, it looked like there were three clear trends: 1) RBs were disproportionately represented (30%); 2) “Small schools” (40%), and 3) Particularly “small school” offensive linemen (30%) were overrepresented.

But those trends appear to evaporate largely into the ether once the prior three years are added. From that group, only 8% of the players were running backs. Only 1 was from a “small school,” and he wasn’t an OL from a small school.

From this 2019-2021 group, there are some interesting trends though. Around 28% of the players - eight of them - are offensive linemen, with all of them coming from power house schools, including Clemson, Auburn, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Wisconsin (2), and Michigan (2). Nearly 24% (6) of the players were wide receivers.

At the other end of the spectrum, only two of these players were interior defensive linemen. There were no tight ends in this group at all. The two QBs who qualified, Minshew and Purdy, were back-ups who rose to the occasion when called upon. Only two cornerbacks from Day 3 met this criteria for all four years.

There are surely other trends that I’m missing, but I’ll leave those for you to divine and discuss in the comments. I look forward to your thoughts.

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