Maria F Vargas Jose Maria Sosa September 19, 2013 MANE 6357

Ernesto vila Vargas

Benjamin Peters

Project Proposal On August 4, 2013, Dallas Cowboys defensive lineman George Selvie had a breakout game in the Cowboys preseason opener vs. the Miami Dolphins. Selvie had a prominent college career but he was slighted in the National Football League (NFL) draft due to his relative shortness for his position. As a result, he had been a perennial unknown until his breakout performance that Sunday night. Selvies performance does raise a question: if height is important for a defensive lineman, why can a relatively short player have such a successful performance? This is the topic mentioned in an article by Jonathan Bales entitled, Running the Numbers: Signs Point to Selvie being Special. (2013) In the article, Bales discusses that what helps defensive lineman more than anything is their arm length as long arms allow them to keep distance from offensive linemen trying to block them. Taller people tend to have long arms and so scouts tend to lean towards taller defensive lineman for who they prefer to draft. However, Selvie has abnormally long arms for a person of his height which allows him to be just as successful. Bales compares the idea of height being indicative of success for defensive lineman to the idea that height is indicative of success for quarterbacks. While height is correlated with success for quarterbacks in the NFL, Bales asserts that correlation and causality are not necessarily the same. He says that height is also correlated with larger hands which aid in throwing a projectile, like a football, more accurately. To back up his claim, Bales mentions Drew Brees and Russell Wilson, two relatively short quarterbacks who have enjoyed great success and who have abnormally large hands for their height. For this project, the focus is on finding out what performance factors correlate to quarterback success. For example, does passer rating, completion percentage, etc. lead to their teams chance of winning increasing. After determining these performance factors, the goal is to determine drills of which their performance is correlated with success in the aforementioned performance factors. Anthropometric measurements are to be taken and tested for correlation with performance in the drills. Finally a predictive model is to be created to predict, based on the performance in the drills, how the tested quarterbacks will perform. References: Bales Jonathan. 2013. Running the numbers: Signs point to Selvie Being Special from: http://www.ncsu.edu/labwrite/res/res-citsandrefs.html