Creating a Player Development Plan: Joshua Uche
An example of analyzing a player for a pass rush development plan
There are many players in the NFL who have potential to raise their outcome floors through player development. For the most part, the NFL calendar/CBA precludes off-season skill development opportunities in a club’s own building. In the last decade players have taken skill development into their own hands — creating summits like Duke Manyweather’s OL Masterminds and Von Miller’s Pass Rush Summit.
Individual trial and error is how the player development movement began in Major League Baseball. Justin Turner went from afterthought utility man with the Mets to a staple of the Dodgers lineup after conversing with teammate Marlon Byrd and private hitting coach Doug Latta about lifting the ball in the air. Turner hit just 15 home runs in his first six MLB seasons (2009-14) — he hit 16 in 2015 alone, followed by 27 home runs in 2016.
In 2019 Ben Lindbergh and Travis Sawchik wrote The MVP Machine: How Baseball's New Nonconformists Are Using Data to Build Better Players — the book presented ways hitters, like Turner, revamped their swings or pitchers, like Gerrit Cole, were given data based information to utilize their best pitches more often/design new pitches to fulfill their true potential.
Here is an excerpt from the book on how the Houston Astros approached Cole, after trading for the Pirates ace pitcher, to increase the rate of his best pitches — four-seam fastball and curveball — and throw fewer sinkers, a less successful pitch.
The Astros wanted to free him from Pittsburgh’s pitching template, which had helped suppress his powers, turning him into a league-average pitcher in 2017. “Individualized development and individualized attention is one of the most powerful things you can have as an organization,” Hinch says. “It’s not one-size-fits-all in this game.”
When he reported to spring training, the Astros pulled him into a conference room for an hour-long, personalized pitching pitch. Seated at the head of the table, Cole listened as the brain trust told him they’d been watching and trying to trade for him for almost two years. They laid out what they liked and what they thought could be better. “You don’t scare the player by telling them there’s this massive overhaul,” Hinch says. “Certainly not Gerrit Cole.” Every recommendation was backed up by video, heat maps, and clear explanations. Cole describes his reaction as “mind blown” and says, “I’d never experienced any meeting like that, at all.”
By now, the next part is predictable: Cole threw more four-seamers and fewer sinkers and recorded a career-high rate of curveballs en route to his second All-Star season and top-five Cy Young finish. The Astros, Cole says, “highlighted the fact that my curveball’s my best pitch for me, which took six years for someone to finally tell me.” He’d always had a top-of-the-rotation toolbox, but until the trade, he says, “I was just sometimes pulling out the wrong tools.”
I believe we’ll see more NFL team analysts begin to aid in player development as tracking data becoming more of a part of every day usage in the NFL. Clubs will look for cheaper free agents with an intriguing trait they believe can be developed further to extract the most value out of that player.
With the next installment of applications for the Pass Rush Move Classification Model, I’m going to put together a pass rusher summary report and development recommendation for Patriots’ EDGE Joshua Uche. I wanted to highlight Uche because he appears to be a self-motivated individual based on his commitment to developing his craft in the off-season. He’s attended Von Miller’s Pass Rush Summit in 2021 and met with him one on one in Miami to discuss pass rushing with his idol. Additionally, I see potential for him to have another season like 2022 rather than 2023 based on changing up his pass rush move usage.
Player Summary Report -
BIO: Uche, 6012, 243 pounds, is going into his fifth NFL season out of the University of Michigan and has 18.5 career sacks.
ALIGNMENT/ROLE: In 2023 he aligned from both the left (47%) and right (50%) EDGE positions and was in a 2-pt stance on 100% of EDGE snaps. Uche plays a designated pass rusher (DPR) role — 79% of his defensive snaps were against the pass in 2023, the highest among defenders with 200 defensive snaps played. He’ll occasionally drop into coverage (10%).
PASS RUSH METRICS: Uche saw a dip in his pass rush production from 2022 (23.6% Pressure Rate, 11.5 sacks) to 2023 (18.8% Pressure Rate, 3.0 sacks) — He suffered a foot injury in Week 6, 2023 against Las Vegas causing him to miss Weeks 7 and 8. The injury hurt his overall production as he recorded a pressure or pass rush win on just 16.9% of pass rushes in Weeks 9-18 after recording a pressure or pass rush win on 22% of pass rushes in Weeks 1-6.
TRACKING DATA METRICS: Uche displayed a top 10 percentile Get-Off Speed (4.26 MPH within 0.5s post-snap) on True Pass Rushes in Weeks 1-6, but that figure declined dramatically post-injury in Weeks 9-18 (3.38 MPH). Despite the lack of immediate acceleration off the snap — Uche was still able to hit top speeds as he worked into his pass rush — he averaged a top speed of 10.54 MPH within 2.5s post-snap (95th percentile). He struggled to create consistent leverage against offensive tackles (2023 Leverage Angle: 50.0°, 28th percentile), but much of that is due to utilizing Inside moves at a high rate (see rush move leverage angle averages below).
pass_rush_move leverage_angle
Bullrush 37.7
Inside 51.6
Outside 78.4 PASS RUSH MOVES: Uche utilized an imbalanced pass rush arsenal last season (Pass Rush Move % - Inside: 56%, Bullrush: 27%, Outside: 18%), ranking 87th of 126 EDGE rushers in pass rush move standard deviation. Additionally, he had the 4th-highest Pass Rush Move Sequence Similarity Ratio (SSR) by pass rushers from the EDGE, min. 50 sequences — meaning he was matching his sequences often (SSR: 0.552). The lack of rush move diversity would not be an issue if he were to be spamming his strength (Outside - Speed moves), but his high usage of Inside moves hurt his ability to create leverage and pressure.
After studying plays the model seems to be classifying Uche playing contain and pressing back toward the inside of the offensive tackle after engaging as an inside move. I don’t fault the model, it’s just predicting Inside based on the positioning of pass rusher to the blocker — and Uche is technically pushing back toward the inside.
Check out his direction (arrows) on his average inside move path, especially rushing from the right side of the defense, and how his direction begins to work downwards (~270°) rather than attacking inwards toward the pocket. I could be off here, but I believe that’s him trying to not allow a lane for the quarterback to run through.
Occasionally when he does commit to the Outside move (stutter-rip here), Uche will leave a lane open for the quarterback to escape through. Here Mahomes potentially could have escaped to the left side of the pocket if not for Christian Barmore blowing up the interior OL. While not charted as a pressure, I think this rep showcases how flexible Uche’s ankles are to create leverage.
The following is an example when everything goes right for Uche. He wins the rep immediately against Terence Steele with his Outside hand swat-rip speed move to flatten his path to the quarterback. And hypothetically if Uche runs the arc here and creates a lane for Prescott, the timing of the T-T stunt should have Barmore in that lane should Prescott run to it.
RECOMMENDATION: Increase Uche’s Outside speed move usage while giving him more free rein to let him pin his ears back to leverage his max speeds and create leverage. There is a trade-off with allowing wider rush lanes for quarterbacks to escape through, but calling more stunts could potentially offset some of that risk — and Uche will generate more pressure and sacks as a result.
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