Packers CB Eric Stokes named to 2021 All-Rookie Team

SIS used their Total Points metric to calculate the most valuable rookies of this past regular season

Sports Info Solutions, a data company that works with teams and sportsbooks, has announced their All-Rookie Team for the 2021 season, which includes Green Bay Packers cornerback Eric Stokes. SIS’s criteria is essentially a list of their highest-ranking players in their Total Points metric, which Football Outsiders describes below:

Total Points takes the common currency of EPA and distributes the value gained or lost on a play to the different players involved based on their impact on the play.

Stokes’ 30 “Total Points” ranked third among rookie defensive backs, only behind Denver’s Patrick Surtain II and Los Angeles’ Asante Samuel Jr. For reference, Surtain was selected ninth overall, meaning only Samuel was on the board when the Stokes pick was made and also performed better than Stokes, at least per this metric, in 2021.

To say the least, the early returns on the first-round pick are good. Stokes has started every single game since Week 3 of the regular season and has played 40 or more snaps per game, usually over 60, since Week 2.

Here’s what SIS had to say about Stokes:

Georgia’s defense in the 2021 season was outstanding, but it had a lot of great players leave and enter the 2021 Draft. The first Georgia player off the board in the 2021 Draft was Stokes, at pick 29.

Stokes played the 2nd most snaps of any rookie corner in 2021 and held his own all year. Seeing the 2nd-most targets in all of the league, Stokes racked up the 7th-lowest completion % against, 7th-most passes defensed, and 17th=best Passer Rating Against (minimum 25 targets).

The Packers also had a Second-Team All-Rookie player in guard Royce Newman, who was benched in Week 18 when Josh Myers returned to center and Lucas Patrick was pushed to right guard. Newman’s Total Points of 29 was tied for the second-best mark among guards (behind the Chiefs’ Trey Smith) and ranked him fourth among all offensive linemen behind Chargers tackle Rashawn Slater and Chiefs center Creed Humphrey. Only Trey Smith, who was picked in the sixth round after injury concerns, recorded more “total points” than Newman after being drafted behind the Ole Miss product.