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09 Apr 2009
Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
The always excellent Mike Sando points out a Monte Burke story on Forbes about the teams that have been the best and the worst at drafting over the last several years.
He rates the Texans as the best-drafting team, which Sando rightly points out is likely due to the fact that they kinda don't have anyone worth keeping.
When I posted my metric for evaluating drafting ability, GSAA, one of the evaluation's best picks came out as C.C. Brown -- who someone rightly pointed out is a Texans safety who sucks, but who plays because they're really weak at safety.
The way GSAA works now is to compare each player to the ten overall picks on either side of him (so picks 1-10 and 11-20 for the 10th overall pick, with players in the top ten being compared to only other top ten players) who play the same position, to produce a position-adjusted games started above expected metric on a seasonal level.
The problem with this, of course, is that it doesn't weight the quality of the play beyond simply starting a game. Tom Brady deserves more credit for his starts than David Diehl, and Diehl more credit than Brown.
Any ideas on how to improve this or other draft metrics?
41 comments, Last at 13 Apr 2009, 10:33am by Jimmy
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Comments
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say maybe you could develop some kind of advanced metric that adjusts for things like field position, score, opponent and the like and use that to evaluate on-field production of a player or unit.
I think something else that would be good is to look at the number of wins a team has and adjust with that. Although you would also have to adjust for free agents.
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
It's not possible to do for recent draft picks, but the relative value of a player's second contract should say a lot about the quality of the player right?
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
Very well put.
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
Second Contract * Pick Number = Draft Value?
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
The idea of 2nd contracts is appealing, but they don't reflect the players actual value in terms of talent, just what the economics of the market allow.
Firstly the top echelon players get franchised so you never actually find out what they're worth in a bidding war. They just get given top money. So in fact even if you're the best QB in the league by a long way you still only get the money of the 2nd/3rd QB.
Secondly unconditional free agents tend to be the mid-roster guys (rather than the franchised superstars) but because they're above average talent they often get overpaid by teams looking to pick them up.
Thirdly think of players that resign for the home-team discount, or who are willing to take a basic salary, laden-with-incentives on a winning team (think Deion Sanders 1994-95). If the team doesn't perform the contract doesn't reflect value.
Or think of players who've succeeded with the Patriots (or as Super Bowl MVPs) and moved away for big money only to relatively sink without trace (e.g. Deion Branch, David Givins, Willie McGinest, Dexter Carter, Gibril Wilson, Larry Brown).
Most obviously consider whether Matt Cassell's first contract production is really worth a top5 QB contract, or whether it's the strength of the Patriots organsiation and their approach that allowed them to do that.
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
The only problem with this is evaluating injuries. A player good in year 1 and 2 but falls in years 3 of his rookie contract isn't going to merit a much money on the market. But since it's hard to predict catastrophic injury it's hard to knock teams for drafting what clearly was a valuable player. The role that injuries play in NFL careers makes draft evaluation hard. There is always going to be a subset of players whos ultimate talent is going to be masked by catastrophic injury.
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
The Bengals don't draft well because their owner is a bull headed cheap skate that won't spend on scouting.
I've love to know more about how many scouts each team had, a some stats on the number of years of experience etc.
Who are some of the best names in the front office? Pioli, Newsome, Reese, Polian, the late Butler ...
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
Chris, only 7 teams (IIRC) in the NFL use their own scouts:
New England
Indy
Baltimore
Cleveland
Chicago
Oakland
Washington
Some of them are some of the best in the league, some are some of the worse.
There are two scouting Agencies that the rest use (BLESTO, and The National)
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
To note, the teams that use BLESTO seem to draft well
Pittsburgh
Philly
NYG
Miami
Minny
Jax
oh...Buffalo and Detroit.
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
All teams use their own scouts, it's just that a lot of teams supplement with the scouting agencies. There isn't a team in the league without any scouts (although the Bengals come close).
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
and the worst: MILLEN
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
This gives me a lot of hope, because Pioli is now leading up the draft for KC.
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
I second the contract amount notion. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would be a better indicator than games started.
A second idea would be to adjust for starts according to how that particular unit is ranked. Starting for the Texans defense is not the same as starting for the Ravens defense. I have no idea how you would adjust for unit rank though.
Another idea would to simply use win loss record along with what percentage of a starters are the teams own draft picks. If the average career is 4 years. Then I might want to know how many wins my team has in a 5 year period and how many starters were drafted by my team over the last 4 years. A team like the Giants or the Steelers would rank very high in that kind of stat so it would pass the first smell test.
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
The problem with adjusting based on the ranking of a unit is someone like Champ Bailey or Calvin Johnson. Detroit's offense and Denver's defense are two of the worst units in the league... but it's not Bailey's or Johnson's fault.
I'd propose a simpler metric- number of starts after 2 or 3 years in the league. The thinking is that lots of players will start as rookies based on draft position or lack of viable alternatives... but if those players are genuinely terrible, then management will make replacing them a priority. If they're still starting 3 years in, odds are they were a quality draft pick.
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
Yeah, the Bengals have all of one official scout, and I believe he's part-time. Mike Brown and Marvin Lewis claim that it's better for the assistant coaches to scout, because they have more "expertise," but I'm sure that interferes with their coaching duties, so both coaching and scouting get hurt.
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
> Any ideas on how to improve this or other draft metrics?
Instead of your 20 player compare, just choose your value metric (games played? Fine. DVOA? Fine. Second contract? Fine.) and run a regression: F(Draft Position) = value metric. Then the drafting quality formula is Pick - DraftPick(value) (where DraftPick() is the inverse of F(), above).
So if the value regression for QBs yields "F(draft position) = 200 / draft position" (completely bogus example), and Team X picked a guy with value 25 as the 11th pick in the draft:
DraftPick(value) = InverseF(value) = 200 / value
DraftPick(25) = 8
Pick = 11
Pick - DraftPick(value) = 3
So they basically pulled a guy 3 slots passed where he "should" have gone. You can average these out over all draft picks to get a pretty good number for front office acumen.
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
On ideas for a better drafting metric:
I'm actually working (in my scant spare time) on a methodology for rating drafts. It involves developing baselines for each type of position that reflect value to a team from a standpoint of filling in necessary positions, but not necessarily trying to rate performance (since that is so teammate and scheme dependent). E.g. touches per game for a RB, starts for QB or O-line, etc. I would love to use snaps played, but unless you have a Mike Reiss for every team, that data is kind of hard to come by.
Then compare a player's performance over a fixed number of years within his rookie deal (say 3 or 4) to this baseline to get a "value" estimate. Then divide that by draft position to see how valuable a player is, with maybe a correction for QB's because the QB position is so much more important than any other position. You can then look at how a team's picks perform on average, or which teams get the most total value out of drafts on average. Nowhere near done, but it's a work in progress.
The article that this link is point to...haven't read it in depth yet, but I skimmed it. (Reiss linked to it earlier). There are a couple of reasons why a successful team like New England might be rated so low by their metrics:
(1) A successful team is picking lower in the draft than a poor team. On average, a low 2nd round pick is less likely to succeed than a high 2nd, so teams that are successful year after year will end up with weaker players in their draft, even if they are really smart scouts.
(2) As Bill pointed out, a good team has fewer slots available for drafted rookies to make the team.
(3) Very overlooked: a team with good veteran evaluation often lets veteran FA's walk rather than overbid for their services. So they tend to end up with compensatory picks. Compensatory picks are in low rounds, and cannot be traded. So teams that don't overbid for their own FA's are forced to draft a whole bunch of guys in the 6th or 7th round, regardless of if they want to or not. Hence they will look bad by a metric of percent of draft picks that make the team. The obvious New England example is a couple of years ago (the 2006 or 2007 draft, I think), when they had something like five compensatory picks, all in the late fifth round or lower. None of those five guys made the team.
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
I think you really have to look beyond just retention of players beyond their first contract, as it's probably something that varies a fair amount from one Front Office to the next. Drafting well and being good at keeping your guys might not necessarily be connected things.
Roster stability strikes me as a bit of a red herring, too. I'd argue that a team who drafts well will be able to replace players quickly- if you get someone with your forth-round pick, say, who's as good as a guy you would otherwise have to re-sign for higher, why not go with him and let the other one walk? Perhaps something that takes into account drop-off in performance when older players are replaced, would be instructive. You get the problem of how to devalue data from teams which continually replace trash with trash, but that might be a place to start.
I would go with years in the league, number of NFL starts, and percentage of players getting a second contract, as three specific measurables that sound interesting, though I take the point in the post above about starts. Kaybe some kind of weighted combination of the three, which you could then normalise it by draft position, once you had enough data.
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
Seems like right from the start, they should know something is wrong with their metric for "draft success". Better teams are much less likely to retain draftees than worse ones. That doesn't mean that they are doing a worse job in the draft.
Also, they are only looking at three years. Since high-round draft picks are more likely to be retained than those from lower rounds, the absolute number of picks plays too much of a role.
Which is another way of saying, it doesn't make sense to judge the Patriots' drafting ability without acknowledging that they had a 1st round draft pick stripped last year.
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
Rich, I was under the impression that the teams used the scouting agencies to supplement their own in house scouts and coaches but that's something I'd love to know more about.
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
Here's a thought: Instead of looking at how many draftees make the team's active roster, a better barometer of success might be a survey of the last three years of drafts for all 32 NFL teams.
This sentence, which I believe is meant to be the thesis sentence for the whole essay, makes no sense.
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
Why not use the DVOA/DYAR for a career and come up with a baseline for each draft pick and than compare that player to the baseline? That way Brady would get a lot more weight because the 199th pick probably has a negative number below replacement level.
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
Not a bad idea--probably difficult for defensive guys, though
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
Alright Barnwell, you want my advice ...
They asked Warren Buffet, how do you know exactly when a stock is a good buy or not, what is your formula, what is the secret....
He said something to the effect... welll gee, I dunno, how do you tell the point when somebody is fat or not. You show me someone and I can tell you if they are fat or not, ( you show me a company and I'll tell you if it's a buy or not).
Might I suggest painful and time consuming subjective analysis????
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
What ever metric is used has to include UDFAs or it neglects over 30% of the starters in the league. Getting priority undrafted free agents is like the 8th round of any draft year and I am sure that some teams are way better at it than others.
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
Take a draft position, find the best player at each position within a degree of the draft position, and use them as a baseline. This would work for players like Brady and Colston, who have greatly exceeded their draft positions. Say any quarterback picked within 15 picks either side of Brady is compared to Brady. Brady, in this case, is a scale of 100. He is 100% of what Tom Brady is. Another quarterback in that draft position range is then measured based on his production compared to the Brady's production. If he was only 10% or 20% as productive, he is a 2 and Brady is a 10.
Assign the %/10 production scale, making the best at each draft position a 10. 10s would most likely be HoF guys, or at least multiple-year All Pros. 6 would probably be at or around replacement level. Give any guy that made the practice squad 1 point and any guy on the 53-man roster 2 points. They were at least better than somebody.
So, in this case, if you compared Manning to Leaf, Leaf accomplished a small percentage of what Manning has. He is hardly even considered a 1, but he would at least be awarded for his football participation, at least beating out other quarterbacks for that same position on the team.
Add up the points of all the guys still on the team that drafted them, and then compare.
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
Pro-football-reference.com's blog has done some good analysis on the subject. I am attaching two links. One study is done by the "authors" of the blog, and the second is done by a guest.
http://www.pro-football-reference.com/blog/?p=513#more-513
http://www.pro-football-reference.com/blog/?p=567#more-567
I tend to agree with the link in the first study more than the second. However, if you draft 4 HOFers in one draft, how can it not be the best ever?
Another thing not mentioned in either post: In the first study, all of Brett Favre's "value points" go to the Falcons for drafting him. However, IF I were to do a study, I would count his value for GB in lieu of their 2nd (IIRC) round pick that they traded for him.
In other words, as a Saints fan, this year our second rounder went for Shockey and our third for Vilma. While we will not reap the benefits of drafting these two players this year for their entire career, I am betting that their value to the club THIS YEAR (and last year, and the following years) is more than an average 2nd & 3rd rounder. There should be a way to account for this when rating draft classes--ESPECIALLY when you receive most or all of a player's value throughout his career (such as GB with Favre).
Another thing to consider: any undrafted free agent who comes to your team should also be considered, especially in these last few years with a 7 round draft. UDFA's didn't make much of a difference back when the draft was 12+ rounds--but they do now.
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
If you're going to count trades towards the Draft's value, then you'd have to count Roy Williams as part of Dallas' 2009 draft class, and, say, any QB who changed teams in a trade as part of their team's draft.
That's fine from a bottom-line question about what a team did with their resources, but it's not really about drafting. I'd say that, if anything, it's actually a sign that the team lacks a little faith in their ability to draft well.
Of course, that's a reasonable assumption for almost any NFL team to make, given the massive unknowns in the draft, but it makes sense to me that a team who drafts well would make those trades less than others. How much do you want to view those two approaches to building a team as discrete skills or areas of expertise?
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
Ok ... I can't figure out the whole picture, but can't we just be very simple about this?
Surely the first good metric is years in the league? If you're a good player you get to hang around for quite a few years whether it's with the team that drafted you or another. There's a reason Karl Mecklenberg and Russ Grimm stayed in the league all those years despite being low round draft picks, and an opposite reason why Ryan Leaf and Mike Williams are no longer around.
Off the top of my head, rate players based on years in the league along the lines of those who last:
2 years or less - 0 points
3-5 - 1point
6-7 - 2points
8-9 - 3points
10+ - 4points.
Obviously there are a few who get injured and leave early and that wouldn't have been the fault of the drafters, but I'd guess any metric will stumble with those players.
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
Stupid meaningless statistic when considered in a vacuum. It could be that a team has not retained many draftees because the existing players could not be displaced. Cases in point the Steelers and Pats. On the flip side an average team may allow many draftees to make the roster. Texans, Denver and Seattle come to mind here.
If a team has a solid roster with few openings developing then the quality of the draft is immaterial and vice versa if the veterans are marginal.
Equally stupid is this lame "CAPTCHA"
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
You're way overstating your case here. Quality of draft is hugely important for all teams, and don't forget that the Broncos and Seahawks came into the period of the study as perennial winners, albeit with some ageing key contributors.
Also, I put it to you that the two best draft classes of the last decade are the 2006 classes of Denver and Houston:
Houston Texans 2006 Draft Class
1(1) Mario Williams (pro-bowl DE)
2(33) DeMeco Ryans (pro-bowl MLB)
3(65) Charles Spencer (won the starting LT job in camp as a rookie and looked excellent until he suffered a career ending injury on his second start)
3(66) Eric Winston (quality starting RT, already received a big second contract)
4(98) Owen Daniels (pro-bowl TE)
6(170) Wali Lundy (out of the league, though he was briefly the starting RB)
7(218) Zac Diles (very serviceable SLB, current starter)
Denver Broncos 2006 Draft Class
1(11) Jay Cutler (let's not get into this . . .)
2(61) Tony Scheffler (quality starting TE)
4(119) Brandon Marshall (pro-bowl WR)
4(126) Elvis Dumervil (quality situational pass-rusher)
4(130) Domenik Hixon (very useful WR, though obviously no longer on the team)
5(161) Chris Kuper (quality starting guard)
6(198) Greg Eslinger (C who has bounced around various practice squads but is now back in Denver)
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
Both the guys in charge of those drafts both got the sack mainly because they weren't good at drafting.
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
Bengals 2001
1) Justin Smith -- quality DE
2) Chad Johnson -- all time leading Bengals receiver
3) Sean Brewer -- crappy TE, out of league in 3 seasons
4) Rudi Johnson -- quality RB
5) Victor Levya -- okay backup, didn't last long
6) Riall Johnson -- crappy LB for 3 years
7) TJ Housh -- quality pro-bowl WR
This wasn't a bad draft at all and might compare with Mr Shush's
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
Bears 1997
2 John Allred
3 Bob Sapp
4 Darnell Autry
4 Marcus Robinson
5 Van Hiles
6 Shawn Swayda
6 Richard Hogans
6 Ricky Parker
7 Mike Miano
7 Marvin Thomas
I think the first rounder was traded for Rick Mirer. That has to be one of the worst drafts all time.
We did get one incredible year out of Marcus Robinson, but that's it I think.
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
Ugh that is painful.
For a quality Bears draft I nominate 2004.
Tommie Harris
Tank Johnson
Bernard Berrian
Nate Vasher
Of course it looked a lot better before Harris started to get injured, Berrian left for the Vikes, Vasher stopped being the interceptor (stopped playing most of the time) and Tank Johnson ruined his career by keeping massive quantities of armed guns within reach of his young children.
In guess that is part of the problem with draft classes, some of the injury or personality stuff that can derail the draft class can take years to come to the fore.
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
2003 was also a very good year
Charles Tillman
Lance Briggs
Todd Johnson
Ian Scott
Bobby Wade
Justin Gage
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
Besides, Denver, Houston and the Bengals steller classes...
2004 Arizona Cardinals
1) Larry Fitzgerald
2) Karlos Dansby
3) Darnell Dockett
4) Alex Stepanovich
5) Antonio Smith
6) Nick Leckey
7) John Navarre
2001 Carolina Panthers
D.Morgan, K. Jenkins, S.Smith, C.Weinke, J.Cooper
2005 Cowboys
1) Demarcus Ware
2) Marcus Spears
3) Kevin Burnett
4) Marion Barber
5) Chris Canty
6) Justin Beriault
6) Rob Petitti
7) Jay Ratliff
2003 Dallas, T.Newman, A.Johnson, J. Witten, B. James
99 Packers, A.Brooks, M.Mckenzie, D.Driver, C.Hunt, JBidwell
2003 Pats Turned out better as of last year (Cassell
Logan Mankins,E.Hobbs, Nick Kaczur, J.Sanders, M. Cassell
05 +06 Patriots ( sets you up well)
Terry Glenn, Lawyor Milloy, Bruschi, Ty Law, T.Johnson, Curtins Martin.
2007 NY Giants ( a lot of young talent)
1) Aaron Ross (Starting CB)
2) Steve Smith (Mr. 3rd downs)
3) Jay Alford (Rotates DT)
4) Zak Deossie (Special teams)
5) Kevin Boss (Starting TE)
6) Adam Koets
7) Michael Johnson (Starting FS)
7) Ahmad Bradshaw (RB 2)
How's this for a 4 pick draft
Chris Mccalister
Brandon Stokley
Edwin Mulitalo
Anthony Poindexter ( who could have been real good)*injury
How's this for a 4 pick draft
Corey Webster
Justin Tuck
Brandon Jacobs
Eric Moore
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
I think someone on this site previously suggested using not their second contract but either the total value of their lifetime contracts, or the total value of their lifetime contracts with their first contract subtracted out. I think this would iron a lot of the issues related being franchised, injuries, etc.
Optionally, you could assign/calculate some kind of average lifetime contract value for each draft slot and compare your player to the average...This would favor teams who can find "value" -- A team gets more value for drafting Tom Brady in the 6th than Manning in the 1st, assuming their lifetime salaries are the same.
Surprised nobody's mentioned the 96 Ravens:
Jonathon Ogden (HOF)
Ray Lewis (HOF)
DeRon Jenkins (mediocre CB, part time starter)
Jermaine Lewis (special teams terror for 5-6 years -- TD in Super Bowl 35)
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
Within the last decade, I think the 04 and 05 Chargers classes both stand out as pretty excellent.
If you want to go a little further back, then yes, clearly the 96 Ravens and 95 Bucs were two hella good drafts.
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
Trying to find drafts where a team found 5 starters..Remember that Im 2 in 1981 so this is kinda off my memory from video games and coming from a football junkie family. From what I found(anecdotal evidence of course) it seems that teams who add 5 young dependable starters in the same year seem to find ongoing success.
how bout the 81 skins
1. May, Mark, T, Pittsburgh [from LARm] 20
2. Choice to SF
3. Grimm, Russ, C, Pittsburgh [from Mia thru LARm] 69
4. Flick, Tom, QB, Washington [from GB] 90
5. Manley, Dexter, DE, Oklahoma State, 119
Sayre, Gary, G, Cameron [from LARm] 132
6. Kubin, Larry, LB, Penn State, 148
8. Brown, Charlie, WR, South Carolina State, 201
9. Grant, Darryl, G, Rice, 231
10. Kessel, Phil, QB, Northern Michigan, 257
Kennedy, Allan, T, Washington State [from NE thru Cle] 267
11. Hill, Jerry, WR, North Alabama, 284
12. Didier, Clint, WR, Portland State, 314
or 83 dolphins
1. Marino, Dan, QB, Pittsburgh, 27
2. Charles, Mike, DT, Syracuse, 55
3. Benson, Charles, DE, Baylor [from GB thru Hou] 76
6. Roby, Reggie, P, Iowa, 167
7. Woetzel, Keith, LB, Rutgers, 195
8. Clayton, Mark, WR, Louisville, 223
9. Brown, Mark, LB, Purdue, 250
10. Reed, Anthony, RB, South Carolina State, 278
11. Lukens, Joe, G, Ohio State, 306
12. Carter, Anthony, WR, Michigan, 334
86 49ers
2. Roberts, Larry, DE, Alabama [from Det] 39
3. Rathman, Tom, RB, Nebraska [from Buf] 56
McKyer, Tim, DB, Texas-Arlington [from Phi] 64
Taylor, John, WR, Delaware State, 76
4. Haley, Charles, LB, James Madison [from Cle thru LARm] 96
Wallace, Steve, T, Auburn [from Was thru LARm] 101
Fagan, Kevin, DT, Miami, 102
5. Miller, Patrick, LB, Florida [from Dal] 131
6. Griffin, Don, DB, Middle Tennessee State [from NYJ] 162
8. Popp, Jim, TE, Vanderbilt [from Phi] 203
Choice exercised in 1985 supplemental draft (Snipes, Roosevelt, RB, Florida State)
9. Cherry, Tony, RB, Oregon, 240
10. Stinson, Elliston, WR, Rice, 267
Hallman, Harold, LB, Auburn [from Was] 270
Buffalo Bills 1987
1. Conlan, Shane, LB, Penn State [from Hou] 8
2. Odomes, Nate, DB, Wisconsin [from TB] 29
Mitchell, Roland, DB, Texas Tech, 33
3. Brandon, David, LB, Memphis State, 60
Mueller, Jamie, RB, Benedictine [from SF] 78
4. Seals, Leon, DE, Jackson State [from Was] 109
7. Porter, Kerry, RB, Washington State, 171
Mesner, Bruce, NT, Maryland [from LARd] 209
9. McKeller, Keith, TE, Jacksonville State, 227
11. Ballard, Howard, T, Alabama A&M, 283
12. McGrail, Joe, DT, Delaware, 311
Pittsburgh Steelers 1987
1. Woodson, Rod, DB, Purdue, 10
2. Hall, Delton, DB, Clemson, 38
3. Lockett, Charles, WR, Long Beach State, 66
4. Everett, Thomas, DB, Baylor, 94
5. Nickerson, Hardy, LB, California, 122
6. Johnson, Tim, NT, Penn State [from TB] 141
Lloyd, Greg, LB, Fort Valley State, 150
7. Kelley, Chris, TE, Akron, 178
8. Buchanan, Charles, DE, Tennessee State, 205
9. Clinkscales, Joey, WR, Tennessee, 233
10. Hoge, Merril, RB, Idaho State, 261
11. Oswald, Paul, C, Kansas, 289
12. Young, Theo, TE, Arkansas, 317
Dallas Cowboys 1991
1. Maryland, Russell, DT, Miami [from NE] 1
Harper, Alvin, WR, Tennessee, 12
Pritchett, Kelvin, DT, Mississippi [from Was] 20
2. Edwards, Dixon, LB, Michigan State [from Det] 37
3. Myles, Godfrey, LB, Florida [from SD] 62
Richards, James, G, California [from Det] 64
Williams, Erik, T, Central State (OH) [from NO] 70
4. Richards, Curvin, RB, Pittsburgh, 97
Musgrave, Bill, QB, Oregon [from KC] 106
Hill, Tony, DE, Tennessee-Chattanooga [from Mia thru Was and Det] 108
Harris, Kevin, DE, Texas Southern [from Buf thru NE] 110
5. Brownlow, Darrick, LB, Illinois [from Was] 132
6. Sullivan, Mike, G, Miami, 153
7. Lett, Leon, DT, Emporia State [from Den] 173
9. Mays, Damon, WR, Missouri, 235
10. Love, Sean, G, Penn State, 264
11. Boles, Tony, RB, Michigan, 291
12. Brown, Larry, DB, Texas Christian, 320
Re: Best And Worst NFL Draft Classes
This theory came from an exercise I perform using only Madden ratings.
I gave points for players according to their age and rating
under 25
95+ 3 points
90+ 2 points
85+ 1 point
25-30
95+ 2 points
90+ 1 point
30 and up
95+ 1 point
What came out were predictions that got pretty close to win totals. The predictions were worthless without age consideration. It is a very crude method but at the same time it seems to provide a blueprint for how to build a team. Younger players seem to be worth more than their older counterparts who may be overall better players as long as the younger player can perform at a certain level.
Looking at the league by position
*There are 53 roster spots for roughly 22 starters plus punters and kickers
*Positions where there are two on the field at the same time require, roughly speaking, a top 10 player to be in the 95th percentile(s,wr,cb)
*positions that average 3 per team would require a team to have a top 5 player at that position to be in the 95 percentile.
*positions that are more specialized would require a top 3 player at that position to be in the 95th percentile.
Some things I think I think
*depending on how good you think Cutler is and considering his age according to anecdotal evidence they just fleeced the Broncos.
*Redskins lost a lot more than people think when they lost 21.
*If I'm building a team I'm using 3 things I've found at FO...Lewin, RB score, wr size. Then I'm using a 4th method that I've found to be fairly accurate at predicting nfl success which is to find guys who were capable of performing well at age 18 or 19 in college.
*Here's how I see my own team
25 and under guys
Chris Horton top 15 safety(2 point)
Laron Landry top 10 safety(3 points)
could bes include last years trio of 2nd round picks
one of these guys could emerge to be a top 30 wr soon
25-30 guys
Haynesworth could be the best at his position...2 points
Chris Cooley top 10 te...you betcha maybe top5.....1 point
Santana Moss top 20 wr....maybe
andre carter top 10 de....extreme maybe
clinton portis top 10 rb....fringes probably
over 30 guys
Samuels top 5 Tackel....pro bowls yes..reality prob not
London Fletcher top 5 mlb..pro bowls no...reality prob yes
First rounders who could step up but haven't performed to their potential.
Deangelo Hall potential 90...maybe hes there
J. Campbell potential 90....only showed it for half season
I see the Redskins as built as a rock solid 8-8 team if nothing goes right with the potential to take it much higher if certain guys step up and half of the iffy guys can stay healthy. I think Haynesworth significantly upgraded this team.
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