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Bears Pick Joel Iyiegbuniwe in the 5th


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1 hour ago, JustAnotherFan said:

First of all, for whatever reason, you're arguing points that were not even being debated in the first place. 

Second of all, claiming that mid-rounders are overblown is an terrible take and you would be hard pressed to find any GM or coach to agree with you on that. But I digress. 

You said a lot of “undersized” LB’s don’t pan out. So what? The majority of 4th round picks don’t pan out in the first place whether they’re undersized or not.

Which brings me to my second point. The idea isn’t that picks in mid rounds are useless. It is, however, that 95% of 4th round picks and all the way up to 99% of 7th rounders are going to be terrible. It’s just how it goes. You’re going to throw people like Howard, Sherman, AB, Brady, etc in my face but the vast, vast majority are going to be bad. The risk of taking a highly athletic ILB in round 4 is fine because just like the guys taken around him, they’ll probably be awful.

Point is, who really cares who they took here? Should they probably have taken a OLB? Probably, but it really doesn’t matter because no matter who it is, the hit rate for these guys is so low anyway. Remember the outrage over 3rd and 4th rounders last year in the MT trade? “Yeah we got a QB but why did Pace give up mid round picks?!”

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5 hours ago, beardown3231 said:

You said a lot of “undersized” LB’s don’t pan out. So what? The majority of 4th round picks don’t pan out in the first place whether they’re undersized or not.

Which brings me to my second point. The idea isn’t that picks in mid rounds are useless. It is, however, that 95% of 4th round picks and all the way up to 99% of 7th rounders are going to be terrible. It’s just how it goes. You’re going to throw people like Howard, Sherman, AB, Brady, etc in my face but the vast, vast majority are going to be bad. The risk of taking a highly athletic ILB in round 4 is fine because just like the guys taken around him, they’ll probably be awful.

Point is, who really cares who they took here? Should they probably have taken a OLB? Probably, but it really doesn’t matter because no matter who it is, the hit rate for these guys is so low anyway. Remember the outrage over 3rd and 4th rounders last year in the MT trade? “Yeah we got a QB but why did Pace give up mid round picks?!”

What in the hell are you on? Because I have never said anything even remotely close to any of that. Not in this thread or anywhere else. I haven't even used the words "undersized" or "LB's" in this entire thread and I damn sure have not used that term at any time when referencing ANY ILB whatsoever (Shazier among others say hi btw, to those caught up on size). Hell, I haven't even given an opinion on him at all because I don't know crap about him. Go back and re-read the thread man, you have me confused with someone else or something. Supe and I were discussing my take on the selection in which I stated that I did not like the pick because I felt there were much better prospects available at the time. That is all.

To your second point. First off, (and this will be my last post on this subject because this is not the thread for this type of discussion) using percentages in the way that you're using them is an awful way to gauge a draft for many reasons. One, you're essentially using a cut-off point that places a much higher value on say a 32nd pick vs 33rd pick -- which does not make any sense at all for many reasons(i.e X team did not need a WR so they chose a DT instead but now that WR is going fall into a higher % fail rate). Secondly,  players fall in the draft all the time for different reasons (character concerns, injuries, size, etc) that have nothing at all to do with their ability or value as a player. 

Furthermore, teams such as; Patriots, Seattle, Packers, Steelers, Chiefs, Ravens, Denver (just to name a few) have all became perennial playoff teams at some point because of their ability to spot and develop late-round talent. Key words there are spot and development. Finding and developing talent in the first 2 rounds of a draft is the easy part for GM's and coaches. But the ability to find and develop players in the mid-later rounds are what builds a sustainable and successful team in the long-term and is ultimately where they rightfully earn their salaries and worth. 

Hell, Belichick has been playing the odds game for years and has laid out the blueprint on this for nearly 2 decades now and alot of teams have even tried to follow suit over the years (for better or worse) and continue to do so today. For example, this year Snead was stockpiling 6th round picks and one point had 6 picks in that round alone before trading away two of them. 

And lastly, since you are severely undermining late round talent, let me remind you of a few important things. 1) The Bears would not have won their only superbowl in 85 had it not been for late round talent after damn near half of the projected starters were holding out that year. 2) We damn sure don't get to the SB again in '06 without contributions from late-rounders such as; Vasher, Hillenmeyer, damn near our entire OL, Alex Brown(underrated), situational players in Anderson/Idonjie, resilient Dez,  UDFA Ayanbadejo on ST's,  UDFA Gould (who went on to become the most accurate kicker in history), Mannelly (the most consistent LS in league for years),  long-time lead back in Peterson followed by McKie, etc, etc. 3) The Giants don't beat the Patriots without 5th rounder Tyree's catch. The Steelers don't make the playoffs without 6th rounder Brown. The Chiefs don't make the CC without 5th rounder Hill.....I could go on and on and on with examples.

The bottom line is, none of those things happen without late-round talent and both GM's and coaches alike know this.It's reasons such as these as to why GM's and coaches most certainly do value mid-late round picks and do not just look at them as "well if they happen to be good, that's great but if not....so what?" which is what you're trying to portray here.

But again, I'm done with discussing this here in this thread.

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This article was not written or compiled by me (because the article state that "I" did things), just posting it here to give some insight, as I am pretty much lock in step with what @JustAnotherFan has said. I do feel like some mid to late round picks are completely being overvalued, but you absolutely must hit on them to fill out a competent and talented roster. You might not get stars or even starters, but you ABSOLUTELY need role players to come of those as you can't afford to just fill a team out with mid-tier free agents outside of your top 3 round picks. 

*************************************

Using Pro Football Reference as a resource, I looked at all players who were classified as starters at the beginning of the 2014 season to determine what round they were drafted in upon entering the league.  Of the 595 players designated as such, the results reveal the following:

 

Round Freq. Percent Cuml
1 178 29.9 29.9
2 104 17.5 47.4
3 75 12.6 60.0
4 64 10.8 70.8
5 38 6.4 77.2
6 29 4.9 82.0
7 25 4.2 86.2
Undrafted 81 13.6 99.8
Supplemental 1 0.2 100.0
Total 595 100  

 

-          Nearly 30% of all starters were 1st round draft picks when drafted into the league;

-          Roughly 30% were taken in either the 2nd or 3rd round;

-          Roughly 26% were taken in either rounds 4 through 7;

-          Undrafted players (14%) were the 3rd most likely group to comprise 2014’s starters…only behind 1st round (30%) and 2nd round (18%) picks.

 

 

2) Correlation between Draft Position and Staying Power

Given that the average career length is only 3.3 years, this begs the question of how much more likely are higher draft picks to stick around the league longer than later draft picks.

For simplicity, and with more time I would like to build a larger sample size, I looked at all players drafted in the 2010 draft, and gauged what percentage of games over those five years (a max of 80 games) have players started.  The sample size here of 210 players produced these results:

 
Percentage of Total Games Started
(Since 2010...80 games max)  
Groups Median    
Overall 15.0%    
1st 67.5%    
2nd 33.8%    
3rd 36.3%    
4th 6.3%    
5th 4.4%    
6th 1.9%    
7th 0.0%    

-          The overall median “percentage of games started” by those players selected in the 2010 NFL Draft is 15%;

-          1st round draftees from that season started a higher median percentage of games (67.5%) compared to players drafted in other rounds;

 

-          2nd and 3rd round draftees from 2010 have started roughly 34% and 36% of all possible games, respectively.

-          The median percentage of games started for players drafted in rounds 4 through 7 from the 2010 draft was extremely low, never rising above 7% of games played over the last 5 years.

3) Correlation between Draft Position and Reaching "All-Pro" Status

For the 171 players designated as either 1st or 2nd team All-Pros across the three years spanning 2012 through 2014, we found the following:

Round Freq. Percent Cuml.
1 83 48.5 48.5
2 24 14.0 62.6
3 15 8.8 71.4
4 12 7.0 78.4
5 9 5.3 83.6
6 6 3.5 87.1
7 2 1.2 88.3
Undrafted 18 10.5 98.8
Supplemental 2 1.2 100.0
Total 171 100  

 

 

-          48.5% were first round draft picks when they entered the league;

-          2nd round picks were the next most likely to reach All-Pro status (14%);

-          But then undrafted players were the third most likely at 10.5%;

-          Lastly, 21% of All-Pros from this period came from either the 3rd, 4th, or 5th round.

 

In sum, the expectation that first-round picks are more likely to start, succeed, and have staying power is confirmed.

 

However, with 40% of 2014's starters and 38% of All-Pros from 2012 through 2014 coming after the 2nd round (with 14% and 10% of these being undrafted players), this shows there's value deep into the draft.

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Starters are generally found in rounds 1-3, but your depth comes from 4-7.  So no, they arent throw away picks, but in the same token to act like there is a massive gap in these evaluations at this point is falacious at best.  Many times these day 3 picks are going to be very good players who dont check all the boxes.  Whether thats traits (Iggy) or medical (Hurst, Sweat, Street), or character (Callaway).  They are all very flawed prospects and you are hoping you are taking the right gamble.  I personally would have gone with Street, but had they drafted Street he wouldnt be contributing in 2018 at all.  I get it. The fact is Pace has a history of finding some good players in the 4-7th rounds.  They like Iggy, now we have to wait and see what he brings to the field.  I do expect he will probably add about 10 lbs over the summer, which will make him a lot less undersized.

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46 minutes ago, Superman(DH23) said:

Starters are generally found in rounds 1-3, but your depth comes from 4-7.  So no, they arent throw away picks, but in the same token to act like there is a massive gap in these evaluations at this point is falacious at best.  Many times these day 3 picks are going to be very good players who dont check all the boxes.  Whether thats traits (Iggy) or medical (Hurst, Sweat, Street), or character (Callaway).  They are all very flawed prospects and you are hoping you are taking the right gamble.  I personally would have gone with Street, but had they drafted Street he wouldnt be contributing in 2018 at all.  I get it. The fact is Pace has a history of finding some good players in the 4-7th rounds.  They like Iggy, now we have to wait and see what he brings to the field.  I do expect he will probably add about 10 lbs over the summer, which will make him a lot less undersized.

If he can do that without losing much speed, I will feel much better about this pick.

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From Biggsy:

“He’s a good player,” a national scout for another team said. “Smart, tough, can run. He’s a lot better than what they had (in reserve) there and it’s not a reach to say this kid will be starting for them down the line. He’s way better than Christian Jones and they took him right about where I figured he should go. Good football player.”

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40 minutes ago, G08 said:

From Biggsy:

“He’s a good player,” a national scout for another team said. “Smart, tough, can run. He’s a lot better than what they had (in reserve) there and it’s not a reach to say this kid will be starting for them down the line. He’s way better than Christian Jones and they took him right about where I figured he should go. Good football player.”

I cannot disagree with him.

Single most important day 3 question: "Does this player have the physical tools to start in the NFL?" 

He clearly does. Now it is up to him and the coaches.

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8 minutes ago, WindyCity said:

I cannot disagree with him.

Single most important day 3 question: "Does this player have the physical tools to start in the NFL?" 

He clearly does. Now it is up to him and the coaches.

I honestly think he's pegged to be a 4-phase special teams guy for at least this year while he learns the defense. Won't shock me one iota to see him add bulk and take over for Trevathan in 2019 or 2020.

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I never understand people criticizing depth. You legit need a ton of depth in football. Like there is ZERO chance Trevathan plays 16 games this year and Smith will miss at least 1 with a sprained ankle or something. kwitakoski is a fine player but thats it. This is basically a pick to upgrade that back up rotation and also sort of a mirror of Smith. Like the same way teams with running QB's get running QB backups.

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