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jebrick

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A good article from Behind the Steel Curtain.  Using Pro Football Reference draft value, the author looks over the last 5 drafts.

https://www.behindthesteelcurtain.com/2019/1/4/18162682/disappointment-aside-steelers-last-two-draft-classes-reasons-for-optimism-terrell-edumunds-tj-watt

 

 

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In order to make the draft work, however, teams have to be right about the players they select. Therein lies the rub. Drafting is a complex and inexact science. The professionals who get paid big money to study the pool of college talent are wrong more often than they are right. What gives? Is there a rash of incompetence in NFL scouting departments? In some, perhaps, but not as a rule. Instead, consider the following:

The jump in talent from one level of football to the next is massive. Only about 6% of the hundreds of thousands of kids who play high school football in America go on to play in college. The percentage of college players who make it to the pros is even smaller. About two percent, according to Forbes magazine. So, the NFL is the true elite of the elite.

Understandably, then, many drafted players simply can’t cut it. They might be great players but the level of play in the League is beyond them. Others get caught in a numbers crunch — too many draft picks for available roster spots — and are released as a result. Combine those factors with how hard it is to determine how young men from different socioeconomic, racial and cultural backgrounds will react to new environments, fat paychecks and the trappings of celebrity, and it is easy to see why many draft picks never pan out.

What’s a realistic return, then, on a particular draft? Pro Football Reference created a “draft value” chart to study draft success over the past twenty years. They created a metric with scores from 0-160 that weighed factors such as number of games started, individual stats, team performance and all-pro honors. The results might seem surprising, but they shouldn’t be.

16.7% of players had no draft metric, meaning they never played for the team that drafted them. In short, they were cut before playing a down. These players weren’t necessarily busts so much as they were long shots taken in the later rounds of the draft. Simply put, your typical sixth and seventh round picks. Toney Clemons, anyone?

37% of picks scored between 1-4, meaning they were essentially non-contributors. These were players who may have made the roster for a year or two but did little to nothing to make an impact. Players like David Paulson and Jordan Zumwalt come to mind.

15.3% of the picks scored between 5-10, which was considered “poor.” These are players taken higher in the draft who had underwhelming careers that did not come close to matching what was anticipated. Players like Dri Archer, Mike Adams and Sammie Coates fit this category.

Those three categories, where no productive players are produced from a particular draft, comprise 69% of all draft selections from the past twenty years. 69%! And we haven’t yet gotten to average starters, much less studs.

What of the players who do make an impact? 10.5% were rated as average, meaning they filled a role but were far from spectacular (I’m looking at you, Jesse James); 12.3% were considered solid NFL players, meaning they became reliable starters and were bread-and-butter players for the franchise (Marcus Gilbert); and 6.9% were considered great, meaning they became elite players, won individual accolades and were considered among the best at their respective positions. These are guys like David DeCastro and Le’Veon Bell.

The final 1%? Those are the future Hall of Famers. Big Ben and AB. The best of the best.

 

 

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So in Edmunds, Washington, Chuks and Samuels we got four likely major contributors, plus a possible franchise QB down the road in Rudolph. Add that to the 2017 draft, with its three major contributors plus Dobbs, and it’s safe to say the 2017-2018 drafts will produce more than the four that preceded them combined. That is both a statement about the strength of the latter two drafts and the weakness of the prior four.

 

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Too early to project that 2017 draft in the last paragraph. And including Washington/Chuks who barely played as 'major contributors' and using the words 'possible franchise QB' as it relates to Rudolph.

 

And people ask why I have an issue with Colbert, and @jebrick you did a great job of finding this and pointing out great things, but I want to point to something you didn't quote:

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If about 70% of draft picks essentially wash out, what constitutes a “good” draft? Using the PFR metric, the math says if a team gets seven picks, and if three of them become solid contributors for the franchise, they’ve done better than average. 3 players per draft doesn’t seem like much, and it doesn’t seem hard to achieve, but it is.

So 30% of Steelers picks are role and higher, 70% are nothing.  Well 'good drafts' have 3/7 picks rate as role player and higher.  So that means 42.9% need to be role player and higher, 57.1% are nothing.

 

Compare where we are from just 2013 (when the article started with the tracking) to now.  We're far below the average.  12.9% in fact.  From 2013-2017 drafts we had 41 picks.  Take in that difference in percent of role players or higher grades and you are talking about 5 players of Role player or higher difference in what's considered a "good draft" and what we have been doing in the draft lately.

 

And more backing up what my long point has been on drafting:

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Which means only 6 of 33 players, or 18%, selected between 2013-2016 qualify as solid contributors — Williams, Tuitt, Dupree, James, Davis and Hargrave. The metric says on average about 30% of players selected should fit this category. Only one of those starters, Tuitt, has All-Pro potential. 1 of 33, or 3%. The metric says about 7% should qualify.

Take those numbers into account, and that's 4 solid contributors and 2 All-Pro potential guys were missed out on in 4 drafts.  Basically we massively screwed up at least 1 pick a year on average.

 

What I don't love about the BTSC article is they go on to start to speculate about the 2017 and 2018 drafts and say "oh well Colbert is rebounding".  There's no where near far enough data to support those calls.  I mean if you judge that 2017 class this early, Patrick Mahomes gets a huge knock and takes down the Chiefs drafting because he sat out a whole year.  It took Baker Mayfield a while to start, and Sam Darnold was on the worst QB situation of all the rookies.  They wouldn't look great in this grading too.  So I think it's a tad early to start heaping praise back on there for the 2017 and 2018 drafts (especially the 2018 drafts).

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I try to never judge a pick until year 2.  It is such a steep learning curve for rookies in most positions that it is not fair to judge.  Linemen generally need more strength and technique.  WR need to learn how to run routes and the route trees.  DBs need to learn almost everything.

Losing Shazier and Bell makes it look worst as that is two all pros.  That would bring them up to 11%

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Which means only 6 of 33 players, or 18%, selected between 2013-2016 qualify as solid contributors — Williams, Tuitt, Dupree, James, Davis and Hargrave. The metric says on average about 30% of players selected should fit this category. Only one of those starters, Tuitt, has All-Pro potential. 1 of 33, or 3%. The metric says about 7% should qualify.

But if this is a drafting metric -- how dont you count DRAFTED talent like Shazier and Bell into the total? Even NFL average player Markus Wheaton and the productive Martavis Bryant would surely be seen as drafting success. Injuries ending Wheaton and Bryant ending Bryant shouldnt be knocked against the ultimate talent finding. 

Without diving deeper, that would mean 10 of 33 players -- or 30%. 

If I draft the next Ed Reed, but he retires after 1 season -- I didnt miss on drafting. 

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1 hour ago, Dcash4 said:

But if this is a drafting metric -- how dont you count DRAFTED talent like Shazier and Bell into the total? Even NFL average player Markus Wheaton and the productive Martavis Bryant would surely be seen as drafting success. Injuries ending Wheaton and Bryant ending Bryant shouldnt be knocked against the ultimate talent finding. 

Without diving deeper, that would mean 10 of 33 players -- or 30%. 

If I draft the next Ed Reed, but he retires after 1 season -- I didnt miss on drafting. 

The issue with Bell and Shazier is this is also based on potential and keeping the player. 

 

Think of Jerome Bettie’s and James Farrior. Great players. Little impact for the teams that drafted them. 

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I know the formula they are talking about. BTSC is applying it wrong to project. It takes what a player did for you that season that you drafted and grades them. Like Bell made a big year 1 to 2 jump, bigger to year 3. He went role player to starter to All-Pro. 

So given Shazier was injured and Bell was out, they become 0’s. Typically the best thing is to go to the last year of their rookie deal and using that grade. 

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4 minutes ago, warfelg said:

The issue with Bell and Shazier is this is also based on potential and keeping the player. 

Think of Jerome Bettie’s and James Farrior. Great players. Little impact for the teams that drafted them. 

But that has nothing to do with drafting talent. I understand why that’s also important but it’s also a piece that often times can not be controlled. Being judged on something you can’t control is awful tough. Bell holding out, Bryant inability not to get high, Shazier in a freak accident...3 highly talented - at least productive - drafted players that don’t count in this drafting grade  

Its why I don’t like any of these metric based attempts to define the success or failures of a draft. Starting is a silly thing to chart to me. Hargrave can start or not start depending on if we open in nickle or not. Doesn’t make him any less valuable, just as Cam Heyward is no more of a home run selection for not staring initially. 

Even just the idea of grading drafts. What’s more successful? Drafting Troy Polomalu and 6 cut players or drafting 4 Jesse James and 3 cuts? 

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Just now, Dcash4 said:

But that has nothing to do with drafting talent. I understand why that’s also important but it’s also a piece that often times can not be controlled. Being judged on something you can’t control is awful tough. Bell holding out, Bryant inability not to get high, Shazier in a freak accident...3 highly talented - at least productive - drafted players that don’t count in this drafting grade  

Its why I don’t like any of these metric based attempts to define the success or failures of a draft. Starting is a silly thing to chart to me. Hargrave can start or not start depending on if we open in nickle or not. Doesn’t make him any less valuable, just as Cam Heyward is no more of a home run selection for not staring initially. 

Even just the idea of grading drafts. What’s more successful? Drafting Troy Polomalu and 6 cut players or drafting 4 Jesse James and 3 cuts? 

I agree on your first sentence, but like I said, it's a measure of how much of an impact your drafted players have on your current team.  Like it or not Shazier and Bell did not play this year so they get 0's.  The best way to measure this is go back to last year to talk about the grades Bell and Shazier got last year.  But they only looked at this year.

And all in all, them being 0's only moved it a few percentage points, but not enough to catch up to the average.

Bringing up Hargrave and start or not start: That's not the intent of this.  They look at the base formation.  3-4 meaning that Hargrave is intended to start so for this the count him a starter.  Bringing up Cam Heyward is why you wait to see before starting this drill.

 

Look you can hate these things, but it's a way to quantify the impact of a draft.  Otherwise we can say anything.  Is Dangerfield a good pick because he spot starts?

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It’s a way to quantify it, but I don’t think that there is a correct way to do it — and that’s my issue. Something that is judging drafting success, but then doesn’t include actual drafted talent (Shazier and Bell) to me is a broken way to look at....drafting success. 

I just don’t think there is any part about the drafting process that makes all things even to sit back and analyze and say “this is how to be successful”. Talent Varys from year to year, depth of talent varies, where you draft varies, etc. There are too many moving variables to put all 32 experiences together across the board and measure success. 

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But then again part of analyzing the draft on the current roster is so they still play for you. I concede the Shazier one. But it doesn’t matter if Colbert drafted 20 probowl guys. If only 3 of them are on the team and 10 were cut before playing it actually wasn’t good. 

This isnt a “this is how to be successesful” thing. It how do we quantify the effect of the player picked. And frankly this is one of the better systems. I mean you shouldn’t get credit for just taking the player. It should be taking them and having them have an impact on your team. 

And I’m sorry but this is the 3rd different study I’ve seen where it’s less than good drafting. You can keep saying no, but eventually you have to give that up and say “yea these guys aren’t having the impact. 

Mans part of it is you have an issue over 2 guys out of 33. What about all the guys other than that? Do you think it got all of them wrong?

I mean, I’m sorry, but arguing over two guys doesn’t really change the results. 

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2 hours ago, warfelg said:

I concede the Shazier one. But it doesn’t matter if Colbert drafted 20 probowl guys. If only 3 of them are on the team and 10 were cut before playing it actually wasn’t good.

Not sure why you concede Shazier, but not Bell. Colbert offered him 4 rediculous sums of money to be a RB on his team - he rejected 3 of them. How is that Colbert’s fault bell didn’t sign? And I completely disagree with the second part because it’s only assuming cutting a good player. He had a hand in drafting Sanders, Wallace, and Brown. All good draft picks, but only Brown remains because you couldn’t justify paying all three the money they wanted. In a salary cap world, you can’t keep everyone. That’s business, that’s not a GM problem. Same with Wheaton and Bryant examples - he found good/average players, life happened  

2 hours ago, warfelg said:

This isnt a “this is how to be successesful” thing. It how do we quantify the effect of the player picked. And frankly this is one of the better systems. I mean you shouldn’t get credit for just taking the player. It should be taking them and having them have an impact on your team. 

And I’m sorry but this is the 3rd different study I’ve seen where it’s less than good drafting. You can keep saying no, but eventually you have to give that up and say “yea these guys aren’t having the impact.

I’m not saying we are great or even really good at drafting. My point, and the part of the article I actually agree with, is that drafting is incredibly hard. There aren’t many that are really good, and even then there aren’t many that are really good and annually draft in the back half.

The article also doesn’t stack teams against each other. It says 30% hit rate is average, but that only based off the player pool — not the actual median of teams success based on this numbers. That is a number I’m far greater interested in and would sway me more.

And I’ll be the first to tell you Burns, Dupree, Hawkins, etc are not having an impact...but you cannot deny that AB, Bell, Connor, Decastro, Pouncey, Gilbert, JuJu, heyward, Watt, etc aren’t just having an impact, but a HIGH IMPACT. Again, I go back to my question of 1 Polomalu or 4 Jesse James. Colbert has had high impact players, asking for High impact AND high quantity in an insanely difficult environment seems like a madden pipe dream.

Again the article is only associating a 30% as good, which in a 250 player draft is 75 players. It says that in a perfect world 3 players of 7 is good. But if in a perfect world everyone drafts correctly, if you own the 12th or later pick you can actually NEVER get that third player. The article doesn’t measure where you pick in the draft and that matters as a team that hasn’t picked above 15 in how long. This isn’t a perfect example, but that fits because it isn’t a perfect metric for matching success. 

3 hours ago, warfelg said:

Mans part of it is you have an issue over 2 guys out of 33. What about all the guys other than that? Do you think it got all of them wrong?

I mean, I’m sorry, but arguing over two guys doesn’t really change the results.

 No, I’m really arguing over 4 (Wheaton and Bryant). And even then I’d probably add a few more. Chickillo and Matekevich are both core special teamer which is a vital role on Sunday’s and on a 46. How are guys drafted in the 6th and 7th that have produced successful careers not considered draft hits? You don’t have to be a star to be useful, and you aren’t going to draft all stars. You need roster peices that form a functional 46. Tyler is a guy that probably gets dropped next year but Chick is a guy that could realistically see another contract. Point being it’s objective, not gospel. 

And actually it does matter, in terms of the article, because the inclusion of the 4 makes the draft success rate 30% — what they are telling you is on point with success. 

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@Dcash4 for the Shazier/Bell thing, look right above your post where I said they did count them in the 6.9% of players. That’s all the further I’ll talk about that part. 

 

As for the stacking against other teams, what does that matter. If 30% success is average success there’s bound to be 15-14 teams above and the same below. 

If you are getting into “I would argue more” territory you are ignoring the point of the scale that’s grading them which it is based purely by what a player does on the field. Yes ST snaps is part of what plays into that. 

Sorry to say but you sound like your going to have an issue with anything that can come back to say it’s been average the last 7-10 years of drafting. Of course it’s not going to be all terrible. But for every TJ Watt there’s a Jarvis Jones. A Mike Adams wasted pick. You made the excuse of the stabbing, but the truth is he was terrible at LT, below average at best at RT, and after his rookie contract he’s been out of the league and is trying to make a comeback as a TE. 

I always see “well you can’t be an average drafter and be a good team”. Well you can be when you have an elite talent at QB. “You can’t draft good when your always drafting low”. Because of our lack of moving up we have the lowest average draft position in the last 10 years. Seriously. You can’t file that complaint without acknowledging the fact we only traded up 3 times under Colbert: Hampton, Polamalu, Holmes. Now look at something there: a great player (Holmes), elite (Hampton), and HOT (Polamalu). His high drafting under Tomlin has been a mixed bag. Good (Timmons, Shazier, DeCastro) and bad (Jones, Dupree). Add in most years the 2nd rounder is a whiff. 

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Alright @warfelg, we might have to take the day off. I’ll be out most of the day and I’ll either give up or ping ya again late night 😉

It seems like you don’t believe I’ll be critical of Colbert and I feel you don’t accept the randomness of the draft.

I just can’t look at these metrics as gospel. I think the article validates my thoughts on how random the draft is, you think it validates how poorly we draft. I don’t disagree that we haven’t been great, but I think there are so many factors that go into it - drafts are never apples to apples. No other teams measure of success is mentioned. Those things matter if you are trying to judge evenly. Even then, how do you weigh success? If the Lions hit on 45% of the draft (3 players) and we only hit on 1 — does it matter that they have 3 average players and we have a le’veon bell? 

Of the 33 listed, outside of Shazier and Bell not being accounted towards it - we drafted 2 QBs in that time frame. Due to the realative health of Big Ben neither of those guys are going to factor on this list, but that doesn’t make their position or drafting any less important. I don’t think much of Landry or Dobbs, be the position is critical. 

(The only place I see 6.9% is where they mention the quality breakdown. Those players are not accounted for in drafting hits in the 18%. That’s my argument. If this is judging drafting, you must count them. If this is judging team building, we are missing too many other items to judge successfully)

Couple the things out of your control (Bell, Shazier, Bryant, Wheaton), the players that play a huge role (Landry, Dobbs*) and the lack of viewing special teams as an asset (Chickillo) than I think you have a very incomplete list of metrics.

maybe it’s the best one as you say, I still say it’s incomplete. 

*just wanted to add that I don’t mean Landry and Dobbs specifically play a huge role, but their position is too vital to ignore. Regardless of where they actually end up at this point in Ben’s career it was worth the pick to attempt to have either a backup or a potential stop gap successor. That’s not factored in and they are deemed misses. I don’t agree with that circumstance.

 

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So what I'm gathering is you want there to be credit regardless if they made it to the end of their contract, regardless of if they remain on this team right now?

I got into some of these grades, and getting into some of them:

Markus Wheaton was a 'middling' grade.  4 years, 22 Starts, 107 catches, 1508 yards, 8 TD.  Do you think he deserves a higher grade for that?

Martvavus Bryant......He was known to have drug problems in college as well.  So it isn't really a shock that he was suspended in pro's.  I wouldn't really consider that "outside of control".  It was a red flag risk that bit you.  I don't think you should get a pass for taking a known guy like that.

It's like Chris Rainey.  He graded out very very poorly. But he was known to change major character issues coming out of college.  Should Colbert get a 'pass' on that one too?  Because if you say yes I disagree.

Landry may have played a big role as the backup (and ditto for Dobbs), which they grade big for, but their play on the field has been bad when they get in.  They have 'poor' Steelers careers because when they have gotten into the game their play hasn't been good.

Chickillo grades high, but because he's a core special teamer he can't be graded higher to fit one of your top players.  This is all about finding guys who start, their impact, and what their future could hold.d

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(The only place I see 6.9% is where they mention the quality breakdown. Those players are not accounted for in drafting hits in the 18%. That’s my argument. If this is judging drafting, you must count them. If this is judging team building, we are missing too many other items to judge successfully)

Where Bell and Shazier's careers went is out of their control, but their Steelers careers graded out the the "great" area and were part of the 6.9% of picks considered 'great'. They say they put that 6.9% of players into the 30% success rate.  You keep pointing to those two a flaw in the system but they are count as good picks.

Look, like I said, even if you take Bell and Shazier out of the picture the draft still falls far behind.  From the 2013 draft - 2017 draft, we have picked up 6 starters.  Core team players.  That's not that good.

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