2024 Packers Draft Immediate Thoughts

[ThatJerkDave]

Just now, Kampfgeist said:

I'm down on Newman as much as anyone but not sure what point it would serve to cut him now, prior to training camp and final roster cuts?  Is anyone really suggesting that?

I think Newman does need to noticeably outperform a cheaper rookie to keep his spot at that point and nothing he's done so far makes me believe that won't be the final outcome.   Very least he should get to come to camp and prove he is still on track for an XFL roster spot

That is all I am saying. As of right now, Newman should be looked at as OL number 9.  If/when someone shows to be better, replace him.  I am not advocating starting him or extending his contract.  If they are worse than Newman, I don't care if they are paid 30 cents on the dollar, they shouldn't be on the roster.  His contract would be a bigger deal to me if the team was right against the cap, but they aren't.  One year overpay for a little stability is not a big deal to me. 

[Packerraymond]

38 minutes ago, skibrett15 said:

it's so weird that they aren't better at drafting than the consensus board then.

You hear your whole life playing football that "it ain't rocket science" but on this forum there are some that think it takes a masters in aerospace engineering to evaluate tape of a football player.

[packfanfb]

I saw a report on day 2 that Washington was targeting Morgan as the guy they wanted to move up for in late round 1. 

[HighCalebR]

1 hour ago, packfanfb said:

Kind of struggling to understand how the consensus board was so low on Monk. I just see a very sound player there, especially in terms of football IQ and technique. I get that he's not 6'5" with a muscled-out frame but he's been holding it down for five years and just gets it done. Seems like one of the safest Day 3 picks in this draft. 

Just hearing how in the staff was on him I'm sure he gets every chance to succeed. Strong stout smart dude? It's gonna work out. 

[packfanfb]

1 hour ago, spilltray said:

This is just so ridiculous. If a team has a good front office they are better off ignoring any media boards, even a consensus average. 

 

The teams have better information than the media. Their opinion is more informed.

Sure that's true, but it doesn't prove that their decisions end up being better overall than the general consensus board. In another thread I shared Kruse's tweets about how, since 2022, the Packers have struck gold on several guys who fell far beyond their consensus rankings. Meanwhile, they have mostly struck out on guys they have "reached" for according to those players' consensus rankings. 

Is that coincidence? Idk, but simply from a comparison standpoint, consensus boards don't appear to be irrelevant in terms of stacking up players who end up succeeding versus those who don't. Just using the Packers as a sample size over the last few years, most of the time, a "reach" ends up being a reach (at least by this point in the player's young career). 

[skibrett15]

2 minutes ago, Packerraymond said:

You hear your whole life playing football that "it ain't rocket science" but on this forum there are some that think it takes a masters in aerospace engineering to evaluate tape of a football player.

And I'll never claim to put in the time to do such an enormous undertaking.

But there are plenty in the media who fake it, and it's so obvious.  Then there are those who put in a lot of work, and it's also so obvious.

Garbage in/Garbage out.

The danger is in relying on one person's POV, which I think consensus rankings really mitigate. 

The packers internally have 10+ people working on evals so that they can check each others' work.  Ultimately Gute makes a pick but there are many checks and balances along the way.

[Kampfgeist]

10 minutes ago, ThatJerkDave said:

That is all I am saying. As of right now, Newman should be looked at as OL number 9.  If/when someone shows to be better, replace him.  I am not advocating starting him or extending his contract. 

If they are worse than Newman, I don't care if they are paid 30 cents on the dollar, they shouldn't be on the roster.  His contract would be a bigger deal to me if the team was right against the cap, but they aren't.  One year overpay for a little stability is not a big deal to me. 

Agree with the first couple statements.      Even if they aren't up against the cap this year - any money saved this year can be rolled into the following or the year after that.  They will make use of 2Mil over time.      Maybe he makes a big 4th year leap? (which would be cool)  Otherwise I'm rolling with the cheaper potential of a rookie vs what I know has been well below average

[skibrett15]

@incognito_man

https://unexpectedpoints.substack.com/p/instant-draft-grades-are-mostly-bad?r=p4xk0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true

HOLY MOLY this is a great read.

 

Cliff's Notes:

 

Quote

Players who were drafted later than their consensus big board rankings (“steals”, left side of the plot) didn’t outperform their draft-position expectation (yellow curve), but those who were taken earlier (“reaches”, right side) did materially underperform. In other words, we should be more confident that a team reaching on a player versus consensus opinion is losing value, than a team drafting a player far later than consensus ranking is gaining.

Beyond the empirical evidence, there’s logic to back the idea that steals aren’t a thing but reaches could be. In order to lose value reaching on a player, only one team has to have a bad assessment. The decision to reach and draft the player is entirely within one team’s control. For steals, it’s a combination of multiple team opinions. If you draft a player 15 spots lower than his consensus ranking, that means 14 other teams disagreed with the consensus ranking and allowed that player to fall. 14 independent groups of decision-makers had to all be wrong. Logically, it’s more likely for one team to be incorrect and create a reach than several wrong to create a steal.

Quote

TRADE VALUE GAINED/LOST

 

This is the aspect of the draft that has the most impact and it’s something we can be very confident will, on average, benefit or harm teams. The right move, generally, is to trade down and accumulate more draft capital to spread out among many players.

It’s a reasonable question to ask why teams aren’t as good as making fair trades as they are in relative player evaluation. The simple answer is that all the time and effort teams put into evaluation dwarfs what they spend analyzing trade value, and every trade up in the draft can be viewed as a type of reach.

Quote

It’s seems a bit silly that NFL teams wouldn’t have a full grasp on which positions add the most value in the NFL draft, but the evidence clearly points in that direction. In fact, building surplus value curves based reveals large differences in the expected value for draft selections based on position. It’s essentially the NFL extension and free agent markets telling the NFL draft market that it’s wrong. My research into the subject gives up a baseline for assuming purely on the position selected if he will provide more surplus value, on average, than all picks at the equivalent draft slot.

 

[ThatJerkDave]

32 minutes ago, Packerraymond said:

You hear your whole life playing football that "it ain't rocket science" but on this forum there are some that think it takes a masters in aerospace engineering to evaluate tape of a football player.

So you are saying, once again, that I took P.Chem for no reason?

[spilltray]

The problem with this is it can't account for fit. That is a bigger deal than most people account for. 

[Packerraymond]

22 minutes ago, spilltray said:

The problem with this is it can't account for fit. That is a bigger deal than most people account for. 

Correct, the consensus board is a scheme-less evaluation, but more often than not passing on a good football player or taking one that didn't perform because they do or don't fit your scheme often doesn't work.

[TransientTexan]

5 hours ago, packfanfb said:

On the other side of that coin, most of the Packers' "reach" picks haven't turned out (excluding Reed)

It’s a dumb sample size though. Outside of Reed & Walker, all of those are 5th/6th/7th-rounders. No ****, sherlock, most players picked in those ranges in the NFL never hit. Most NFL players picked in 5th-7th are cut before the end of their rookie contracts. 

& a 30-slot difference is nothing at those late ranges. NFL teams might have roughly similar boards to each other in the first couple rounds, but their boards start to diverge drastically 3rd/4th & beyond, especially in 7th. All the players down there have a TON more holes in their game that you have to project the player to overcome. Many uncertainties to balance. Scouts & teams will have very different evaluations. 

[spilltray]

9 minutes ago, Packerraymond said:

Correct, the consensus board is a scheme-less evaluation, but more often than not passing on a good football player or taking one that didn't perform because they do or don't fit your scheme often doesn't work.

But a player being a "hit" or "mis" has as much to do with how they fit in the scheme and on the roster they land in. A 5th round zone blocking OL who lands on a power run team with good depth is going to have a huge disadvantage vs if they had landed on a team that ran a zone scheme and needed players OL to step in and compete.

[Uffdaswede]

@skibrett15

That was a good read.

Interesting that it would only take one team to miss their assessment and select a player earlier than consensus advised. 

 

Yet multiple teams are signing off on a draft day drop. Aaron Rodgers says hi. 

[skibrett15]

So to recap without weighing at all into this player is/will be good/bad here's how to evaluate the packers' draft:

1. Packers took an OT in round 1, gaining good positional value!
    
2. Packers traded back with the saints from 41 to 45, then drafted Edgerrin Cooper.  They gained good value here in the trade, mitigating the fact that they selected a position in the NFL that doesn't offer much surplus value.  This is further mitigated by the fact he was #1 at the position group and has a clear path to playing time.  Good pick, great trade, bad positional value.
    
3. Packers selected Javon Bullard at pick 58.  They definitely gave up some positional value, as S is the position in the NFL that offers the least surplus value in this range of picks.  If Bullard can be a slot CB/S then I think that completely mitigates the value given up.  Also a clear path the immediate playing time helps a ton.  Good pick, potentially bad positional value but potentially plus or neutral.  Overall good/incomplete I'd say.
    
4. Packers selected Marshawn Lloyd at Pick 88.  This is one of the worst positional values - RBs drafted in this range don't provide a lot of surplus value, especially as compared to even other low tier positions like IOL/S/TE.  Still, this was a player at or near the top of their positional ranking which in the 3rd round screams value to me.  I feel this pick has the best chance to "beat the numbers".
    
5. Ty'Ron Hopper was picked at 91.  This was a reach vs consensus (by 62 picks), and on top of that it was a position that provides poor positional value.  LB is so far below edge and even TE here, plus coupled with the consensus reach that makes this a very bad "process" pick for GB.
    
6. At 111 Here the packers essentially double reached by trading up for Evan Williams.  The fact that they traded up for a position that has poor value compounds the error.  The fact that the player they traded up for also was a huge reach vs consensus (by 86 picks) makes this terrible process.  Worst process of the draft here.
    
7. At 163 we have another huge reach in terms of vs the consensus board - Jacob monk (by 109 picks).  PLUS we traded up again!  Positionally IOL isn't a bad bet here in the 5th.  In fact, IOL return some of the best value in this pick range (pick 100+).  But the fact that it was such a huge reach along with a trade up sacrifices most of that theoretical surplus.  Bad process but at least good positional choice.
    
8. Next was Oladapo at 169.  Not a reach, but not a good positional value.  Getting so late here in the draft that it's basically meaningless in terms of process though.
   
   9/10/11. Glover, Pratt, King.  Fine to good positional value, not reaches.  Good solid process here.