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The only way to beat the draft is to have more draft choices than the other guy. That is a simplest way to describe a complex situation. imo
I think the best drafting strategy is similar to optimal Yahtzee strategy.
AgamemnonSuccessful drafting? It’s all about volume
Bill Belichick and Ozzie Newsome both focus on gathering as much draft capital as possible. USA TODAY Sports
Apr 14, 2016OF ALL THE gambles NFL teams will take on players during this year’s draft, perhaps the riskiest move will be betting on their own flawed judgment. Organizations invest millions of dollars in scouting and player analysis, applying everything from extensive physical testing to pseudo-scientific written examinations in an attempt to weed out true talents from the chaff. You can understand why: Given that rookie salaries are capped by the CBA, the potential return on investment is enormous. The difference between what Russell Wilson made during his first three seasons in the NFL and what it would have cost to acquire a similarly talented quarterback in free agency runs over $50 million.
There’s one big problem: All the empirical evidence we can find suggests that nobody in the league is actually any good at picking players. The best plan? In the scratch-off lottery that is the draft, the smartest strategy is simply to have more tickets.
Several studies, notably recent analyses by Chase Stuart of FootballPerspective.com and Neil Paine of FiveThirtyEight, suggest that no NFL team exhibits any sort of year-to-year consistency in acing the draft. By all accounts, despite all the energy and money teams pour into picking players, the draft is mostly a crapshoot.
You don’t need some expansive study either. Anecdotally, this is more accurate than we care to admit. Sure, that 2012 draft saw the Seahawks come away with Wilson and Bobby Wagner, but their subsequent two drafts yielded just one regular starter, struggling offensive lineman Justin Britt. The 1974 Steelers draft, which delivered four Hall of Famers, is regarded as the best single class in league history, but Pittsburgh’s 1975 draft failed to produce a single Steelers starter. The same personnel executives who fawn over Wilson and Tom Brady for having the “it” factor were the ones who also said Mark Sanchez and Brady Quinn had “it” while passing on Wilson and Brady multiple times.
“In the scratch-off lottery that is the draft, the smartest strategy is simply to have more tickets.”
Even if you want to make the argument that those teams were overstuffed with talent and couldn’t support more picks, consider how the truly great personnel executives have made mistakes. Baltimore GM Ozzie Newsome sent first- and second-round picks to the Patriots to trade up for Kyle Boller. Bill Belichick has traded up to grab the likes of Bethel Johnson and Ron Brace. Teams run by people who have forgotten more about football than you or I will ever know traded up to grab Blaine Gabbert and Trent Richardson. Their boards were remarkably, catastrophically wrong.
At the same time, how can we blame organizations for intense draft preparation given the stakes? If you were an NFL executive who had started his career fetching coffee for subminimum wage and worked your way to the top of a multibillion-dollar organization, wouldn’t you believe you knew something the street didn’t? If you were an owner, would you trust that guy or the one who said, “Based on all we know, this is a crapshoot”?
So should teams stop showing up to the combine, fire all their scouts and just throw darts to pick players?
Of course not. There’s value in scouting and research, but it needs to be tempered and approached from a different perspective. Teams should start from the premise that they know nothing about the draft pool and act accordingly. In practice, that means taking the lottery ticket analogy quite seriously and acquiring as many picks as possible.
And wouldn’t you know, that’s exactly what personnel executives like Belichick and Newsome do. Belichick trades down as much as anybody in football, while Newsome focuses on acquiring compensatory picks to add valuable draft capital.
Truthfully, the NFL should be better at this stuff. College football is a fully funded minor league system with thousands of players auditioning for multiple years, and coaches still complain that the systems aren’t similar enough to prepare quarterbacks and offensive linemen for the NFL, even though many college schemes now look exactly like ones you routinely see on Sunday. What’s the solution? A simple reminder to be stapled atop every draft board: All the evidence suggests that regardless of the era or its schemes, the best way to make one good draft pick is to start with two draft picks.
http://espn.go.com/nfl/draft2016/story/_/id/15159462/successful-drafting-all-volume-nfl
AgamemnonNFL Draft: Do Teams Trading Up In The Draft Get Better Players?
By: Jason Lisk | April 26, 2012 4:45 pm ET
Everyone wants their team to trade down. Teams usually trade up, though, with a specific target in mind, in the heat of the moment of draft day. Sometimes it’s a guy they think represents the last of a tier at a position of need. Other times, it might be a guy that they did not anticipate being available at a spot, who they had rated much higher, and acquiring him becomes a more realistic possibility.
I was curious, though, as to whether teams trading up for a target end up getting a player than those around the pick. I looked back at the 2004 to 2007 drafts, at all draft day trades (via prosportstransactions.com), and found the “trade up” target–the earliest selection that was part of the trade. I excluded all draft day trades that involved a veteran player moving, as those more likely just involved getting a pick that was offered, rather than targeting a specific player while on the clock.
To measure the players, I used the “approximate value” figures at pro-football-reference.com. I compared the trade up target to the career value of the 10 players selected around them (5 in front and immediately after the traded pick).
The results? Yes, overall, players drafted as a result of a trade-up were better than those drafted around them. Of the 81 trades, the player turned out to be better than the average of those around them 44 times, and on average were +2 in career AV.
The best trade up values during this four year stretch saw the New York Jets hitting on 3 of the top 6 values. New York traded up to get Darrelle Revis, David Harris, and Kerry Rhodes. Haloti Ngata was the biggest hit (Baltimore traded up 1 spot to insure they got Ngata), and Steven Jackson of the Rams and Chris Cooley were the other biggest values compared to those drafted around them.
At the other end of the spectrum, first and second round busts that also cost teams multiple picks were the worst values. These include names like John McCargo, Ricardo Colclough, Jarvis Moss, Brady Quinn, Kellen Clemens, and Chad Jackson.
While the overall average showed a slightly positive outlook for trade up targets, there was one segment where they stood out. There were no trade up targets where the best pick was worse than pick #197. However, the 24 trades involving a player below pick #100 proved to be quite valuable. Teams trading up in the mid-rounds got a player who was +5 career AV better on average.
I know that number probably means nothing to you, so I’ll put it in perspective. That means that on average, the targeted trade player produced like a pick about a round a half better than where they were actually selected. You probably had a fair amount of teams that saw a guy slip, had him rated much higher, and made a move to get one of the few remaining guys projected higher on their board.
In an area where the draft is very much more miss than hit, teams got starters like Kerry Rhodes, Todd Herremans, Corey Williams, Isaac Sopoaga, Chris Canty, Uche Nwaneri, Rex Hadnot, and Brian Robison.
Compared to the very positive return on the late round trade targets, the first round trade targets were slightly better than average, while the second rounders were actually worse than those around them.
I’ll also say that this analysis is just looking at whether the trade up target turned out to be any better than other players selected in the same area. That’s not the same as endorsing the cost of the trade. For example, I maintain that it is a very bad idea to trade future picks that are a round earlier (for example, a next year’s first to get a second rounder), and the slightly better performance doesn’t offset.
Considering the higher costs associated with most trade ups near the top of the draft as well (often requiring another second rounder or third rounder, or perhaps future picks) I suspect they were losing propositions way more often than not.
The mid to later round trade-ups, though, were a different story. Giving up two 6ths to get into the 5th isn’t missing out on that many opportunities, and teams that were aggressive here did net a good return.
AgamemnonTrading up for a first-round quarterback is rarely worth the cost
By Jared Dubin | Staff Writer
February 11, 2015 12:53 pm ETThe Cleveland Browns are reportedly interested in former Oregon quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Mariota. If the Browns were to draft Mariota, it would mark the third time in four years they’ve selected a quarterback in the first round. They drafted Brandon Weeden at No. 22 in 2012 (using one of the picks they acquired from Atlanta in the Julio Jones deal) and Johnny Manziel (also No. 22) in 2014. Of course, Weeden is now Tony Romo’s backup in Dallas, while Manziel entered rehab this off-season, so the Browns could soon be on the hunt for a quarterback of the future yet again.
Mariota is widely considered one of the top two quarterback prospects in this year’s draft, along with Florida State’s Jameis Winston. Most mock drafts have Mariota being selected somewhere between first and sixth (our Rob Rang, Dane Brugler and Pat Kirwan have him going sixth, sixth and first, respectively), though the majority of prognosticators have recently been moving him further down in the draft after he spent much of the season as a front-runner for the No. 1 overall selection.
Cleveland currently owns picks 12 and 19 — the latter was part of the haul they received from the Buffalo Bills in last year’s Sammy Watkins trade — so it’s likely the Browns would have to trade up in the draft in order to secure Mariota’s services. A word of advice to the Browns: don’t do it.
Moving up in the draft for a quarterback rarely works out, even if the player you acquire becomes a very good one. The cost to move up in the draft is prohibitive, and because quarterback is one of the least predictable positions in terms of college success translating to the NFL, the risk is also higher than when moving up for, say, an offensive lineman.
Since 2000, 14 teams have moved up in the draft to select a quarterback in the first round. Their targets ranged in quality from Eli Manning to Brady Quinn, and the majority of the deals wound up looking bad for the team that just had to go get their quarterback of the future. Take a look at this:
Toward the right side of the chart, you’ll see some numbers that probably look a bit unfamiliar. “AV” is Pro-Football-Reference’s Approximate Value, which attempts to capture in a single number the seasonal value of a player at any position from any year since 1950. It is of course inexact, but for the purposes of this exercise, it works well enough to provide us a glimpse at the “value” sent out and brought in on draft day trades for first-round quarterbacks.
“AV Out” represents the AV compiled by The Target — the quarterback who the team that moved up in the draft acquired — while he was with the acquiring team. So, for example, even though Jay Cutler has produced an AV of 90 in his career, he only got 30 of that with the Broncos, so that’s the AV we credit them with for the trade in which they acquired Cutler.
“AV In” represents the AV compiled by The Haul — the players the team that moved down in the draft eventually acquired. If any picks included in the initial deal were subsequently traded for other picks or players, I followed those deals to the end of the line. As with “AV Out,” only AV accrued while with the acquiring team was counted. So while LaDainian Tomlinson had a career AV of 158, we’re only counting the 145 he produced while with San Diego as part of the 2001 Michael Vick trade.
“AV Diff” is fairly self-explanatory: it’s the difference between “AV Out” and “AV In,” representing the Approximate Value gained or lost by moving up in the first round to select a quarterback. As you can see, of these 14 trades, in only two of them did the team that moved up to get their quarterback come away with a “win” according to AV.
The best of those would be Denver’s 2006 trade for Jay Cutler, in which the Broncos surrendered the 15th and 68th picks in exchange for No. 11, a deal that resulted in 20 points of excess AV. The 68th pick was acquired as part of a trade the previous year, where Washington gave Denver multiple picks to move into the first round to select Jason Campbell, which didn’t exactly work out that wonderfully. One of those picks turned into Brandon Marshall, another was used to trade for Javon Walker, and a third was used as part of the Cutler deal. By moving down one year and using part of that haul to move up in another, the Broncos accumulated 70 extra points of Approximate Value.
The other trade in which the team moving up in the draft for a quarterback came away with more AV than the team who moved down is Cleveland’s trade in last year’s draft for Johnny Manziel. The three players eventually selected by the Philadelphia Eagles produced 0 AV for them last season, while Manziel, in his disastrous rookie year, managed to produce 1 AV. Who knows what will happen to that calculation in the future, but given Manziel’s performance and current personal circumstances, as well as reports the Browns are considering moving up for Mariota, it does not look great for people expecting the Manziel deal to be a win.
Similarly, though it looked quite good after the 2012 season, Washington’s trade for Robert Griffin III now looks like a boondoggle. The Rams have already acquired 49 points in excess AV from the trade, and if Washington doesn’t retain Griffin after his rookie contract ends, that number will only continue to grow. As the eventual fruit of the deal, the Rams wound up with three defensive starters (Michael Brockers, Janoris Jenkins, Alec Ogletree), two rotation running backs (Zac Stacy, Isaiah Pead), a solid wide receiver (Stedman Bailey) and their left tackle of the future (Greg Robinson). They still don’t have their quarterback, but they have a deeper team and a far better defense than Washington, which may need to look for a quarterback once again given the friction between Griffin and head coach Jay Gruden.
Even the best player (by total AV) acquired in this fashion, Eli Manning, wound up on the losing end of the deal. The New York Giants would likely make that trade again and again if given the opportunity, considering that Manning has been a picture of health and a consistently above-average quarterback throughout his career. Even leaving aside the two Super Bowl victories, Manning has produced a lot of value for New York. Still, the haul the San Diego Chargers got in exchange for his services — Philip Rivers, Nate Kaeding, Shawne Merriman and Roman Oben (acquired in a trade for one of the picks from the Manning deal) — wound up producing a ton of excess value.
The best of these deals by AV was Denver’s trade for Cutler, and it only resulted in a positive-20 differential. Of the other 13 trades, 10 of them resulted in a negative differential of more than 20 for the team that traded up. Even New York’s deal for Manning wound up producing nearly as much excess AV for San Diego (100) as Manning has produced for the Giants in his career (120), and Manning is the best player acquired in one of these trade-ups. Quite simply, it is very, very hard to win one of these deals if you’re the team that moves up for a quarterback.
Even ignoring the AV calculations, it’s difficult to say that many of the teams that moved up in the draft for their quarterback “won” the deal by acquiring the best player. Taking each deal separately, it’s likely that only the 2004 Giants (Manning), 2006 Broncos (Cutler) and 2008 Ravens (Joe Flacco) could confidently say they came away with the best player in the trade. And even two of those are debatable, as it’s arguable that Philip Rivers has been a superior player to Manning and that Duane Brown has been better at his position (left tackle) than Flacco. The Giants and Ravens won Super Bowls with Manning and Flacco, though, so they resulted in wins for the organization, whether they got the true “best” player or not.
But nobody in their right mind would tell you that Michael Vick was better the LaDainian Tomlinson, or Kyle Boller was better than Vince Wilfork, or Blaine Gabbert was better than Ryan Kerrigan. The draft is a crap shoot, above anything else, and surrendering extra picks and/or players just gives you one less roll of the dice. Even if you think the quarterback you’re moving up to acquire is a sure thing, it’s more likely than not that you’re wrong. Sure things don’t come around very often, and tricking yourself into believing you have spotted the one guy who can change everything is more likely to come back to haunt you than to result in wild success.
This stuff is historical data. It is not a law. At some point value will meet risk. But that point is probably below what the other team is willing to do a trade for or another team is willing to bid. imo
Agamemnon
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