My annual rant about draft value.

[Herb62]

Today's Buffalo News has an article about Todd McShay's opinion of the Bills pick at #10 lacking options with value. Every year we descend into the value/reach debate as if it means anything once OTAs begin.

 

Reach and value are invented commodities used to add drama to draft day. It is something debated endlessly but means nothing once the draft is done. If you pick a player and he fills a need no one cares if he was a reach or a value pick.

 

Have at it.

 

PTR

Correct,just think Maybin, Williams and Flowers first round busts, Stevie Johnson, Kyle Williams, Ryan Fitzpatrick late round steals, the draft is a crap shoot many times.

[Dragonborn10]

Let me spell it out for you...

 

"If you pick a player and he fills a need no one cares if he was a reach or a value pick."

 

Donte Whitner filled a need. People called him a reach.

Yes he did and he would have filled that same need several picks later along with another teammate that they could have gotten with the extra draft pick they would have recieved from Denver.

[uncle flap]

Picture this: Trent Richardson falls to #10. Obviously the BPA. Sure, they'll be offers to trade down. But other GMs know the Bills don't need a RB and try to play hardball. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking and you don't think you're getting enough compensation. Do you take the "value" pick? Or do you "reach" for a need?

 

Spiller was the consensus BPA. But I bet a bunch of the guys here preaching BPA all the way hated the pick because he wasn't a need - that he was a luxury pick.

 

I don't write these things to defend the Bills poor drafting in the past. The fact remains good GMs must find a balance between the best player(s) available AND addressing needs. I will gladly concede that reaching for needs can harm a team when those picks don't pan out.

 

Contrary to what some seem to believe, it isn't always possible to trade back and get fair compensation. And GMs can never know for sure that a player they're targeting will be there in the next round or at their next pick. What about the guy they want in that next round? All of a sudden you draft for "value," get a guy you don't really want/need, and someone swoops in and get the guy you wanted before you do.

 

On the flip side of the coin, say Kalil drops to the Bills at #10. They take him and he's a bust. Does it matter that on draft day everyone said the Bills got great value? No.

 

Of course, there's no way they could pass on Kalil and I'm not saying they should bc all signs point to him being a stud. I'm just saying that even though the Bills appeared to get great "value" for their pick on draft day - if that player turns out to be a bust, it's the exact same thing as taking a lower slotted player who is also a bust.

 

Reach and value in and of themselves don't mean much compared to actual on field NFL performance...

 

If following the draft Kiper gives the Bills an "A" because they didnt "reach" and got lots of "value" picks, but they all wind up as busts 3 years down the road, do we then still consider it a good draft? Or what if Kiper gives the Bills a poor grade but 3 years down the road each pick is a perennial pro bowler? Is it a big deal that they "reached?"

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

They are just nice words to classify ones disagreement with another's prognostication. No one picks a player they think will stink.

 

Value= can't belive they weren't picked already...

Reach = can't belive you got that dude over this list...

 

The only thing these classifications can help with is improving how you draft by looking at what you did well and poorly in the past.

[3rdand12]

you cant predict value. You can estimate though. i still feel we are discussing multiple meanings of the word.

The particular one being narrowed down to is. Estimating value at a pick point.

Lets throw away need completely. completely i said!

If we have our player boards up by position played in college or position played best in college then we have about about twenty boards up or so and some mini boards up in between positions such as CB >safety or olb < DE. But for thus we should stick strictly to focus on the one position and not special teams abilty etc. and versatality.

So you, the scout/gm rank every cornerback. 1-100 or till they are all rated. So you do this with every position. easy right?

Then you line them up side by side and create another board that puts every player in order by skill/abilty. Dont forget we are not talking about how it applies to our team,yet.

I think maybe thats how the mockers have to do it. So they have Whitner at twenty? or whatever for the sake of, in the big picture and we draft at 9. That is poor value to pundits. and it could be.

But after Your team does all these boards and then adds in immediate perceived or real needs,depth upside etc etc it looks nothing like mockers BPA board really anymore. if we really want this whitner and he is ranked at fifteen and we pick at ten, we have reached.

But if you were able to look at The Team big board he was BPA for US. does that make sense guys? i am writing out loud and have much to learn. Obviously!

When the team estimates player value at a pick point only the team knows for sure how far they strayed from their board.

Another reason we should hope to trust in Nix and Gang i think. feel free to tear me up guys . only way i'll learn

Edited April 4, 2012 by 3rdand12

[Orton's Arm]

There is value in drafting the right player at the right time. Don't deny it just because your team is horrible at it and teams like the Patriots excel at determining value. One need look no further than Buffalo and Marv Levy's incomeptenece. That pick had value that was lost. Denver was willing to give something of value to take Cutler and Levy blew it. Then Levy gave away value by trading up for Poz and McCargo.

The draft is all about odds. The best GM's are little better than the worst. It is luck and increasing your ods by having more picks. That is what value is all about.

I disagree with most of what you've written. There is a significant difference between the draft records of the best and worst GMs. Compare the Bills' first round picks during the TD/Levy/Brandon era against the first round picks from well-run teams. Then remember that the well-run teams generally picked later in the first round than the Bills. Yet they did much better than the Bills despite that handicap! One or two first round busts might be the result of bad luck. But an ongoing pattern of poor first round picks, when other teams are having first round successes, points to something deeper.

 

You are correct to assert that the Bills could have traded down with Denver; and could probably have taken Whitner even after trading down. But that doesn't mean that trading down or taking Whitner were good ideas. Whitner should not have been taken until the second round at the very earliest. If some other team had gotten stuck with that overrated, over-hyped player, then boo hoo for the Bills! (It's not Whitner's personal fault that an incompetent GM had convinced himself Whitner was an eighth overall talent that just had to be taken. Had Whitner been taken in the fourth round, he would have been considered a reasonably good success story. Not an embarrassment to the GM who blew the eighth overall pick on him.)

 

The Bills should have stayed put and drafted Cutler. One reason they didn't is because they already had Losman on the roster, and wanted to give him a chance. The QB drafting foolishness of one regime (TD's) splashed over into the successor regime. Losman was an avoidable error. Wannestedt said he wouldn't have drafted him with the last pick of the seventh round. Wannestedt saw reality when both TD and Marv allowed themselves to be guided by wishful thinking. The ability to see players for what they really are--as Wannestedt did with Losman--is is what separates the real GMs from the loser GMs the Bills have endured over the last 15 or so years. (That remark is not directed against Nix, but is directed against all the post-Polian GMs leading up to Nix.)

 

It's also worth noting that a first round pick is much more likely to succeed than a second round pick; which in turn is more likely to succeed than a third round pick, and so on. This is why trading down for more picks does not necessarily increase your chances of success.

Edited April 4, 2012 by Edwards' Arm

[Orton's Arm]

Picture this: Trent Richardson falls to #10. Obviously the BPA. Sure, they'll be offers to trade down. But other GMs know the Bills don't need a RB and try to play hardball. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking and you don't think you're getting enough compensation. Do you take the "value" pick? Or do you "reach" for a need?

 

Spiller was the consensus BPA. But I bet a bunch of the guys here preaching BPA all the way hated the pick because he wasn't a need - that he was a luxury pick.

 

I don't write these things to defend the Bills poor drafting in the past. The fact remains good GMs must find a balance between the best player(s) available AND addressing needs. I will gladly concede that reaching for needs can harm a team when those picks don't pan out.

 

Contrary to what some seem to believe, it isn't always possible to trade back and get fair compensation. And GMs can never know for sure that a player they're targeting will be there in the next round or at their next pick. What about the guy they want in that next round? All of a sudden you draft for "value," get a guy you don't really want/need, and someone swoops in and get the guy you wanted before you do.

 

On the flip side of the coin, say Kalil drops to the Bills at #10. They take him and he's a bust. Does it matter that on draft day everyone said the Bills got great value? No.

 

Of course, there's no way they could pass on Kalil and I'm not saying they should bc all signs point to him being a stud. I'm just saying that even though the Bills appeared to get great "value" for their pick on draft day - if that player turns out to be a bust, it's the exact same thing as taking a lower slotted player who is also a bust.

 

Reach and value in and of themselves don't mean much compared to actual on field NFL performance...

 

If following the draft Kiper gives the Bills an "A" because they didnt "reach" and got lots of "value" picks, but they all wind up as busts 3 years down the road, do we then still consider it a good draft? Or what if Kiper gives the Bills a poor grade but 3 years down the road each pick is a perennial pro bowler? Is it a big deal that they "reached?"

We need to come to an agreement about what's meant by best player available.

 

Suppose that a punter will be one of the two or three best punters in NFL history. And suppose he's available at tenth overall. Does this make him the best player available? If the answer to that question is yes, then does that mean a team pursuing a best player available strategy must take the punter if it is to remain true to its strategy?

 

The counterargument which can be made is that a Hall of Fame punter has significantly less value than (for example) a Hall of Fame LT; or even just an above-average starter at LT. You have to ask not just "how good will this player be?" but also, "how valuable is his position?" Only by combining these two concepts can you determine who is truly the best player available.

 

This means that, when evaluating whether Trent Richardson is the best player available, we have to ask not just "how good is he?" but also "how valuable is the running back position?" My response: the RB position is significantly overrated, and has traditionally been insanely overrated by the Bills! Over the last 40 years, the Bills have used 25% of their first picks of the draft on the running back position. They've used precisely 0% of their first overall picks of the draft on the QB position. (Or 1.5, if you want to count the Rob Johnson trade and half of Kelly.) Even if you give the Bills that 1.5, that's less than 4% of their first picks of the draft on QBs--as opposed to 25% on RBs. This strategic ineptitude is one of the major reasons why the Bills have a losing record over the last 40 years, and haven't made the playoffs in over a decade.

 

After factoring in the relatively low value of the running back position, and the short duration of RBs' careers, Trent Richardson becomes much less tempting for the Bills. Then when you think about the fact that the absolute, literal last thing this team needs is yet another running back, the pick becomes even less tempting.

[BobChalmers]

Today's Buffalo News has an article about Todd McShay's opinion of the Bills pick at #10 lacking options with value. Every year we descend into the value/reach debate as if it means anything once OTAs begin.

 

Reach and value are invented commodities used to add drama to draft day. It is something debated endlessly but means nothing once the draft is done. If you pick a player and he fills a need no one cares if he was a reach or a value pick.

 

Have at it.

 

PTR

 

Sorry - On this I think you are completely and utterly wrong.

 

The draft is a game within the game. The draft "game" is about getting the maximum TOTAL value with the picks you are allotted.

 

Taking someone before you have to is wasting picks you could have gotten additional value with.

 

 

It doesn't matter if the guy you take is a Hall of Famer. Football teams are not one player, and if you take your HoF to be guy too early, when you could have traded down, still gotten the guy, and added additional picks to your team, you screwed up.

 

Now - it's not always possible to find a trade partner, and you don't always know who other teams will take, so it's not an exact science. But to say there is no such thing as reaching is to dismiss all alternatives which is illogical at a minimum.

[3rdand12]

Sorry - On this I think you are completely and utterly wrong.

 

The draft is a game within the game. The draft "game" is about getting the maximum TOTAL value with the picks you are allotted.

 

Taking someone before you have to is wasting picks you could have gotten additional value with.

 

 

It doesn't matter if the guy you take is a Hall of Famer. Football teams are not one player, and if you take your HoF to be guy too early, when you could have traded down, still gotten the guy, and added additional picks to your team, you screwed up.

 

Now - it's not always possible to find a trade partner, and you don't always know who other teams will take, so it's not an exact science. But to say there is no such thing as reaching is to dismiss all alternatives which is illogical at a minimum.

nice backswing Chalmers!

Retort?

i was outta my league before but now i must step off. Great post though and great dialogue again gentle folks. not you Bob.

[Dawgg]

If Kiper really knew who was worth drafting where he'd be an NFL GM. For every Troup he gets right, I can point to 3 Clausens, Leinerts, etc he totally whiffs on. Random chance will make you right once in a while.

 

PTR

This is a nonsensical comment. Had the Bills merely hired an intern during the past 7-8 years to blindly choose the best player available on Kiper's board at the time of the Bills' pick, they would have been far better off than the "NFL Caliber" GMs the Bills paid and employed to conduct the drafts.

[Dawgg]

Stevie Johnson, Kyle Williams, Fred Jackson, George Wilson.

 

PTR

7th Round, 5th Round, Undrafted, Undrafted. Your answer (again) is borderline moronic.

 

1. Whitner was a top-10 selection. Regardless of "need," it is patently irresponsible to take a safety in the Top 10 unless he has the "potential" to be dominant. Whitner was never a player of that caliber coming out of college, in contrast to Polamalu, the late Sean Taylor and Eric Berry.

 

2. You also have to consider replacement cost. The open market for free-agent, starting-caliber safeties is far deeper and less expensive than the open market for starting caliber DLs and QBs.

[Orton's Arm]

This is a nonsensical comment. Had the Bills merely hired an intern during the past 7-8 years to blindly choose the best player available on Kiper's board at the time of the Bills' pick, they would have been far better off than the "NFL Caliber" GMs the Bills paid and employed to conduct the drafts.

You're right, and I'll go one step further. Had the Bills hired a monkey to randomly throw darts at players' names listed in mock drafts, they would have done better in rounds 1 - 3 than what we actually saw from TD and Levy.

[uncle flap]

We need to come to an agreement

 

I don't disagree with anything you've said in this thread.

 

The main point I've been trying to make is that the player selected (and his subsequent contribution to the team) is more important than the position where he was selected.

 

Teams, including the Bills, get into trouble when they too frequently reach for needs. But what's worse than reaching is selecting players that suck. So, in essence, what we are now talking about is poor player evaluation that leads to these reaches.

 

I don't have a problem with a team picking a player that they are high on a little early if they're convinced he's THE guy that best fits. And I understand not wanting to take the risk of losing that player by trading down. I'm not advocating it's NEVER worth the risk, but I won't fault a GM for thinking that. I will fault the GM/team for picking bums. And to me, that's what this all boils down to.

Edited April 5, 2012 by uncle flap

[Malazan]

And that actually may have been true as written - witness Maybin's production with the Jets when used as a pure pass-rusher.

The problem is the Bills needed an all-around DE/OLB and also a higher quality line to enable a pure pass rusher. We lacked the latter and Maybin was an epic fail as the former. Doesn't mean McShay was wrong - he may have been exactly correct.

 

I understand you have a point you want to make, but please don't take my post that was in direct response to another post and use it out of context.

[JPS]

Sorry - On this I think you are completely and utterly wrong.

 

The draft is a game within the game. The draft "game" is about getting the maximum TOTAL value with the picks you are allotted.

 

Taking someone before you have to is wasting picks you could have gotten additional value with.

 

 

It doesn't matter if the guy you take is a Hall of Famer. Football teams are not one player, and if you take your HoF to be guy too early, when you could have traded down, still gotten the guy, and added additional picks to your team, you screwed up.

 

Now - it's not always possible to find a trade partner, and you don't always know who other teams will take, so it's not an exact science. But to say there is no such thing as reaching is to dismiss all alternatives which is illogical at a minimum.

No way.Who is to say that a pick is too early? If your board tells you Kuechly is the 4th rated prospect and Reiff is at 15, did you make a mistake by taking Kuechly at 10 because Draftek had him at 17? It's a ridiculous statement. These guys put board together over 2 years, not 2 months.

 

The only way GMs trade down is if they have X players identified as equal-ish and they could still get one of them with the lower pick. It's only too early if the is plucked from lower on your board.

 

I agree with the OP 100%

[Orton's Arm]

I don't disagree with anything you've said in this thread.

 

The main point I've been trying to make is that the player selected (and his subsequent contribution to the team) is more important than the position where he was selected.

 

Teams, including the Bills, get into trouble when they too frequently reach for needs. But what's worse than reaching is selecting players that suck. So, in essence, what we are now talking about is poor player evaluation that leads to these reaches.

 

I don't have a problem with a team picking a player that they are high on a little early if they're convinced he's THE guy that best fits. And I understand not wanting to take the risk of losing that player by trading down. I'm not advocating it's NEVER worth the risk, but I won't fault a GM for thinking that. I will fault the GM/team for picking bums. And to me, that's what this all boils down to.

It sounds like we're more or less on the same page. I'll throw in one caveat, however. If (for example) a team takes a player 10th overall, then the bar that player has to clear to be considered a success is higher than would have been the case if he'd been taken 20th overall. Lee Evans, for example, didn't have a good enough career to justify his 13th overall draft position, but could have justified a late first round pick. Taking a player a little before you have to is okay, as long as he lives up to his draft position.

[K-9]

We need to come to an agreement about what's meant by best player available.

 

Suppose that a punter will be one of the two or three best punters in NFL history. And suppose he's available at tenth overall. Does this make him the best player available? If the answer to that question is yes, then does that mean a team pursuing a best player available strategy must take the punter if it is to remain true to its strategy?

 

The counterargument which can be made is that a Hall of Fame punter has significantly less value than (for example) a Hall of Fame LT; or even just an above-average starter at LT. You have to ask not just "how good will this player be?" but also, "how valuable is his position?" Only by combining these two concepts can you determine who is truly the best player available.

 

This means that, when evaluating whether Trent Richardson is the best player available, we have to ask not just "how good is he?" but also "how valuable is the running back position?" My response: the RB position is significantly overrated, and has traditionally been insanely overrated by the Bills! Over the last 40 years, the Bills have used 25% of their first picks of the draft on the running back position. They've used precisely 0% of their first overall picks of the draft on the QB position. (Or 1.5, if you want to count the Rob Johnson trade and half of Kelly.) Even if you give the Bills that 1.5, that's less than 4% of their first picks of the draft on QBs--as opposed to 25% on RBs. This strategic ineptitude is one of the major reasons why the Bills have a losing record over the last 40 years, and haven't made the playoffs in over a decade.

 

After factoring in the relatively low value of the running back position, and the short duration of RBs' careers, Trent Richardson becomes much less tempting for the Bills. Then when you think about the fact that the absolute, literal last thing this team needs is yet another running back, the pick becomes even less tempting.

 

Admittedly, you lost me at "punter" when making your argument here. But never mind that.

 

If RB is such a devalued position around the league do you think Richardson will fall out of the first round because GMs and other personnel people around the league share this point of view?

 

GO BILLS!!!

[uncle flap]

It sounds like we're more or less on the same page. I'll throw in one caveat, however. If (for example) a team takes a player 10th overall, then the bar that player has to clear to be considered a success is higher than would have been the case if he'd been taken 20th overall. Lee Evans, for example, didn't have a good enough career to justify his 13th overall draft position, but could have justified a late first round pick. Taking a player a little before you have to is okay, as long as he lives up to his draft position.

 

I don't disagree with that either. In fact, that's precisely my point. The player's performance/impact on the team is more important than if he was considered a reach or not.

 

I don't recall where Lee Evans was ranked overall pre-draft, but let's say he was pegged for a late first rounder. So at #13, he's a reach. But if he performs well enough to justify that pick, then in the end it doesn't matter that he was a reach, right? And on the contrary, if some Top 5 ranked guy is picked at 13 and he turned out to be a bust, it wouldn't matter that he was a steal or a value pick. He's still a bust and a bad pick.

[Orton's Arm]

Admittedly, you lost me at "punter" when making your argument here. But never mind that.

 

If RB is such a devalued position around the league do you think Richardson will fall out of the first round because GMs and other personnel people around the league share this point of view?

 

GO BILLS!!!

The point I was making there was that, no matter how good you think a punter is going to be, you don't take him tenth overall. Period. More generally, you should ask not just "how good will player X be?" but also, "how much value does his position have?"

 

Unless a running back is going to be the next Barry Sanders or Marshall Faulk, you don't take him 10th overall. If Richardson falls to 10th overall, then that means that the first nine teams to pick have collectively decided he's not going to be in the Sanders/Faulk category. Even if the Bills' front office disagrees with that assessment, it's much more likely that the first nine teams are right, and the Bills wrong, than vice versa.

 

If the Bills pick, say, a LT or a CB at 10th overall, then all he has to do is be an above-average starter for 10 years or so to make the pick a reasonably justifiable selection. But if Richardson is the pick, he'd have to perform at or near a Hall of Fame level to justify the Bills using yet another first round pick on a RB. Maybe he'll actually do that, but odds are the Bills would just be setting themselves up for yet another draft day failure. (The required performance differential exists because LT and CB are much, much more important than RB, and because the Bills actually need a LT and a CB, but absolutely do not need a RB! )

 

As for your question, I hate to make predictions about what NFL GMs will do. Even if 31 out of 32 GMs would be perfectly happy to let Richardson fall to the second round, that 32nd GM might snap him up in the top 10!

 

I recall a few years back, the best RB of the draft fell to the 20s, where the Saints picked him up. Richardson may be better than whoever that RB was. I could see Richardson falling into the teens, but probably not too much lower than that. This does not necessarily mean that whichever team ultimately drafts him will be making the best possible use of their pick.

[Orton's Arm]

I don't disagree with that either. In fact, that's precisely my point. The player's performance/impact on the team is more important than if he was considered a reach or not.

 

I don't recall where Lee Evans was ranked overall pre-draft, but let's say he was pegged for a late first rounder. So at #13, he's a reach. But if he performs well enough to justify that pick, then in the end it doesn't matter that he was a reach, right? And on the contrary, if some Top 5 ranked guy is picked at 13 and he turned out to be a bust, it wouldn't matter that he was a steal or a value pick. He's still a bust and a bad pick.

I'll also agree with this. But as usual, I have a caveat.

 

Teams generally assign grades to players based on their college play, workouts, and numerous other evaluation tools. Suppose, for example, that a team looks at the evaluation it put together, and determines a player's grade does not merit a top-10 pick. But it takes him in the top 10 anyway because of need, desire for instant gratification, a GM who lets himself be pushed around by coaches, or other factors. That player then goes on to have a better-than-expected career, and justifies his top-10 selection. Even though the result worked out well, I'd still disagree with the process which led to that result. To me, this would be the case of good luck masking the effects of a bad process. That good luck will not last forever, which means the bad process should be corrected sooner rather than later.

 

Another example of a bad process would be a team whose draft day grades show little correlation with players' actual long-term successes. A good way to measure this is to look at your draft day grades from five years ago, and determine their level of accuracy. You then ask, "what could we have done differently to have made our grading system more accurate?" Then you look at the drafts from four years ago and six years ago, to see how those hypothetical changes in your grading process would have affected that process's accuracy. The goal here is twofold:

 

1. To build a player evaluation process which produces accurate results.

2. To take the players your evaluation tools have graded highly; rather than reaching for players based on need. (This does not mean that it's required--or even acceptable--for the Bills to take an OG, RB, non-pass rushing LB, or punter at 10th overall! Position value must be taken into account!)