Are winning GM's smarter drafters than journalists doing mock drafts?

[C.Biscuit97]

There are some people who think someone is in a nfl front office, they can’t be questioned.  There are some great guys who are some knowledgeable.  There are some guys who are there because their dad had the right connections.  They are certainly “regular” people who can do their job.

 

the flip side of This is media guys aren’t going to get fired over bad picks.  These guys make tons of errors.  Mike MAyock who is one of the best once had Blaine Gabbert over Cam Newton and Robert Ayers as the best defensive player in his draft.  Picks like that would get you fired if you worked in a nfl front office. 

[Pokebball]

5 hours ago, Chaos said:

I am perplexed by people evaluating real draft decisions in the context of popular selections in mock drafts.  I believe the level of information available to GM's is a magnitude greater than the level of information available to sports writers and sportscasters.  It is also clear over time that some GMs are consistently better at drafting than other GMs.  It seems common for people to defend questionable draft decisions with "everyone expected so and so to go even higher, so you can't fault GM x for the decision".  My view is always not only don't we know what "everyone" thinks, we don't even know what anyone who matters (people putting boards together for NFL teams) thinks.  
 

Would people think a documentary on how each teams draft boards were put together 20 years (before any current GMs were drafting) to see the range of variation would be interesting? (maybe something like that already exists)

 

 

 

 

Sports writers and sportscasters are picking the best player whereas a GM/coach are trying to build the best team.  This by itself yields different results.

[Nextmanup]

6 hours ago, Chaos said:

I am perplexed by people evaluating real draft decisions in the context of popular selections in mock drafts.  I believe the level of information available to GM's is a magnitude greater than the level of information available to sports writers and sportscasters.  It is also clear over time that some GMs are consistently better at drafting than other GMs.  It seems common for people to defend questionable draft decisions with "everyone expected so and so to go even higher, so you can't fault GM x for the decision".  My view is always not only don't we know what "everyone" thinks, we don't even know what anyone who matters (people putting boards together for NFL teams) thinks.  
 

Would people think a documentary on how each teams draft boards were put together 20 years (before any current GMs were drafting) to see the range of variation would be interesting? (maybe something like that already exists)

 

 

 

 

The "Pros" making draft selections for NFL football teams all have horrible hit rates.  Do some research.

 

It's just one reason why you never, ever, trade UP in a draft because you just have no idea what you are getting.

 

It's also why it's almost always a good idea to trade DOWN and get more picks.  More throws at the dart board = better chance of success.  It's that simple.

 

 

[BarleyNY]

One of the articles I read on analytics showed that there appears to be a limit to how well GMs can draft.  One of the issues that they face is actually the excessive amount of information on prospects.  It can (and often does) create a certainty bias.  IOW over the years greater and great amounts of information have been gathered on the top prospects, but the gains topped out a long time ago.  But, as is human nature, the additional info has still made GMs more confident.  That explains why Mike Ditka gave up so much for Ricky Williams.

 

It also found that the real problems occurred when GMs didn’t stay true to their process.  A big one is when an owner it coach with little real knowledge comes in and demands a player (coughManzielcoughHaslamcough). It happened again with the Browns with the coaches and Justin Gilbert. The DC came in at the last minute and demanded him, saying he was the player he needed to make his defense work.  The took him in the top 10 despite not having done any homework on him.  The teams that had realized he didn’t even like the game.  There are countless examples of this kind of thing (with just the Browns alone).

 

The best teams do their homework, listen to their scouts and stay true to their process.  They don’t fall in love with players and are realistic about what they have and how well players can possibly do their jobs.  They look for system fits and don’t get caught up emotionally with aspects of players that don’t matter.

[Chaos]

1 hour ago, Nextmanup said:

The "Pros" making draft selections for NFL football teams all have horrible hit rates.  Do some research.

 

It's just one reason why you never, ever, trade UP in a draft because you just have no idea what you are getting.

 

It's also why it's almost always a good idea to trade DOWN and get more picks.  More throws at the dart board = better chance of success.  It's that simple.

 

 

You have clearly never played competitive darts. 

[boater]

Quote

Are winning GM's smarter drafters than journalists doing mock drafts

 

GM's have information from scout visits that journalists don't have. This makes GMs better informed (smarter in your words).

 

GMs have insights from their scouts:  personal observations watching a game, interviewing coaches and often.. interviewing the prospect.

 

GMs are fully informed, except Cincinnati who don't employ scouts.

 

Winning and losing GMs kick the arse of the Kipers any day of the week.

[somnus00]

Mayock in Vegas will go a long way to providing an answer to this question.

 

He's been considered one of the better draft pundits for years. I was a fan. 

 

Still too early to say. But his surprising pick of Ferrell made it so we would get either Josh Allen 2, or Ed Oliver. For that I'm grateful. 

[MJS]

8 hours ago, Ed_Formerly_of_Roch said:

The problem with mock drafts compared to the real thing is in mocks one guy is making every pick, so he is going to logically make the picks in the order that he feels they should be chosen.  Where as in the real draft there are 32 different selectors and one guy going "off script" upsets the entire apple cart very quickly.

 

Would be interesting to take all these journalists and have each of them make one pick in order like a real draft, then see how close there real draft like picks compare to their own mocks or does any of there mocks come close to resembling what they just picked on a one pick GM like basis.

Plus trades, which very rarely can be predicted. One trade ruins every single mock draft, and there are almost always trades in the top 10 and later as well.

2 hours ago, Nextmanup said:

The "Pros" making draft selections for NFL football teams all have horrible hit rates.  Do some research.

 

It's just one reason why you never, ever, trade UP in a draft because you just have no idea what you are getting.

 

It's also why it's almost always a good idea to trade DOWN and get more picks.  More throws at the dart board = better chance of success.  It's that simple.

Few GM's follow that, though. Trades up and down are very common. So I don't think your opinion matches reality at all.

[K-9]

6 hours ago, Seasons1992 said:

 

Are you saying Brandon's choice of Aaron Maybin as our #1 pick was foolhardy? How dare you...........

 

Remember kids, RUSS BRANDON, HEAD OF MARKETING, was our GM one season.

I would say that if it was Brandon’s choice. It wasn’t. Maybin was Jauron’s choice. Entirely.

[K-9]

1 hour ago, boater said:

 

GM's have information from scout visits that journalists don't have. This makes GMs better informed (smarter in your words).

 

GMs have insights from their scouts:  personal observations watching a game, interviewing coaches and often.. interviewing the prospect.

 

GMs are fully informed, except Cincinnati who don't employ scouts.

 

Winning and losing GMs kick the arse of the Kipers any day of the week.

That’s not entirely true as Cincy is a member of The National, one of the two league scouting alliances along with BLESTO. Each team needs to dedicate one scout to the group. So while the Bengals may not employ as many scouts or have as robust a scouting department, they are privy to a wealth of compiled scouting data on each prospect. 

Edited February 25, 2020 by K-9

[Malazan]

I've always been of the mind that "drafting" is pretty easy. Development is the hard part. There's few secrets about how talented, motivated, etc that players are and that most guys that get drafted (in the top 3 rounds especially) are all able to be good players. I think that any talent evaluation and drafting apparatus is capable of making mostly good picks.

 

However, the hard part is ensuring that you have the services/training/support structure to accommodate the player you drafted and is where teams fail. Whether you say it's part of drafting to know that you do/don't have that the means to ensure the success of that player could be drafting, but I hold the two as separate because an NFL team has the resources and should be able to put a program in place for almost any player who passes the bar to be in the upper rounds to succeed.  

[SoTier]

11 hours ago, Ethan in Portland said:

Its a lottery. These GMs are of course more capable than the rest of us. But it doesn’t mean they are any good either. 32 GMs passed on Brady five times each. 20 passed on Rodgers. Romo and Warner go undrafted. The list of draft busts is endless. 

 

Brady wasn't even good enough to be a full time starter at Michigan.  He played well when he got the opportunity but Drew Henson was the primary starter.  If Henson hadn't chosen to play baseball , he would have gone higher than Brady.  Part of the Henson/Brady "rivalry" was athletic department politics (the AD favored Henson in order to keep Henson playing baseball), but Brady was not clearly superior to Henson even without interference by the AD.

[Seasons1992]

2 hours ago, K-9 said:

I would say that if it was Brandon’s choice. It wasn’t. Maybin was Jauron’s choice. Entirely.

 

@Jauronimo I blame the franchise demise on you, then.

[SoTier]

7 hours ago, yungmack said:

The reason Brandon took the job for a year was because no one wanted the job. The place was in turmoil, with an increasingly senile owner growing closer to death. Mary Wilson wrested control from Ralph and the Detroit Mafia. With no competent football man willing to take the job, it fell to Brandon who immediately begged the just-retiring Buddy Nix to come in and clean up the scouting department with the understanding he'd take the GM job after a year and mentor Doug Whaley, a guy Brandon had identified as a "comer." Then Nix could finally retire. Now, you can hate Russ, Nix and Whaley but the reality at that time was was no one even close to top flight, up and coming would even interview for a Bills job. That was why Chan Gailey reluctantly became the coach and the unheralded Marrone demanded and received the "dead owner" buyout clause. It would take the death of Wilson and the change to stable ownership to make it possible to attract top execs, scouts, coaches & players. Unless you're 14 & new to the Bills, you should already know this. 

 

My view of the Brandon era (2006-2018) is somewhat different.

 

Wilson essentially turned over control to Brandon in 2006.  Levy was a figurehead, and when he decided to say 'adios", tellingly, the Bills didn't bother to fill the GM position.  Brandon and Jauron actually made personnel decisions, 2006-2009.   Certainly the Bills operated with second and third rate FO and coaching talent (maybe scouting, too) from 2006 through 2014.  I think Whaley's ability to identify talent, especially in unexpected places, masked a lot of sins. 

 

I think that the Rex Ryan hire was Terry Pegula exercising his perogative as owner, and that debacle led Pegula to turn back to Brandon, eventually giving him control of both the Bills and the Sabres.   I think that the hiring of new offensive coaches and improved performance in FA in 2019 reflect Beane as GM without being under whatever monetary restrictions that Brandon, always the  money-ball guy, seems to have imposed.

[Rock'em Sock'em]

6 hours ago, Limeaid said:

Are you saying Brandon's choice of Aaron Maybin as our #1 pick was foolhardy?

 

But Maybin had an incredibly fast first step.  He got off the ball and into the art studio in a blink.

[Buffalo86]

9 hours ago, Seasons1992 said:

 

Are you saying Brandon's choice of Aaron Maybin as our #1 pick was foolhardy? How dare you...........

 

Remember kids, RUSS BRANDON, HEAD OF MARKETING, was our GM one season.

 

Just one year of many when we wished someone would drop an NFL Draft magazine on the GM's desk.  

[Saxum]

6 hours ago, Limeaid said:

 

Could be worse like when a team picked a media member to be GM or even worse than that a fan.

 

9 hours ago, Seasons1992 said:

 

Are you saying Brandon's choice of Aaron Maybin as our #1 pick was foolhardy? How dare you...........

 

Remember kids, RUSS BRANDON, HEAD OF MARKETING, was our GM one season.

 

15 minutes ago, Rock'em Sock'em said:

 

But Maybin had an incredibly fast first step.  He got off the ball and into the art studio in a blink.

 

Rock'em - you put my name on quote of Seasons1992 post.  Please do not do that.

[Seasons1992]

24 minutes ago, Limeaid said:

Rock'em - you put my name on quote of Seasons1992 post.  Please do not do that.

 

[PrimeTime101]

Drafting is a crap shoot.. especially when it involves a QB.

 

The better question is who is more lucky fans or GM's? Fans are.. its a numbers game... If we chose the wrong Josh likely our GM and Coach would be on the chopping block. How many fans wanted Rosen. and those same fans get some stuff right. A gm is being paid to get it right all of the time and when they are not right all the time but most of the time they are still questioned.

 

There is no right answer here. 

[Malazan]

The better GMs give themselves flexibility to fix their mistakes. It's why I'm a fan of Beane. Not because he finds some diamond in the rough, but because they way the Bills structure their contracts and where they put their resources. They generally have an out after 1-2 years if the player massively underperforms and so far he seems to be able to use that to cycle new talent in..