Beast Posted January 16, 2021 Posted January 16, 2021 I've always liked Mel Kiper in his evaluation of college players. He spends so much time watching those players that I value his opinion on them. However, Mel Kiper knowing what player fits into an NFL teams philosophy is another story.
Thurman#1 Posted January 16, 2021 Posted January 16, 2021 (edited) It's not that they're smarter drafters. They're better because they get a ton more info that the journos do. A ton. The journos and mock drafters don't have scouting staffs reporting back to them, they don't get to take the top guys to steakhouses for dinner, they don't get to bring in the 30 players for two-day visits. And White Linen above is dead on, as were others, they do two completely different things, and the thing the mockers do is actually harder, since they have to predict every pick, whereas the GMs only have to predict how well certain guys will fit their own team's environment, schemes, locker room, etc. Beane doesn't get criticized based on whether the Pats pick somebody and how well he does. The mock drafters do ... "You said that guy was going to fall to the 2nd, and you said he stood a good chance to be good and he sucks during his rookie year so he's a bust, so you're lousy at this." If GMs were hired, fired and criticized based on the same metrics, they'd come out looking just as useless. What mock drafters do is mathematically impossible to do extremely well. Edited January 16, 2021 by Thurman#1 1
mannc Posted January 16, 2021 Posted January 16, 2021 Well, many guys doing mocks are try to predict who the teams will draft, not necessarily who the best players are, so we have to define our terms. But it would not surprise me one bit if you did a study and found that well-informed amateurs are at least as successful in picking the best players as the actual GMs. Studies in other fields, including medicine, have consistently shown that having more information available to you and more “training” isn’t necessarily better, so just saying that GMs have a ton of info available to them doesn’t answer the question.
JMF2006 Posted January 16, 2021 Posted January 16, 2021 You need to Identify the holes in the roster then fill them with guys that fit your scheme....seems easy...like shooting fish in a barrel. Not necessarily so if you change coordinators and coaches and schemes as often as the Bills did since the year 2000. Having a good GM and a good Coach or Coaches and schemes makes your draft decisions are easier. The talking heads can only guess at who would be a good fit. The Coaches and GM can sit down with a prospect and learn a great deal more to see if they are a fit physically and mentally with your team.
SCBills Posted January 16, 2021 Posted January 16, 2021 We’re starting to see how much the organization matters to player development. Certainly makes it difficult at times to assess how good or bad a mock draft pick was when there are external factors at play beyond the skill set of the player in how they pan out.
GunnerBill Posted January 16, 2021 Posted January 16, 2021 37 minutes ago, SCBills said: We’re starting to see how much the organization matters to player development. Certainly makes it difficult at times to assess how good or bad a mock draft pick was when there are external factors at play beyond the skill set of the player in how they pan out. Absolutely. It is easier for the Bills to develop guys now because they have continuity in leadership and in scheme. There were times we would draft a guy and then put him in 3 different schemes his first 3 years. 1
Thurman#1 Posted January 16, 2021 Posted January 16, 2021 (edited) On 2/26/2020 at 9:36 AM, SoTier said: 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. Well, that's one view, I guess. But it contravenes virtually all of the evidence about the Nix era. We were told again and again that Russ no longer had any control over football operations and people present the fact that he was in the room as proof of power. It's not. Or the fact that the decision-makers on Rexy reported that Brandon had the same opinion that they had. Again, agreeing loudly with the powerful, that's not evidence of any power. Just the opposite, generally. For some reason, though, people want to believe it. But Yungmack is right about why they couldn't get any serious candidates for coach or GM when Ralph's health was going downhill. Nobody wanted to be in a position virtually guaranteed to be blown up underneath them when the new owners came in. Why would they? Ralph was going to give $10M a year, the highest ever offered to a coach, to one candidate if I remember correctly ... Cowher, maybe? ... and nobody would take it. Why would they? It's why they had to go so far down the list before they finally found a guy, Gailey, willing to at least run with the egg for a while. Edited January 16, 2021 by Thurman#1 1
Whkfc Posted January 16, 2021 Posted January 16, 2021 On 2/25/2020 at 7:49 AM, wppete said: Yes winning GMs are much smarter then “journalists” doing mocks. Not even close. There was an espn special a few years back with Bill Parcels and other former GMs I believe and they detailed the draft process and had a draft board and detailed the process of the draft if anyone out there can find it online and post here would be amazing. Here is an article on it: https://www.espn.com/blog/afceast/post/_/id/28276/bill-parcells-takes-you-inside-the-draft-room That article was done by Tim Graham and on my birthday.
Ed_Formerly_of_Roch Posted January 16, 2021 Posted January 16, 2021 (edited) Guys like Kiper and McShay and maybe a few others that do the scouting and mocks basically as their full time job likely have quite a bit of information too. Never really heard, but do wonder do they even have small staffs themselves? Then you have other sports writers that once March or April roll around, there isn't much else to talk/write about so they put out their own mocks. Those are probably based on little real information and study. But even the Kipers still likely have orders of magnitude less information than the worst GM in the league has access too. To me the problem with mocks is that it's all one guys thoughts. This year the Bengals are picking 5th I believe, so there will be mocks out by different people stating who they are likely going to pick, but it's based on the same guy predicting who the 4 teams ahead of them will select too. The real draft one team does something different and it can change alot. 3 years ago if Cleveland hadn't passed on Nick Chubb, we'd likely have traded up to #5 with Denver for Allen, wouldn't have had the pick used on Edmunds as I'd assume that other 1st round pick would have been need ed to get to #5 and who knows what else would have changed roster wise as a result. What would be neat to see is to get 32 of these guys together who do mocks and let them each pick in order. Now each guys mock selection will be based on who the people before them selected too. Would be interesting to see how many of their own mocks then come close to a 32 person mock. Edited January 16, 2021 by Ed_Formerly_of_Roch
Don Otreply Posted January 16, 2021 Posted January 16, 2021 Are “winning” GMs smarter than the pundits? Really? I mean Really? The question gives the answer , which is YES, Duh.., 😂 “winning” is the clue on this one... Go Bills!!!
BuffaloRebound Posted January 16, 2021 Posted January 16, 2021 Too many variables around why a guy succeeds and another doesn’t. Going to the right situation is important as anything else. How do you measure that?
Thurman#1 Posted January 16, 2021 Posted January 16, 2021 3 hours ago, mannc said: Well, many guys doing mocks are try to predict who the teams will draft, not necessarily who the best players are, so we have to define our terms. But it would not surprise me one bit if you did a study and found that well-informed amateurs are at least as successful in picking the best players as the actual GMs. Studies in other fields, including medicine, have consistently shown that having more information available to you and more “training” isn’t necessarily better, so just saying that GMs have a ton of info available to them doesn’t answer the question. You're right, not all extra info is good. But there's plenty that's absolutely crucial, and if you're not on the teams, you don't have access to it. They've got P.I.'s asking the local bartenders about these guys, the high picks anyway. We don't have access to the medicals, which are extremely important. We don't see whether the players don't get along with the coaches in the interviews, we don't see how well they respond to the chalk talk questions. And while education and in particular experience don't guarantee good decisions, everything equal you want the experienced guy making the decision. Do I want an NFL scout of twenty years experience making the call on one particular guy and whether he will better succeed than myself? Yup. In a second. Would I beat that scout a certain percentage of the time? Sure. Would he beat me a larger percentage of the time, all things equal? Yeah, he would. Would he beat me a larger percentage of the time with P.I. reports and interviews with the kid's teammates and college coaches at an even higher rate and having seen him do a chalk talk quiz with a coordinator? Likely yes. As you noted, though, in your first paragraph, mock draters and GMs are doing different things.
GunnerBill Posted January 16, 2021 Posted January 16, 2021 1 hour ago, Ed_Formerly_of_Roch said: Guys like Kiper and McShay and maybe a few others that do the scouting and mocks basically as their full time job likely have quite a bit of information too. Never really heard, but do wonder do they even have small staffs themselves? Then you have other sports writers that once March or April roll around, there isn't much else to talk/write about so they put out their own mocks. Those are probably based on little real information and study. But even the Kipers still likely have orders of magnitude less information than the worst GM in the league has access too. To me the problem with mocks is that it's all one guys thoughts. This year the Bengals are picking 5th I believe, so there will be mocks out by different people stating who they are likely going to pick, but it's based on the same guy predicting who the 4 teams ahead of them will select too. The real draft one team does something different and it can change alot. 3 years ago if Cleveland hadn't passed on Nick Chubb, we'd likely have traded up to #5 with Denver for Allen, wouldn't have had the pick used on Edmunds as I'd assume that other 1st round pick would have been need ed to get to #5 and who knows what else would have changed roster wise as a result. What would be neat to see is to get 32 of these guys together who do mocks and let them each pick in order. Now each guys mock selection will be based on who the people before them selected too. Would be interesting to see how many of their own mocks then come close to a 32 person mock. We do that on here at least three times in the run up to the draft @Virgil is the organiser. I get it we are not people who do mocks for a living but still it is good fun. Think we got through a 4 round mock in one of them last year! Was fantastic.
Virgil Posted January 16, 2021 Posted January 16, 2021 52 minutes ago, GunnerBill said: We do that on here at least three times in the run up to the draft @Virgil is the organiser. I get it we are not people who do mocks for a living but still it is good fun. Think we got through a 4 round mock in one of them last year! Was fantastic. Ugh, don’t remind me. I’m still not recovered from the last one. Should be a lot easier picking 32nd this year and not having a glaring need though 1
GunnerBill Posted January 16, 2021 Posted January 16, 2021 15 minutes ago, Virgil said: Ugh, don’t remind me. I’m still not recovered from the last one. Should be a lot easier picking 32nd this year and not having a glaring need though They are the highlight of the offseason! I haven't seen @BuffaloHokie13 around in a while has he left? He usually helps you with the prep, right?
TUBSTER Posted January 16, 2021 Posted January 16, 2021 On 2/25/2020 at 5:03 PM, jeremy2020 said: 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. That's why you get guys like Jerry, Poyer, Lorax, and to a lesser extent even Beasley that aren't super productive with other teams but just find the right scheme. Allen is example A for developing a QB IMO. -Beasley was good in Dallas but definitely not as good as he has been with us. 1
SirAndrew Posted January 16, 2021 Posted January 16, 2021 On 2/25/2020 at 1:27 PM, C.Biscuit97 said: 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. Your first paragraph is spot on. My grandmother could have done just as well picking players as our drought era GM’s.
Beerball Posted January 16, 2021 Posted January 16, 2021 On 2/25/2020 at 7:43 AM, PromoTheRobot said: It would be near impossible to do definitively because of all the variables that go into being successful. Talent can easily be misapplied by different regimes. Far from the only example, but see Jerry Hughes. 1
Ed_Formerly_of_Roch Posted January 16, 2021 Posted January 16, 2021 2 hours ago, GunnerBill said: We do that on here at least three times in the run up to the draft @Virgil is the organiser. I get it we are not people who do mocks for a living but still it is good fun. Think we got through a 4 round mock in one of them last year! Was fantastic. Didn't realize that was done here, or maybe saw the results but didn't realize it was done by multiple people selecting. You'll sometimes see the BN Bills beat reporters doing one, but that's still only being created by 2 or 3 people.
Nextmanup Posted January 16, 2021 Posted January 16, 2021 On 2/25/2020 at 7:34 AM, 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) I would say they are all quite bad. No one in the NFL knows what they are doing to a high enough level of proficiency. If someone did, there wouldn't be the hilarious mistakes made, in their multitudes, year in and year out. To name one of a thousand examples, in 2017 the Chicago Bears had the second overall pick in the draft and took Mitch Trubisky (LOL) while passing on some stiff named Patrick Mahomes in the process. Cleveland had the 1 pick and took Garrett (great player, about 1/100 as valuable as Mahomes). The remaining top 9 picks are guys in and out of the league now (LOL) and none of them were named Mahomes. There are multiples examples of this clear miss, every single year in the NFL draft.
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