Beane vs Whaley vs Donahoe Drafting

[mjt328]

Tom Donahoe made some strong moves.  His first draft was very good.

He just swung for the fences a lot, and became too careless with draft picks and the salary cap.

 

Missing on Drew Bledsoe really sunk everything at the start, and it's hard to blame him for that move.  Strike one.

 

He used his only Top 5 draft pick on Mike Williams, who was a huge bust.  Strike two.

 

 

The one time he decided to be conservative, it came back to burn him.  He should have traded up for Ben Roethlisberger.  Instead he waited and was later forced to make a move for JP Losman instead.  Strike three.

 

[Buffalo03]

20 minutes ago, mjt328 said:

Tom Donahoe made some strong moves.  His first draft was very good.

He just swung for the fences a lot, and became too careless with draft picks and the salary cap.

 

Missing on Drew Bledsoe really sunk everything at the start, and it's hard to blame him for that move.  Strike one.

 

He used his only Top 5 draft pick on Mike Williams, who was a huge bust.  Strike two.

 

 

The one time he decided to be conservative, it came back to burn him.  He should have traded up for Ben Roethlisberger.  Instead he waited and was later forced to make a move for JP Losman instead.  Strike three.

 

I wouldn't say he missed on Bledsoe. Bledsoe was still productive when he got here. Donahoe's biggest problem was the coaches he hired. Gregg Williams and Mike Mularkey were the worst guys to lead those teams

[WotAGuy]

What about Buddy Nix and his down home philosophy about drafting players:

 

"If I had to guess and put a percentage on it, I'd say for us we're 70 percent on how he played. The other junk that goes into it, all that other stuff might make a difference in whether or not he's successful, but that makes up a very small percentage for us.”

[Solomon Grundy]

14 hours ago, Einstein said:

 

In 2003 he took McGee, Kelsey, McGahee and Crowell. That was also a solid draft.

Chris Kelsey?? PLEASE!! 

[Rigotz]

14 hours ago, Einstein said:

 

In 2003 he took McGee, Kelsey, McGahee and Crowell. That was also a solid draft.

 

Fun fact, AJ Epenesa had more sacks last year than Chris Kelsay had in any year of his 10 year career.

 

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/K/KelsCh21.htm

[Solomon Grundy]

13 hours ago, strive_for_five_guy said:

Yup.  If Donahoe trades up to get Big Ben rather than Losman, the history books would be entirely different.

Yeah... but would we have Josh Allen? 

[Bill from NYC]

6 minutes ago, Solomon Grundy said:

Chris Kelsey?? PLEASE!! 

Really. I think that they even gave Kelsey a healthy raise and a new contract iirc. 😒🙄

[Solomon Grundy]

3 hours ago, Ed_Formerly_of_Roch said:

 

Agree I wouldn't give Whaley credit for White, but if you were giving him credit for that pick, would think then Milano also should be under Whaley as he'd rank in his top 5.

 

When you remove Beane's pick of Allen, you really need to recognize that he gave up draft picks in order to move up.  Without Allen Beane would have had some higher picks, even if only half of them were highly rated players, likely his grade would have been higher. 

 

Does this formula somehow take into account he traded a 1st round pick for Diggs, again depriving himself of maybe another good player. 

 

Bottom line IMO to be fair, you need to look at his actual number and not remove Allen from the equation as that pick factored in other ways top his total score.

Wasn't it Whaley's scouting department that did the work and set up their draft board? 

[Straight Hucklebuck]

1 hour ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

Oliver is a very good player. Not worth his pick, but probably not all that far below it. And you can't compare one guy and say we could have had this guy or two behind him. If you start doing that, you can make about 98% of all NFL draft picks in history look bad.

 

Ford was awful, as was Moss. With Bernard, you simply don't know. You don't. I don't. Nobody does yet.

 

Any idea how many teams have made two really bad picks and one that's questionable in the last five years? I'm betting all of them. Unfortunately that's the way it goes.

 

You have to also look at all of the really good picks on top of that. (Davis, Knox, Teller, Taron Johnson and Edmunds. Probably Rousseau, Benford and Shakir as well.) And the many solid picks.

 

His drafting hasn't been average. It's been better than that. Not terrific, but quite good.

 

Again, you're quite right about there being some failures. That happens. How is 1st rounder Edwards-Helaire turning out for KC, when they could have had Jonathan Taylor or Tee Higgins there, or Trevon Diggs? (See how that works with cherry-picking the better picks taken behind them?)

 

Or more misses in bright Chiefs red like Khalen Saunders in the 3rd? Dorian O'Daniel in the 3rd? Kpassagnon in the 2nd? Breeland Speaks in the 2nd? Even the best teams miss on a few. It's how the draft works.

 

 

I gave Beane plenty of credit in my original post. 

 

So no, I don't think Beane is better than ordinary in terms of drafting prowess. 

[Ed_Formerly_of_Roch]

18 minutes ago, Solomon Grundy said:

Wasn't it Whaley's scouting department that did the work and set up their draft board? 

 

I think that's a good way to put it; "Whaley's scouting department that did the work and set up their draft board".  But after that think McD had much more to do with it.

[NastyNateSoldiers]

15 hours ago, KzooMike said:

I was curious in looking at ways to compare the last 3 relevant GM's we had as far as draft results.  I used AV as others have in the past. Not by any stretch perfect but decent =  https://www.pro-football-reference.com/about/approximate_value.htm

 

My initial thought prior to doing this was Beane, outside of Allen, has drafted about as well as Donahoe and that Whaley was awful. In large part that appears to be the case. Below is years 4 and 5 for each of these GM's. I wanted to look at those years as I wanted to see the impact of several years worth of shaping a roster. It is also the cut off we have on both Beane and Donahoe while just missing Whaley (although for this study I think 2017 qualifies as a 5th year). 

 

-For Beane this includes drafts from 2018-2022  /  2021-2022

-For Whaley this includes drafts from 2013-2017 (I assigned the 2017 class to Whaley for this exercise) / 2016-2017

-For Donahoe that includes drafts from 2001-2005 / 2004-2005

 

I looked at the last two years for each GM which are in bold above. I looked at how many picks remained on the team that they drafted. Then what the sum of the "AV" of those picks was, then what the AVG "AV" value of those picks was.

 

These are the results:

 

 

If you subtract Allen from Beane, he goes to a AV total of 97 and 86, with an average of 3.88 and 3.90. So again, very TD like, which some might think is an insult but it's not intended to be. More just perspective. Whaley is obviously atrocious. You also see the impacts in 2017 of McD taking over the roster and purging his picks. 

 

Top 5 players drafted as far as AV is concerned:

Beane=  Allen, Singletary, Rousseau, Oliver, Edmunds

Whaley= Preston Brown, Robert Woods, Tre White, John Miller, Dion Dawkins 😨

Donahoe= Nate Clements, Terrance McGee, Willis McGahee, Lee Evans, Aaron Schobel 

 

Other then Allen Donahue players are much better then Beane or Whaley . 

[tonawandarock]

14 hours ago, MJS said:

Ultimately, it comes down to whether you hit on a QB or not. Beane was able to do that and the others weren't. Simple as that.

you could also make the case that josh fell into his lap...

[NastyNateSoldiers]

45 minutes ago, Solomon Grundy said:

Wasn't it Whaley's scouting department that did the work and set up their draft board? 

This fact escapes a lot of people on this board. 

[Mikie2times]

4 minutes ago, tonawandarock said:

you could also make the case that josh fell into his lap...

I thought he put in a lot of work and did a great job in positioning himself to get Josh. Selecting Josh, having him work out, has basically changed the way we view his entire body of work. Which was sort of the point of the thread. Now many on here have said, well duh. It should be that way. Which I do get, but once you nail the right QB it's not like the pressure to draft well goes down. If anything the draft becomes your only way to secure cap friendly elite players. We have to start landing more of our picks that's for sure.  

[MJS]

24 minutes ago, tonawandarock said:

you could also make the case that josh fell into his lap...

He traded up twice to get him.

[The Jokeman]

15 hours ago, Buffalo03 said:

It's Donahoe, not Donahue and his first draft was awesome 

 

2001

RD 1. Nate Clements

RD 2. Aaron Schobel

RD 2. Travis Henry 

 

Were his first 3 draft picks. It went downhill after that though 

Jonas Jennings was a pretty good pick too.

[NastyNateSoldiers]

Josh Allen is definitely the trump card but outside of QB I believe it’s debatable between the 2015 Bills and 2004 Bills as far as talent is concerned. I might give a slight edge to the 2004 team . 
 

 

[Straight Hucklebuck]

1 hour ago, Ed_Formerly_of_Roch said:

 

I think that's a good way to put it; "Whaley's scouting department that did the work and set up their draft board".  But after that think McD had much more to do with it.

But now it's back to Beane because McDermott trusts him more? 

 

Beane just talked about how this works yesterday. 

[JohnNord]

5 hours ago, 78thealltimegreat said:

One thing I will say in Whaleys defense if he knew he had a QB like Allen he would have bent over backwards to get him skill talent.
Beane and his head coach are defense first guys they kinda use the Green Bay Packers model under Aaron Rogers the last 5 years. 

Not true… Beane traded a 1st round pick to acquire Diggs.  
 

The problem with Whaley is that he couldn’t see that his QB was trash…

1 hour ago, Ed_Formerly_of_Roch said:

 

I think that's a good way to put it; "Whaley's scouting department that did the work and set up their draft board".  But after that think McD had much more to do with it.

He took players off the board and made the draft picks… that’s why you can’t give Whaley credit for 2017 like the OP did

[JohnNord]

2 hours ago, Buffalo03 said:

I wouldn't say he missed on Bledsoe. Bledsoe was still productive when he got here. Donahoe's biggest problem was the coaches he hired. Gregg Williams and Mike Mularkey were the worst guys to lead those teams

This is mostly true. He was forced out of Pittsburgh after a power struggle with Cowherd.  So when he became GM he hired young, inexperienced coaches that wouldn’t pose any threat like Cowher did.  
 

Ironically, after Donahoe Ralph Wilson felt burned.  For the rest of his time in Buffalo he refused to hire a GM that he didn’t personally know or have a relationship with already.  That resulted in the comical hires of Marv Levy, Russ Brandon and Buddy Nix ugh