The Draft is a Total Crapshoot (Per Science)

[Coach Tuesday]

https://theathletic.com/5416007/2024/04/16/nfl-drafting-methods-insight-massey-thaler/?source=user_shared_article
 

Great article from the Athletic.  Basically says that teams routinely over-estimate their own ability to predict player performance and as a result overestimate the value of their own specific picks.  Instead, they should maximize the number of lottery tickets they’re buying.

 

Thoughts?

[Matt_In_NH]

I would remove the word "total" in the title....its not just random events.  Draft picks are like lottery tickets, I think that is a good analogy.  But your chances of hitting on a 100 million dollar hit are way better based on the draft position, especially at the top of the first.   You can find a HOFer type anywhere, that is a fact but statistically they come from top 10 picks overwhelmingly more often than after that.    Why dont teams just collect picks all the time?

 

1.  You might have a deep roster and you know some of those lottery tickets take time to develop. You dont have a spot on your roster to wait to see if the pick develops

2.  Other teams have to want to give you more picks for your pick(s) or for players.  It's not just a grocery store you go buy stuff, it takes two.   There are a set finite number of draft picks in the market place

3.  The work teams put into the draft does have meaning, some are better than others but you must have a grading system and when a guy stands out compared to the rest of the field, it can make sense to trade up.   So do teams over-estimate their skill?  Probably so, I think it is inherent in the process.   They have a lot of money and people and data to throw at the problem, of course they believe in what they are doing.

Edited April 16 by Matt_In_NH

[Sweats]

The quality of these threads is a total crapshoot IMO

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

And yet, there are teams that nail it year after year at key positions.

 

[MJS]

There are teams better at it than others, though. It isn't just completely random.

 

I think it is more that there are so many factors that impact the ability of a player to succeed in the NFL, only a few of which are even in their control. A lot of it comes down to their ability, but also their fit with coaches and scheme, the play of players around them, injuries, etc.

 

Every player enters the league with a deck stacked against them, with boundless talent that they are asked to compete against first on their own team for a spot to play, then against others. And if they don't show an immediate ability to compete against players who all have much more experience than they do, they are quickly given up on, especially by short sighted coaches and GM's fighting for their own jobs.

[Billy Claude]

I don't believe it is a total crap shoot but it is much more random than most fans, and probably most NFL executives think.   The analogy with blackjack is probably more accurate than a lottery.  There's a lot of randomness hand to hand but really bad players i.e., Cleveland Browns between 2011-2015, are almost guaranteed to lose.

 

Edited April 16 by Billy Claude

[Buffalo_Stampede]

Probably a weird way to look at it but I believe the draft will get easier with NIL deals. These players will show who they are very early in college. 
 

 

[K D]

I'm 100% accurate in my draft analysis. I hate every Bills pick

[Doc]

It's mostly a crap shoot.  

[boyst]

i need to read the article but my hot take is that when you look at the entire draft you can see and say this but if you look at individual programs you can surely see that some teams are better at it structurally than others. Especially at certain positions. Some teams just do extremely well at positional drafting.

[Buffalo_Stampede]

11 minutes ago, Doc said:

It's mostly a crap shoot.  

Pretty much. Talent, size, and explosiveness is what scouts look for over production. But then you have players with great production and average size and explosiveness. Those are typically the players that get missed by scouts. It’s almost impossible to know who will translate to the NFL based on measurements. Then there’s the mental makeup. Something no one can predict.

 

QB is a total coin flip. I don’t care what anyone says, they have no clue.

Edited April 16 by Buffalo_Stampede

[Bill from NYC]

I agree with the premise of the article.

 

I also think that some executives are just plain bad. If we just start from the year 2000, most of the Bills draft choices were idiotoic at worst, wasted at best. Their method of team building (focusing on defensive backs instead of replacements for Bruce, Kelly, Reed, and Thurman (who all aged at roughly the same time) was unthinkably stupid. I have said many times that a 12 year old kid with a copy of Joel Buchsbaum's "Pro Football Weekly" could and would have drafted better than the Bills, especially in the Levy/Jauron years.  McDermott has not been much better, other than the trade-up for Josh which was GREAT, but also necessated by passing up on Mahomes and drafting a cornerback instead, to play in a zone. 

 

https://www.drafthistory.com/index.php/teams/bills

 

We of course have no control of this madness. All we can do is hope, and cheer for the uniforms.

 

GO BILLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[MikeSpeed]

All choices in life are educated guesses. Why should the NFL draft be any different. 

[mannc]

It may be a crapshoot from the perspective of selecting players who succeed in the NFL, but teams can help themselves by using those first and second round  “lottery tickets” on high dollar, high impact positions like QB, edge, and WR instead of RB, C and safety.  I think that’s what separates the good teams from the bad ones.

[finn]

57 minutes ago, Pine Barrens Mafia said:

And yet, there are teams that nail it year after year at key positions.

 

That could just be the laws of probability at work. If every team just threw darts at their draft board, at least some would have good results.

 

I've always thought the best draft strategy, at least for teams drafting high, would be to trade down incrementally for as many second-round picks as possible, and do the same from the other direction, trading up into the second round. End up with, say, six or seven second-round picks. The odds of hitting gold seem much higher than just two high picks. 

[eball]

1 hour ago, Pine Barrens Mafia said:

And yet, there are teams that nail it year after year at key positions.

 

 

Are there?  I think if you actually do the research you'll find that the teams you think are always right are in fact wrong just as much as everyone else.

 

[FireChans]

2 minutes ago, eball said:

 

Are there?  I think if you actually do the research you'll find that the teams you think are always right are in fact wrong just as much as everyone else.

 

The article legit says Ozzie Newsome was better than almost everyone else.

[4BillsintheBurgh]

I liken drafting to picking stocks. There are a lot of professionals out there doing it, but some are better than others. It just depends on what is valued by the evaluator and if those traits are the determining factors in success.

[sunshynman]

5 minutes ago, eball said:

 

Are there?  I think if you actually do the research you'll find that the teams you think are always right are in fact wrong just as much as everyone else.

 

No kidding. Look at the Chiefs the past couple drafts at WR. Sky looking like a bust. Rice started showing talent, but appears to be missing a few brain cells. That's why I hope we at least double dip at WR this draft. Juts to hedge the bet. I mean maybe we get 2 studs, what a tragedy that would be! 

[eball]

2 minutes ago, FireChans said:

The article legit says Ozzie Newsome was better than almost everyone else.

 

I'm not saying there aren't guys who are better or worse at it, but even Ozzie missed a lot.

 

The goal is to be right enough of the time at key positions...but it's still anything but scientific.