Draft Success Measured by AV - Part IV

[JGMcD2]

I was busy earlier in 2024, so I never got around to this. The bye week feels like a good time to update my analysis of league-wide draft success for the fourth time. 

 

I'm linking the previous three versions here. The old posts below explain the methodology and provide a snapshot of where teams stood at those points in time. 

 

These previous posts provide a nice little reminder that it's hard to judge draft classes until further down the road. 

 

2021

 

League Wide Draft Success 2017-2019 - A Follow Up - The Stadium Wall Archives - Two Bills Drive

 

2022

*UPDATED* Draft Success - Measured by AV - The Stadium Wall - Two Bills Drive

 

2023

 

Draft Success Measured by AV - Part III

 

 

I don't have any information to add the 2024 draft, but the 2023 draft is below. I'm not including it in the cumulative view just yet, but giving a preview as to what it looks like...

 

[eball]

The cumulative chart is going to piss off a lot of people around here…

 

[Big Turk]

So basically the Bills draft a lot of players who regularly contribute to the success of this team. I would suspect the 2024 class would put the Bills back to #1 as I cannot imagine San Fran having players who are having a bigger impact than our draft class.

[FireChans]

1 minute ago, eball said:

The cumulative chart is going to piss off a lot of people around here…

 

All the people clowning Jerry Jones as a GM and trying to get him to sell the team, right?

[mikemac2001]

6 minutes ago, FireChans said:

All the people clowning Jerry Jones as a GM and trying to get him to sell the team, right?

The drafting hasn’t been the issue. 

 

[FireChans]

16 minutes ago, JGMcD2 said:

I was busy earlier in 2024, so I never got around to this. The bye week feels like a good time to update my analysis of league-wide draft success for the fourth time. 

 

I'm linking the previous three versions here. The old posts below explain the methodology and provide a snapshot of where teams stood at those points in time. 

 

These previous posts provide a nice little reminder that it's hard to judge draft classes until further down the road. 

 

2021

 

League Wide Draft Success 2017-2019 - A Follow Up - The Stadium Wall Archives - Two Bills Drive

 

2022

*UPDATED* Draft Success - Measured by AV - The Stadium Wall - Two Bills Drive

 

2023

 

Draft Success Measured by AV - Part III

 

 

I don't have any information to add the 2024 draft, but the 2023 draft is below. I'm not including it in the cumulative view just yet, but giving a preview as to what it looks like...

 

I wonder the difference between solid/depth guys and stars in this analysis.

 

The Bengals 2021 draft for example has a cumulative wAV of 63 but 44 of those are from Chase/McPherson.

 

The Bills 2021 draft has a cumulative wAV of 64 with Rousseau and Brown accumulating 59 points together.  Hamlin is pulling up the bottom with 6.

 

Is Rousseau/Brown more valuable than Chase/McPherson? Are they 15 points better, aka a solid player better?

Edited Friday at 02:42 PM by FireChans

[warrior9]

14 minutes ago, FireChans said:

All the people clowning Jerry Jones as a GM and trying to get him to sell the team, right?

I've been adamant that he knows how to draft.... he absolutely does (I live in Dallas and combat ppl all the time on this)... 

 

His issue has and always will be his ego and his unwillingness to part ways with bad head coaches. Garrett was there 5 years too long, McCarthy is there 2 years too long. 

 

His ego being an issue is the CeeDee/ Dak extensions this year. Wait until week 1 is unacceptable. Until this year, he's recently done a great job of singing / letting guys go too (in FA). 

[eball]

20 minutes ago, FireChans said:

All the people clowning Jerry Jones as a GM and trying to get him to sell the team, right?

 

I see what you did there...I think most savvy NFL analysts agree Jones has built a talented roster.  It's his management of his coaching staff that seems to leave a lot to be desired.

 

[JGMcD2]

19 minutes ago, FireChans said:

I wonder the difference between solid/depth guys and stars in this analysis.

 

The Bengals 2021 draft for example has a cumulative wAV of 63 but 44 of those are from Chase/McPherson.

 

The Bills 2021 draft has a cumulative wAV of 64 with Rousseau and Brown accumulating 59 points together.  Hamlin is pulling up the bottom with 6.

 

Is Rousseau/Brown more valuable than Chase/McPherson? Are they 15 points better, aka a solid player better?

It's weighted (albeit imperfectly) by round. It tries to capture the value you're extracting relative to your peers based on the type of talent that should be on the board and how the rest of the league valued that talent.

 

Edited Friday at 03:01 PM by JGMcD2

[GunnerBill]

24 minutes ago, FireChans said:

I wonder the difference between solid/depth guys and stars in this analysis.

 

 

It's a point I've raised with @JGMcD2 in previous years. I think the work is excellent and the methodology decent but I do think it possibly undervalues that difference between star / elite level guy and good productive starter. But while the methodology might be imperfect it is better than gut feel and I think when you look at the top 10/12 it broadly feels right in terms of what the eye test tells you about teams who have drafted well in recent years.

 

As for the Bills specifically Brandon Beane misses on fewer draft picks than almost any of his peers. He has some advantages in that regard we should say, a Head Coach with whom he is in total lock step, an owner who does not interfere and trusts him to do his job and not a ton of scheme change / turnover on either side of the ball (they have changed offensive scheme somewhat this year but it is basically the first time since 2018). That helps him score well in this analysis and so it should. 

 

@JGMcD2 - one request... can we see a cumulative ranking without 2018? My contention is Beane's two best picks - Allen and Taron - came in that class and I'd like to get a sense of how he has built around Josh since. But even the year by year breakdown feels right - 2020 and 2021 were okay drafts, not great, then the 2022 class bounced back into that top 6 or so.

[eball]

1 minute ago, GunnerBill said:

 

It's a point I've raised with @JGMcD2 in previous years. I think the work is excellent and the methodology decent but I do think it possibly undervalues that difference between star / elite level guy and good productive starter. But while the methodology might be imperfect it is better than gut feel and I think when you look at the top 10/12 it broadly feels right in terms of what the eye test tells you about teams who have drafted well in recent years.

 

As for the Bills specifically Brandon Beane misses on fewer draft picks than almost any of his peers. He has some advantages in that regard we should say, a Head Coach with whom he is in total lock step, an owner who does not interfere and trusts him to do his job and not a ton of scheme change / turnover on either side of the ball (they have changed offensive scheme somewhat this year but it is basically the first time since 2018). That helps him score well in this analysis and so it should. 

 

@JGMcD2 - one request... can we see a cumulative ranking without 2018? My contention is Beane's two best picks - Allen and Taron - came in that class and I'd like to get a sense of how he has built around Josh since. But even the year by year breakdown feels right - 2020 and 2021 were okay drafts, not great, then the 2022 class bounced back into that top 6 or so.

 

My only "beef" with your comments -- and it's a minor one -- is that you consistently want to "exclude" the Allen draft pick when evaluating Beane as a GM.  He's the guy who evaluated all of the QBs and targeted Allen, when so many "experts" (yourself included) thought Allen would be a bust.  The guy who chose the most important player in Bills history deserves to receive full credit when evaluating his overall body of work.

 

[GunnerBill]

1 minute ago, eball said:

 

My only "beef" with your comments -- and it's a minor one -- is that you consistently want to "exclude" the Allen draft pick when evaluating Beane as a GM.  He's the guy who evaluated all of the QBs and targeted Allen, when so many "experts" (yourself included) thought Allen would be a bust.  The guy who chose the most important player in Bills history deserves to receive full credit when evaluating his overall body of work.

 

 

No, I don't. He gets major kudos for drafting Josh Allen. To win a Superbowl, he has to build around him. My question here is really how well we have done that. 

[JGMcD2]

7 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

It's a point I've raised with @JGMcD2 in previous years. I think the work is excellent and the methodology decent but I do think it possibly undervalues that difference between star / elite level guy and good productive starter. But while the methodology might be imperfect it is better than gut feel and I think when you look at the top 10/12 it broadly feels right in terms of what the eye test tells you about teams who have drafted well in recent years.

 

As for the Bills specifically Brandon Beane misses on fewer draft picks than almost any of his peers. He has some advantages in that regard we should say, a Head Coach with whom he is in total lock step, an owner who does not interfere and trusts him to do his job and not a ton of scheme change / turnover on either side of the ball (they have changed offensive scheme somewhat this year but it is basically the first time since 2018). That helps him score well in this analysis and so it should. 

 

@JGMcD2 - one request... can we see a cumulative ranking without 2018? My contention is Beane's two best picks - Allen and Taron - came in that class and I'd like to get a sense of how he has built around Josh since. But even the year by year breakdown feels right - 2020 and 2021 were okay drafts, not great, then the 2022 class bounced back into that top 6 or so.

When I originally started doing this, it was an attempt to make the discussion around the draft a little less subjective - I'm glad you feel this accomplishes that to some degree. The star/solid starter debate is definitely an insecurity with this, it is something I'd love to try and account for whenever I get the time to adjust.

 

Here is 2019 - 2022 as requested! 

 

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

56 minutes ago, FireChans said:

All the people clowning Jerry Jones as a GM and trying to get him to sell the team, right?

 

I don't think he's a particularly bad talent evaluator.  I'm not a big mccarthy fan, and hes a bit too into star players.  The zeke contract was a disaster.  He also tends to keep "his guys" even if they aren't that good, or are injury prone.  

[Mat68]

Majority of the roster has been drafted and/or developed in Buffalo.  Top players on the team have been drafted save Miller, Douglas and Cooper.    Beane and Mcdermott have a good thing going in immediate impacts and developmental bottom of the roster players.  Tough to argue that Beane is not a top 3-5 gm currently. 

[hondo in seattle]

1 hour ago, JGMcD2 said:

I was busy earlier in 2024, so I never got around to this. The bye week feels like a good time to update my analysis of league-wide draft success for the fourth time. 

 

I'm linking the previous three versions here. The old posts below explain the methodology and provide a snapshot of where teams stood at those points in time. 

 

These previous posts provide a nice little reminder that it's hard to judge draft classes until further down the road. 

 

2021

 

League Wide Draft Success 2017-2019 - A Follow Up - The Stadium Wall Archives - Two Bills Drive

 

2022

*UPDATED* Draft Success - Measured by AV - The Stadium Wall - Two Bills Drive

 

2023

 

Draft Success Measured by AV - Part III

 

 

I don't have any information to add the 2024 draft, but the 2023 draft is below. I'm not including it in the cumulative view just yet, but giving a preview as to what it looks like...

 

 

 

This is impressive work, @JGMcD2!

 

Because it's based on PFR's "Approximate Value," the scoring can only be deemed approximate.

 

PFR admits that it's methodology is imperfect.  One thing I don't like is that a player's approximate value is partially determined by the team's offensive or defensive performance.  If McD is a good coach who gets his team to perform well, then his players scores go up.  So it becomes hard to disentangle how much Beane's score represents his good work and how much it's determined by the good work of the coaching staff.  But's that the case in 'real life' (as opposed to world of analytics) as well.

 

Despite the shortcomings, this is a better system of evaluating drafts than I've seen elsewhere.  

 

For those interested, PFR explains their methodology behind Approximate Value here:  

 

www.pro-football-reference.com/about/approximate_value.htm

[GunnerBill]

14 minutes ago, Bleeding Bills Blue said:

 

I don't think he's a particularly bad talent evaluator.  I'm not a big mccarthy fan, and hes a bit too into star players.  The zeke contract was a disaster.  He also tends to keep "his guys" even if they aren't that good, or are injury prone.  

 

Agree except he doesn't do the talent evaluation. Will McClay does that and is one of the best in the business. They pay him more than some GMs get to stay without the title. 

 

The bits Jerry controls, hiring coaches and the strategy for extending contracts and paying guys is where they have had issues.

[JP51]

1 hour ago, eball said:

 

I see what you did there...I think most savvy NFL analysts agree Jones has built a talented roster.  It's his management of his coaching staff that seems to leave a lot to be desired.

 

I agree I think that is the majority of the complaints.. this talent gets this result almost like the Jests... I think the comment that Parsons made about other coaches working harder reasonates.

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

1 minute ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Agree except he doesn't do the talent evaluation. Will McClay does that and is one of the best in the business. They pay him more than some GMs get to stay without the title. 

 

The bits Jerry controls, hiring coaches and the strategy for extending contracts and paying guys is where they have had issues.

 

Fair point.  It's weird to look at their roster, because i question where all of the money goes.  

 

Dak being out kills their offense, and lawrence being out seems to have killed their defense.  They miss an impact player at defensive end, and their linebackers aren't very good.  

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

Just now, JP51 said:

I agree I think that is the majority of the complaints.. this talent gets this result almost like the Jests... I think the comment that Parsons made about other coaches working harder reasonates.

 

It's one of the things McCarthy struggled with in green bay.  Even moreso in dallas you really need to assert yourself and manage the entire organization - not just call plays.  Parsons in particular seems to be a player who... needs some extra attention.  Talent is there, you just need to figure out how to get that talent on the field every play.  A captain in the Sean Lee mold would do wonders for them.