What positions teams invest the most in (in the draft)

[Mikie2times]

I was thinking the other day on how likely it is that we will be drafting a RB. Then thought further on how it seems like we invest a lot at RB in the draft, but do we? It's hard to really say something is a lot without context. 

 

So I took every draft from 2017 to current, assigned each draft pick a point value based on the attached draft value chart. 

 

https://overthecap.com/draft-trade-value-chart

 

Then I measured where each team is spending the highest budget by position. I looked at it as a % of the total a team has. 

 

In the graph below it is stacked by the total draft capitol each team has had since 2017. Buffalo came in 4th to the lowest in that area because we always pick so late. But as far as the %'s go, that is relative to each teams individual draft capitol. So if Buffalo has 37293 and has spent 13.4% at WR, the total capitol they spent at WR is 5,014 (13.4% of the 37293)

 

 

Note: A good Samaritan called out that the LB category was likely underrepresented and he was correct, it didn't include position "ILB" which excluded Edmunds so he is now added in. That update is down thread a bit. 

 

Edited Thursday at 04:10 PM by Mikie2times

[Sierra Foothills]

Very interesting stuff.

 

Have you crunched all the position groups yet?

 

[Mikie2times]

11 minutes ago, Sierra Foothills said:

Very interesting stuff.

 

Have you crunched all the position groups yet?

 

Here you go. Pretty balanced for the most part. 

 

 

[billsfan89]

The Bills "over investing" at RB was more of a 2000's thing. They drafted Henry in round 2, Willis in round 1, Lynch in round 1, and Spiller in round 1 all in a 10 draft span. I get RB's have a short shelf life but 4 picks in the first two rounds (with 3 being in round 1) in a 10 draft period is excessive. Especially since 3 out of 4 of those RB's were fairly good players and the team found an undrafted gem in Fred Jackson. The Spiller pick and the Willis picks the more egregious examples of just losing a valuable pick at a position losing value. 

[Sierra Foothills]

2 minutes ago, Mikie2times said:

Here you go. Pretty balanced for the most part. 

 

 

 

It's insane that Denver has devoted over 20% of their draft capital to wide receivers and they have to show for it:

1. Courtland Sutton
2. Troy Franklin
3. Marvin Mims
4. Trent Sherfield
5. Michael Bandy
6. AT Perry
7. Devaughn Vele

 

 

[Sierra Foothills]

I also notice that New Orleans has devoted the most resources to O-line and they're far from strong at that position.

 

Ditto with Dallas and their defensive line.

 

Really interesting breakdown... thanks!

 

[Mikie2times]

1 minute ago, Sierra Foothills said:

 

It's insane that Denver has devoted over 20% of their draft capital to wide receivers and they have to show for it:

1. Courtland Sutton
2. Troy Franklin
3. Marvin Mims
4. Trent Sherfield
5. Michael Bandy
6. AT Perry
7. Devaughn Vele

 

 

Horrifying....

 

Also interesting is most of the top playoff teams from last year are spending 20%+ on the DL. 

 

 

[Doc Brown]

Does the WR investment count Diggs as a 1st and a 4th rounder?  

[GunnerBill]

1 hour ago, Doc Brown said:

Does the WR investment count Diggs as a 1st and a 4th rounder?  

 

I think it must. Otherwise it is two 2nds (Zay and Keon), one 4th (Gabe), two 5ths (Khalil and Shorter) and one 7th (Proehl) I think. 

[BarleyNY]

8 hours ago, Sierra Foothills said:

 

It's insane that Denver has devoted over 20% of their draft capital to wide receivers and they have to show for it:

1. Courtland Sutton
2. Troy Franklin
3. Marvin Mims
4. Trent Sherfield
5. Michael Bandy
6. AT Perry
7. Devaughn Vele

 

 

 

This just shows that one reason a team might be investing a lot into a position is because they’ve missed a lot on players at that position. Also it’s a good idea to hold onto your good players. Denver traded away their best WR in Jeudy, whom they took 15th overall, for a 5th and a 6th round pick. 

[Billy Claude]

8 hours ago, Sierra Foothills said:

I also notice that New Orleans has devoted the most resources to O-line and they're far from strong at that position.

 

Ditto with Dallas and their defensive line.

 

Really interesting breakdown... thanks!

 

 

 

It makes sense that you are bad at positions that you spend resources on, especially with regards to draft capital.   If you use a high draft choice at a position and the guy is a bust, you will need to do it again.

 

Edited Thursday at 12:08 PM by Billy Claude

[SoCal Deek]

13 minutes ago, Billy Claude said:

 

 

It makes sense might be bad at positions that you spend resources on, especially with regards to draft capital.   If you use a high draft choice at a position and the guy is a bust, you will need to do it again.

 

You took the words right out of my mouth. If you are successful at drafting a particular position then you’re bound to move on and look for a different one. For example, why would the Bills keep drafting quarterbacks after they selected Josh Allen? You almost have to look at the chart in the REVERSE. The lowest numbers mean the team is already set there. The higher number means they keep swinging and missing. 

Edited Thursday at 12:06 PM by SoCal Deek

[Buffalo716]

1 hour ago, GunnerBill said:

 

I think it must. Otherwise it is two 2nds (Zay and Keon), one 4th (Gabe), two 5ths (Khalil and Shorter) and one 7th (Proehl) I think. 

Wow , Austin Proehl!!! 

 

Never thought I would hear that name again lol

Edited Thursday at 12:15 PM by Buffalo716

[BillsShredder83]

9 hours ago, Mikie2times said:

I was thinking the other day on how likely it is that we will be drafting a RB. Then thought further on how it seems like we invest a lot at RB in the draft, but do we? It's hard to really say something is a lot without context. 

 

So I took every draft from 2017 to current, assigned each draft pick a point value based on the attached draft value chart. 

 

https://overthecap.com/draft-trade-value-chart

 

Then I measured where each team is spending the highest budget by position. I looked at it as a % of the total a team has. 

 

As an example, below is the total amount of draft value each team has had since 2017. Buffalo came in 4th to the lowest in that area because we always pick so late. 

 

 

So does Buffalo spend a lot of it's capitol on RB's? Not really. 11th highest. 

 

 

What about WR? 15th in that category. So basically league average. 

 

 

Was surprised we have a low allocation towards defense. I would expect this to be the other way around.  

 

 

Great post! Id be interested to see this kinda data show trends amongst the rest of the league.  where do the top teams spend the most draft capital (position, which side of the ball).... where do the worst teams spend it.... what we spend across all positions.... then we could look for where we differ most from other top teams (trends)

 

im certain this is the exact kinda thing other teams study.  would love to be able to pick a GM's brain or even shadow one for a day.  There's so much that we dont even know, that we dont know.  Would knock my socks off to see what Front Office Theory looks like..... somebody take a retired GM and make a show outta this.  Have him walk through exactly how he would approach the current draft.  Show what front office meetings would look like.  Mock draft and give us an inside view of what a functioning war room is doing.

 

I know we kinda get the with Embedded, but I want to see the uncensored version.  Even a fairly open GM like Beane is holding a million cards close to the vest releasing that kind of content.  Id watch that show religiously ughhhhhhh

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

9 hours ago, billsfan89 said:

The Bills "over investing" at RB was more of a 2000's thing. They drafted Henry in round 2, Willis in round 1, Lynch in round 1, and Spiller in round 1 all in a 10 draft span. I get RB's have a short shelf life but 4 picks in the first two rounds (with 3 being in round 1) in a 10 draft period is excessive. Especially since 3 out of 4 of those RB's were fairly good players and the team found an undrafted gem in Fred Jackson. The Spiller pick and the Willis picks the more egregious examples of just losing a valuable pick at a position losing value. 

 

I thought for sure dez bryant was the pick the year they picked spiller.  Stevie ended up becoming the WR1 that season, but they no longer had owens and it felt like we were still in need of someone at WR.  Not to mention they already had both jackson and lynch.  

 

Then troup over gronk? With literally nothing at TE.  Swing and a miss.  

[Mikie2times]

4 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

Does the WR investment count Diggs as a 1st and a 4th rounder?  

 

3 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

I think it must. Otherwise it is two 2nds (Zay and Keon), one 4th (Gabe), two 5ths (Khalil and Shorter) and one 7th (Proehl) I think. 

No, I just used the straight draft info from Pro Football Reference 

 

 

[GunnerBill]

10 minutes ago, Mikie2times said:

 

No, I just used the straight draft info from Pro Football Reference 

 

 

 

Ah yea I missed the 6th round trio.... 

 

[SoTier]

10 hours ago, billsfan89 said:

The Bills "over investing" at RB was more of a 2000's thing. They drafted Henry in round 2, Willis in round 1, Lynch in round 1, and Spiller in round 1 all in a 10 draft span. I get RB's have a short shelf life but 4 picks in the first two rounds (with 3 being in round 1) in a 10 draft period is excessive. Especially since 3 out of 4 of those RB's were fairly good players and the team found an undrafted gem in Fred Jackson. The Spiller pick and the Willis picks the more egregious examples of just losing a valuable pick at a position losing value. 

 

The Bills "over investing" at RB wasn't about "losing a valuable pick at a position losing value".  In the early 2000s, RBs were still valued.  It was about the team philosophy that emphasized maximizing profits over winning.  

 

Consequently, the Bills rarely re-signed the best players they drafted and used high draft picks to fill the holes created by losing those players.  They did similar things with DBs as they did with RBs, letting first rounders Antoine Winfield, Sr, Nate Clements, and Donte Whitner along with 2nd round DB Jairus Byrd, all excellent DBs with multiple Pro Bowl and/or All Pro awards, leave while keeping first rounder Leodis McKelvin who was not nearly as good as the DBs they allowed to leave.  

 

The Bills weren't missing on high draft picks at RB and DB and needed to try again and again.  They spent a lot of draft capital replacing good players that they didn't want to spend the money to keep. 

 

 

 

[LEBills]

1 hour ago, Mikie2times said:

 

No, I just used the straight draft info from Pro Football Reference 

 

 

This percentages still seem a bit funky if that’s the case

 

for example LB:

2017 - pick 195 - Tanner Vallejo 

2018 - pick 16 - Tremaine 

2019 - pick 147 - Vosean Joseph

2022 - pick 89 - Terrell Bernard

2022 - pick 231 - Babylon Spector

2023 - pick 91 - Dorian Williams

2024 - pick 160 - Ulofoshio

 

That would be a total of 4503 on the OTC trade value chart which would be 12% of the 37293 total value

 

The WRs listed would be a total of 5014 which is the 13.4% you have down

 

edit:

whoops and I forgot Milano in 2017

pick 163 which is 419 points

 

so 4922/37293 =0.132 for the LBs

Edited Thursday at 03:17 PM by LEBills

[Mikie2times]

18 minutes ago, LEBills said:

This percentages still seem a bit funky if that’s the case

 

for example LB:

2017 - pick 195 - Tanner Vallejo 

2018 - pick 16 - Tremaine 

2019 - pick 147 - Vosean Joseph

2022 - pick 89 - Terrell Bernard

2022 - pick 231 - Babylon Spector

2023 - pick 91 - Dorian Williams

2024 - pick 160 - Ulofoshio

 

That would be a total of 4503 on the OTC trade value chart which would be 12% of the 37293 total value

 

The WRs listed would be a total of 5014 which is the 13.4% you have down

 

edit:

whoops and I forgot Milano in 2017

pick 163 which is 419 points

 

so 4922/37293 =0.132 for the LBs

Yup, I see that issue on that now. I grouped OLB and LB for linebacker. It also has "ILB"

 

Good catch, updated below.