Hey STAT People. Got a NFL Rookie Question for you

[Virgil]

As people talk more and more about the draft and all the historic busts and the opposite awesomeness of what Joe Flacco and Matt Ryan have done, I had a quick thought. Does anyone know what the success rate of QB's, or any position for that matter, who started for more than 2 seasons in college vs. those who don't. It seems to me that this would make complete sense, but not mentioned much. Maybe because it makes no difference.

 

I also think about this as people are talking about all the stats of Tebow and Bradford, yet they play in a college system that wouldn't work in the NFL. Maybe this is why people like Flacco work out, because they play in a NFL style offense in college, and started for 2 or more years. Common sense?

 

On a side note, I am beginning to like what Mike Ditka did for Ricky Williams all those years back. I don't like it for the player, but the idea is not bad. Think about it, if you could trade our entire last draft and the first round pick in this year's draft for a rookie Peyton Manning, wouldn't you do it. People talk about the value of draft picks, especially first rounders, but after 2 years, who cares when people were taken. I'm just saying, I doubt you would find many, if any, entire teams draft class who you wouldn't trade for someone who could become the face of your franchise.

 

Oh yeah, and let's get that WR our of Florida who isn't really a halfback or wide receiver. A nice combination of Reggie Bush and Roscoe Parrish. Someone who has great talent, but can't contribute solidly to any one single position.

 

Sorry, that was like three things, but it's been a while

[Thurman#1]

Would I pull a Ditka for Peyton Manning? Yes.

 

Would I pull a Ditka for the chance to draft Peyton Manning as he was at the end of college? No. Peyton is terrific, but how much of that is the results of his excellent head coaches and surrounding personnel? Lots. Don't know how much but it would definitely be possible to ruin Peyton Manning and any team that traded it's entire draft for Manning would most likely be a desperate team which would therefore have a lousy culture.

 

Remember, it was a real toss-up who was better, Leaf or Manning, with lots of arguments going both ways. Manning seemed a safer choice but we had no idea he would turn out to be Peyton Manning.

 

Only with the benefit of hindsight would pulling a Ditka be acceptable.

[DazedandConfused]

I look forward to the resident stat hounds providing you with a specific answer to your QB question (though likely as not one will have to slog through a lot of fact-free opinions on which QB sucks or not to get to a good statistical analysis.

 

All I do know of a statistical vein was a few years back when there was a draft that folks generally viewed as a pretty strong crew, I checked after one year to see how many of the players picked in the first round were in fact first on the depth charts at their position for their team.

 

In general, I felt that the conventional wisdom was that a player whom a team spent a 1st round pick on should become a starter in his first year.

 

My analysis of this particular draft was that if the conventional wisdom led to an expectation of a first round choice becoming a first year starter was like the conventional wisdom often is pretty out to lunch.

 

My general recollection (I can look back for the specific numbers but though I think stats are a great INDICATOR, the mere numbers are not enough of a stone cold lock predictor that this merits more than a mention) was that actually only slightly over 50% of the first round picks from a pretty strong draft were in fact the starters for their team after a year of play.

 

In fact, there was a strong bias toward these starters being from the first 10 picks in the draft (no surprise here as only the first ten generally deserve the appellation "elite players" IMHO and also the first ten choices are usually earned by pretty weak teams so that not only do they get the best players but they likely have a lot of openings to fill not having made the playoffs that year), in terms of the slightly over 50% of first round picks who were starters at the end of the their 1st season.

 

Sure, one hopes that your first round pick turns out to be a Whitner rather than a Williams (first round who ended up being considered a successful player rather than a bust for an elite pick) but the real life occurrence is that even with a relatively high pick in the coming draft, it is a simple statistical fact that the player we will get in the 2009 draft with a pretty high level pick is statistically unlikely to be a first year starter.