So you do not hold Bill Belichick to a higher standard than the 31 other Head Coaches and General Managers in the NFL? You want to label him the best HC in the NFL or the GOAT HC but you judge him on the same standards that you judge the Rex Ryan’s and Marvin Lewis’s of the NFL.
Just as I expect Brady to perform better then Tony Romo, I expect Belichick to perform better than his peers. Highlighting others failures is fluff in a weak attempt to justify mistakes. Belichick has been in the draft room as long as anyone in the NFL he has significant experience, so yes I expect him to do a superior job to others teams HC and GM.
I obviously hold BB to a higher standard than others, but the measuring stick we use is totally
different.
All of that statistical analysis was done not to absolve BB of guilt, nor was it to prove that we are great or terrible. I first went into it without an opinion, but rather some questions. I objectively looked at the data. And I concluded that everyone who thinks we are the worst team at drafting WRs is absolutely, positively, 100% wrong.
We are certainly not great at it. We are certainly not the worst at it either.
Then I wanted to understand what impact hitting on WRs in the draft does in terms of actually winning.
I don't give a **** about the number of games played by draft picks or % of above-average 4th-round WRs we draft. I judge a team by the number of wins and championships they produce.
If the goal is to maximize draft pick performance, you would see BB act differently. Chad Jackson gets to play as much as possible in hopes that it isn't a "wasted" pick. Darius Butler gets handed a starting job and he can eventually develop into a decent defensive back. We probably scale back some of the high-risk, high-reward injury types in the mid-rounds and go for safe singles instead of home runs. No wasted picks on Ras-I Dowling, but no high-upside picks like Rob Gronkowski.
Do we win more games? I doubt it. But if your goal is to maximize draft pick performance, who cares about wins?
I care. More than anything else. More than draft pick expected average. More than number of WRs exceeding expected AV.
And the data doesn't suggest success at drafting WRs leads to more wins. Here are the top 10 teams in terms of how much draft capital they've invested in the position based on expected AV:
Bengals
Titans
Packers
Jaguars
Browns
Lion
Rams
Steelers
Bills
Giants
You have 5 championships from 3 teams, 1 pretty decent team that can't win a playoff game in the Bengals, and some of the losers in the league. Now here's the bottom 10 teams in this category, who have spent the least amount of draft capital:
Colts
Cowboys
Jets
Panthers
Dolphins
Chargers
Seahawks
Saints
Bucs
Patriots
You have 5 championships from 3 teams, some AFC division teams which have mostly sucked, and some semi-decent teams depending on the year (Cowboys, Panthers, Chargers). That leaves 4 championships in the middle 12 teams. Not a strong correlation or argument for any segment.
Is there a significant difference between teams that spend a lot and teams that don't spend a lot? Not really. What about teams in the middle? Not really. Doesn't really seem to matter.
That's draft picks spent. It doesn't factor in what they actually did with those picks, so let's look at the same top/bottom 10 for teams that actually hit on those picks (exceeded their expected AV).
Top 10
Bengals
Steelers
Cardinals
Packers
Broncos
Jets
Colts
Eagles
Falcons
Texans
Bottom 10
Redskins
Bucs
Rams
Ravens
Cowboys
Patriots
Chiefs
Titans
Chargers
Dolphins
You have 3 teams winning 4 championships in the top 10, and 2 teams winning 5 championships in the bottom 10. That leaves another 5 championships in the middle 12. Again, really no convincing argument that a team MUST use and hit on lots of WRs to win championships or SHOULDN'T do it. It more or less doesn't matter in terms of winning championships.
We talk a lot about the value of RBs dropping, but I am not seeing really conclusive evidence that you need to draft a lot of top-notch WRs if you want to win a championship. Certainly, receivers are important in today's NFL, but you can't really conclude they have a huge impact on winning games consistently.
That's what I care about.
If the data showed that teams that hit on lots of WR draft picks won more championships, I would be lighting the torches and grabbing the pitchforks too. It just doesn't support it.
So you might as well tell me Rex Ryan can beat BB in a hot dog eating contest. I don't care because it doesn't have an impact on winning. And until someone can prove to me that hitting on your WR draft picks is significant to winning, I'm not going to care too much about it either.
