Two Important Draft Day Thoughts

[drpatriot]

I'd like to highlight an idea that I wrote about last year but didn't really too much opinion on it. These are two articles that I wrote for ArmchairGM.com last year after the draft, and I thought it would be appropriate to bring them both up again. Keep in mind that these were written last year, and don't have current info or ideas about last year's draft picks.

The Impact of First-Round Picks article will give per-team analysis as opposed to simply listing off teams in each "category".

During this dull period between the draft and training camp, I continue to see strong pressure to produce on first-round picks from both fans and the media. This caused me to begin to wonder about how the production of first-round picks actually affected the course of a team’s season. This train of thought spurred an analysis of the first rounds of the draft during recent years to see how well teams have done based on the production of their first-round picks during those years.

After analyzing each team’s first-round picks during this period, I grouped each team’s drafts into five groups. These groups were labeled “Consistently Strong,” “Mediocre,” “Somewhat Inconsistent,” “Very Inconsistent/Poor Decision Making,” and “Consistently Weak.” Teams in each group would have first-round picks from 2000 to 2005 that, overall, played in the way described by the category.

Finally, the team’s record over the course of those six years was calculated and included next to their name. Any conference or Super Bowl championships were also included.

Consistently Strong:
Teams in this group have had solid or better production from all or most of their players. Teams may have had difficulty drafting at a single position but have had excellent production from the rest of their players.
Teams: Baltimore, Dallas, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, New England, Pittsburgh, San Diego, Seattle

Mediocre:
Teams in this category have had good production from most of their draft picks, with some players more or less outstanding than others.
Teams: Carolina, Houston, Kansas City, Minnesota, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Tennessee

Somewhat Inconsistant:
Teams in this group have had varied success in the first round, sometimes drafting Pro Bowlers but drafting busts often as well.
Teams: Atlanta, Buffalo, Denver, Green Bay, New York Giants

Very Inconsistant/Poor Decision Making:
Teams in this group have drafted more busts than star players or have otherwise made poor decisions on their draft choices.
Teams: Chicago, Cincinnati, New York Jets, St. Louis, Washington

Consistently Weak:
Teams in this category have had little production from most or all of their 1st-round draft picks during the six-year time period.
Teams: Arizona, Cleveland, Detroit, Miami, Oakland, San Francisco

Average Records By Grouping:
After calculating the percentage of wins for each team in each group, I found the average records of each group. These averages will help explain if having good production from 1st-round picks will help a team win each year.

Consistently Strong: .557 (8.9 wins/year)
Mediocre: .507 (8.1 wins/year)
Somewhat Inconsistent: .522 (8.3 wins/year)
Very Inconsistent/Poor Decision Making: .485 (7.75 wins/year)
Consistently Weak: .408 (6.5 wins/year)

Analysis
The two major outlier groups are the teams with consistently strong or weak first rounds. Teams with consistently strong first rounds win one half of a game per year more, on average, than teams that have mediocre or inconsistent drafts. In the same way, teams that have consistently weak drafts lose one and half games per year on average than teams hat have mediocre or inconsistent draft. In other words, teams that consistently draft good players in the first round win significantly more than teams that consistently draft weak players in the first round. Teams that have mediocre or inconsistent first rounds appear almost equally likely to win or lose during the regular season.

The Playoffs
Interestingly, the teams with good draft picks in the first round have an average that is often high enough to make the playoffs, especially in the NFC. After looking further, the teams that had “consistently strong” first round picks made the playoffs a total of 26 times, or about three times per team, and every team made the playoffs at least once. On the other hand, the other teams made the playoffs 46 times but only about two times per team. Using basic math, it was calculated that teams that draft well in the first round were 1.4 times more likely to make the playoffs than teams that didn’t

The Super Bowl
In addition, it appears that teams with consistently good first round drafts are the teams that are most likely to go to the Super Bowl. All six of the Super Bowl winners during the time period listed were in the “consistently strong” category. In addition, one of recent conference champions was also in that category. (Two conference champions had mediocre first rounds, one had somewhat inconsistent first rounds, one had very inconsistent first rounds and one had consistently weak first rounds.) This puts 7 out of 12 recent Super Bowl competitors in the “consistently strong” category. In addition, there are only nine teams out of the NFL’s 32 in this category. If seven out of twelve teams in the Super Bowl recently drafted well in the first round, and only nine out thirty-two teams during those years drafted well in the first round, then math dictates that teams that drafted well in the first round were 3.77 times more likely to be in the Super Bowl than teams that didn’t.

Conclusion: Teams that go to the playoff usually rely on their first-round picks. Teams that go to the Super Bowl rely on them even more.

Final Thoughts
Finally, let’s look at the most successful team during the six years of this study: the New England Patriots. The Patriots have won half of the Super Bowls during the time of this study. Though they relied on production from more than just their first-round picks, they wouldn’t have been nearly as successful as they were without the production in the trenches. Their defensive line, arguably the best defensive line in the league, is made solely from first-round picks. In addition, last year’s offense would have broken down if not for the blocking production of Logan Mankins and Daniel Graham, both of whom are first-round picks. Ben Watson, their other first-round pick during this period, was one of Tom Brady’s favorite targets during the regular season, receiving 54 passes for 441 yards receiving and hauling in 54% of passes thrown to him, a higher percentage than both Jeremy Shockey and Desmond Clark and the same as Alge Crumpler. Their production has been extremely important for their recent success, and without these crucial first-round players, they would not have been able to go as far as they went.

 

[drpatriot]

The Importance of the Second Round will show information on individual teams if you go to the website.

Introduction
I started my first day by posting an article about the impact of first-round picks. This article used math and common sense to determine whether the first round is truly important for building a successful team. To build on this study, I have decided to compare the impact of the first round and the impact of the second round.

The goal in this study was similar: using the last six drafts and last six seasons, compare the play of first- and second-round picks to their team’s success during the regular season and playoffs. However, after looking back on the study, I realized there was a flaw in the original study. The flaw was that my grading system for the teams was too subjective; some people who replied to the article had drastically different opinions about certain teams and players.

The solution was to give each player an objective grade. This grade, a number between 0 and 4, would be based on that player’s performance for their team. Each team would receive a straight average grade and a median grade, to help reduce the significance of outliers. This decision made the task simpler and more objective, but made it necessary for me to regrade the entire first round along with the second round.

The System
The scoring system worked as follows (players must meet some or all criteria): 4 – Played in 2 or more Pro Bowls; played in 1 Pro Bowl and played consistently well in other seasons; received some other significant award (i.e. Defensive Rookie of the Year) and played well in other seasons (if applicable). 3 – Played in 1 Pro Bowl but played inconsistently in other seasons; played consistently well as a starter. 2 – Played inconsistently, or simply average, as a starter; played as a key role player but not a starter (i.e. Kevin Faulk) 1 – Played below average as a starter and was demoted or released; played for less than 2 years for the team and now plays elsewhere in the NFL; played as a career backup; otherwise had no positive impact on the team. 0 – Played well below average as a starter or backup; no longer plays in the NFL.

Finding the Average Talent
The final step was to find the average talent-per-team and the average talent per player. The average talent-per-team is the average of every team’s average and median grades. The average talent-per-player is the average of every player’s grade. These numbers, though closely related, represent two very different things. The average talent-per-team represents the NFL’s general ability to grade talent in the selected round, represented by a grade in the 0-4 system. The average talent-per-player represents the general talent level available in the selected round, also represented in a 0-4 system grade.

Teams were then ranked based on their success in the 1st and second rounds. This ranking system was established by taking the average of each teams average and median scores and dividing it by the average talent-per-player, determining the percentage of success that they have in drafting above-average players in that round.

Regular Season Success?
Next, each team’s success record was compared to their record during the regular season over the six-year time period. For the first round, the average difference of the success % from the six-year record was about .194. For the second round, the average difference of the success % from the six-year record was about .255. In other words, a team’s success drafting in the first round is more closely related to its record than its success drafting in the second round. Though this was my expected result, the large difference between the two results was surprising; I had thought that the first round would be only slightly more related to a team’s regular-season record than the second round.

Post-Season Success?
The next comparison would involve winning in the playoffs. The average success rates in both rounds would be calculated for three groups: teams who never won in the playoffs; teams that only won once in the playoffs; and teams that won twice or more in the playoffs.

Playoff Wins 1st round success % 2nd round success %
Zero 45.88% 46.91%
One 49.23% 55.17%
2+ 55.37% 49.34%

The results were very interesting. Over six years, teams that have made the playoffs rarely have only drafted successfully in the first round 45.8% of the time; this was not a surprise. What was a surprise was that teams who made the playoffs often drafted successfully in the first round only 49.2% of the time, well below the average. However, the teams that often made the playoffs more than made up for it in the 2nd round, where they drafted far better than the teams that consistently made the playoffs.

Analysis
These success rates by team lead to some interesting ideas. One barely revolutionary idea is that teams that don’t draft well in either round aren’t going to make the playoffs (I know, it’s a shocker). However, this data shows that teams that draft well in the second round but not in the first will still make the playoffs some of the time, but will not have the talent to consistently succeed due to their failings in the first round. It seems that to consistently have postseason success, you must draft well in the first round, not the second round.

Let us assess the accuracy of my interpretation of the data so far: that first-round success is more important to success in the regular season and in the playoffs by seeing if the theory works in reverse: teams that draft well in the first round do well in the playoffs, whereas teams that draft well in the second round do okay in the playoffs.

To do this, I created two groups: groups with success in the first round and groups with success in the second round. Group members were allowed to overlap.

Group A (First Round Success): Baltimore, Dallas, Green Bay, Houston, Minnesota, Tampa Bay. Group B (Second Round Success): Atlanta, Chicago, Cincinnati, Denver, Detroit, N.Y. Jets, Oakland, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Tennessee.

Each group had their average regular-season and postseason success calculated, as follows:

Season Group A's Record Group B's Record
Regular 51.05% (8.17 wins) 49.7% (7.95 wins)
Post 2.33 wins/team 2.2 wins/team

Both results are conclusive. Teams that had good first-round picks did better in both the regular season and the post-season than the teams that had good second-round picks.

Conclusion: First-round picks are more important to both regular season success and postseason success that second-round picks are.

Final Thoughts:
The idea that second-round picks are less important than first-round picks seems, to the casual observer, to be obvious. However, to those of us that study the NFL draft in detail, the idea that first-round players, who are usually thrust into a starting position and often before they are ready, help success more than a second-round player, who is given time to grow into their position at the NFL level and provides valuable depth, is somewhat counterintuitive. Perhaps this idea can be explained by the idea of the impact player: a player that is so good that his presence helps others around him be better. Players like Richard Seymour, whose presence on the Patriots’ defensive line brought their defense from one of the worst in the league back to one of the best. Larry Johnson, who lit up the NFL with 1750 yards rushing in only 9 starts last year. Carson Palmer, who almost single-handedly brought the Bengals from the bottom of the AFC North to the top in only his second year starting. Players like these are usually recognized and selected in the 1st round because they did the same thing in college football, and teams noticed. Perhaps impact players like these are the reason that teams make the playoffs or not, and perhaps the idea of impact players can explain the phenomenon of the first-round player, thrust into a starting position, making such an impact on his team’s performance.

Notes:
-The average talent-per-player in the first round was 2.26, or an above-average starter. The average talent-per-player in the second round was 1.85, or a slightly-below-average starter.
-The average talent-per-team in the first round was only 2.24, lower than the talent-per-player in that round, suggesting that teams in the NFL aren’t picking as well in the first round as they could be.
-According to the numbers, the worst team drafting in the first round was San Francisco. In the second round, it was Minnesota. Overall, the worst drafting team was Arizona.
-Oakland, the team I dubbed as the worst team drafting in the first round in my first article, tied for 30th with Arizona.
-The best drafting team overall was the New York Giants, selecting players with an average grade of 2.75 (a good starter) with each of their picks. Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Jacksonville and New England were the next best teams.
-Teams with an overall drafting grade of 1.5 or lower have no playoff wins, only two Pro Bowlers and a combined six-year record of .399, or about 6.3 wins per season. Anyone who can guess which teams gets bragging rights!

 

[drpatriot]

Almost seventy views and no replies?

 

[Patsfanin Philly]

I didn't see Tampa Bay listed in the strong/mediocre/weak category at all. Where would you classify them??? Hopefully the omission was a typo and doesn't affect your data crunching.....

 

[drpatriot]

I didn't see Tampa Bay listed in the strong/mediocre/weak category at all. Where would you classify them??? Hopefully the omission was a typo and doesn't affect your data crunching.....

They were in the strong category. I forgot to write them in. Thanks.

 

[Boston Tim]

There is alot to think about here and I'm not done yet. But I had to post one thought that sprung to my mind: lots of people on this board every year (including me) are enamored with the idea of trading 1st rounders down into the second round to stock-pile future picks. If your theories are correct, this commonly accepted "value" based approach is entirely self-destructive. Interesting!

 

[GoWesleyan]

There is alot to think about here and I'm not done yet. But I had to post one thought that sprung to my mind: lots of people on this board every year (including me) are enamored with the idea of trading 1st rounders down into the second round to stock-pile future picks. If your theories are correct, this commonly accepted "value" based approach is entirely self-destructive. Interesting!

How so?

What if the trade is 1st this year for a 2nd this year and 1st next year? How is that "entirely self destructive"?

Even if it were a 1st for two 2nds... 1st's are better than 2nds but you have to figure quantity in in addition to quality.