How NFL teams ignore basic economics and draft players irrationally

Who has the economics major as coach?

This analysis (trading up vs down) even surprised me.

they trade up because they're certain one is much better.
But the data says that teams just aren't very good at figuring out when this is true. On average, the chance that first player will start more games than the second one picked at his position: 52 percent. Compared to the third, it's still only 55 percent, and compared to the fourth, it's merely 56 percent...

as the steep curve shows, teams pay a ton to move up, especially at the top of the draft.
"It's basically a coin flip," Massey says, "but teams are paying a great deal for the right to call which side of the coin."

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[url=http://www.vox.com/2014/5/7/5683448/how-nfl-teams-ignore-basic-economics-and-draft-players-irrationally]How NFL teams ignore basic economics and draft players irrationally - Vox [/URL]

Very interesting. Good find!

So extrapolating, the best VALUE is to trade down with the 1st pick using multiple lower round picks targeting the ~4th best guy at your desired position

PatsWickedPissah said:

So extrapolating, the best VALUE is to trade down with the 1st pick using multiple lower round picks targeting the ~4th best guy at your desired position

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I don't think that's what it says.

Yeah, but what about impact? The second player might start as many games, but what is the difference in impact?

Solid starter versus playmaker or fringe starter versus solid stater?

I think that would be more interesting to know.

PatsWickedPissah said:

So extrapolating, the best VALUE is to trade down with the 1st pick using multiple lower round picks targeting the ~4th best guy at your desired position

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They discuss odds and averages, not absolutes.

From the 4th round to the first round, the odds of the 1st round player starting more games than a 4th round pick is separated by only four percentage points, so unless you are absolutely sure, the conventional wisdom is to stay or trade down for more options to reduce risk across the board.

BB has traded down more often than not, but every now and then, when he presumably feels very certain he will stay put or trade up.

PatsWickedPissah said:

So extrapolating, the best VALUE is to trade down with the 1st pick using multiple lower round picks targeting the ~4th best guy at your desired position

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No, the point of the article was that the cost of moving up is (on average) higher than the chance that the #1 guy on your board is better than the #2 guy on your board (or #3, or #4, etc). That over time, trading down is mathematically a better strategy.

I generally agree, though I will say it is situation specific as well. Teams wanting to load up for a short window aren't interested in long-term average value, and may be willing to sacrifice some of that in order to increase their odds at an impact player.

I think with the Patriots people are somewhat skewed by their success rates in certain rounds. They see a VERY good track record in the first round, a 50/50 split roughly in the 2nd, and an abysmal 3rd round rate. So naturally they get upset when the team trades out of their "sweet spot" and drops to rounds where there have been more busts. What they don't take into account though is that the reason the Pats are so good in the first round is because if they don't believe 100% in a player available to them, they don't pick just to pick. They drop down and take more swings rather than gamble that a pitch they can't see is a hanging curveball.

Nunchucks said:

Yeah, but what about impact? The second player might start as many games, but what is the difference in impact?

Solid starter versus playmaker or fringe starter versus solid stater?

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Doesn't matter re: starter vs fringe; they're going by the number of starts. The assumption here is that you would naturally start a playmaker more often.

They are stating that the odds of your "second player" starting as many games as your first, isn't a big drop-off.. actually the dropoff is negligible.

The quote from the article said there's no appreciable difference between the 1st play at position P to the 4th at that position.
Accepting this statement, it's better as I said to trade down with picks and use the picks to pick more of the say 4th best players

Nunchucks said:

Yeah, but what about impact? The second player might start as many games, but what is the difference in impact?

Solid starter versus playmaker or fringe starter versus solid stater?

I think that would be more interesting to know.

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Not readily analyzable because defining impact player vs solid starter is too often a matter of opinion.
Doubt this? Look at the majority of threads here.

PatsWickedPissah said:

So extrapolating, the best VALUE is to trade down with the 1st pick using multiple lower round picks targeting the ~4th best guy at your desired position

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No, it says that the best guy any given position will be in a lower round a certain percentage of the time. If you have X amount of picks in the lower round you will have a greater chance of hitting on him than taking the first round pick. This principle is also broadly statistically applicable to the overall expected return regardless of position.

To make it simple, if someone gave you the choice between 15 second round picks and 1 first round pick you would take the second round pick correct? That's because you intuitively understand the extreme difference in terms of the chances of returning good players. But humans are terrible at understanding things like variance and statistical noise so that's why studies are needed to show the exact randomness of the draft and where the value actually is in terms of picks. Nobody is capable of sitting there and looking at the draft anecdotally and saying "a first is definitely more likely to hit than 3 thirds"; we aren't built to process information that way.

Felger and Mazz spent over an hour demonstrating that they had zero understanding of this yesterday and didn't want to, I don't think we need a repeat here.

PatsWickedPissah said:

The quote from the article said there's no appreciable difference between the 1st play at position P to the 4th at that position.
Accepting this statement, it's better as I said to trade down with picks and use the picks to pick more of the say 4th best players

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Well Wendell started every game last year.

I think if you're going to "extrapolate" You wouldn't do it based on one quote referring to one factor.

It would be like Charles Johnson versus Stephen Hill. They both play, but one guy is not comparable to the other in anyway...this analysis does not factor in that difference.

Why do you reword my response to liken it to F&M whose understanding I'm unaware of? The best VALUE (not use of caps) is to trade DOWN to take a player perhaps several steps further down on the depth chart. Note the multiple picks aspect.

I'd guess that ON AVERAGE (caps again!!!) the sweet spot is in the 2nd round since by the 3rd you might likely be further down below the top 4 at the position or so cited in the study.

PatsWickedPissah said:

Why do you reword my response to liken it to F&M whose understanding I'm unaware of? The best VALUE (not use of caps) is to trade DOWN to take a player perhaps several steps further down on the depth chart. Note the multiple picks aspect.

I'd guess that ON AVERAGE (caps again!!!) the sweet spot is in the 2nd round since by the 3rd you might likely be further down below the top 4 at the position or so cited in the study.

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I didn't reword your response.

Again, you are demonstrating that you either don't know what the word value means or you don't know what it means in this context or both. It is not a synonym for cheap. The article/study clearly delineates between the initial reasons why trading for return down is correct and the added bonus that the salaries are cheaper.

Unless you have a better objective measurement for player return than games started + pro bowls in first five seasons then your criticism doesnt really mean all that much, especially since nobody can even name enough outliers to invalidate it as a criteria.

Who said anything about salaries or cheapness thereof?

Nunchucks said:

It would be like Charles Johnson versus Stephen Hill. They both play, but one guy is not comparable to the other in anyway...this analysis does not factor in that difference.

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Charles Johnson has been in the league for 7 seasons, Hill 2. Obviously Johnson is one of a handful of guys who have been robbed of a probowl, but even given that Johnson clearly eclipses Hill by this metric. And Johnson was a 3rd round pick, Hill a 2nd, it goes the other way too in that it evens out.

A more interesting criticism would be to show that a meaningful number of second round picks played extensively for five years and made a similar amount of probowls to their first round counterparts but were not as good by some other measurement. Nobody from the crowd that normally balks at studies like these can be bothered to do anything like that, so what we are left with is anecdotal BS.

PatsWickedPissah said:

Who said anything about salaries or cheapness thereof?

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The article. I was trying to take a stab at where your misuse of the word value stemmed from.

Eta- If you weren't taking salary into the equation, how else did you arrive at the conclusion that the article was insinuating it is "more valuable" to take the 4th best player at his position than the first? Games played and probowls first five seasons is an AVERAGE, it doesn't mean you trade a first rounder who's a lock to start all games his first five seasons for two guys who will start half each, every time.

Draft pick value was the substance of the article
Salaries were only mentioned in a brief aside and not by me

PatsWickedPissah said:

Draft pick value was the substance of the article
Salaries were only mentioned in a brief aside and not by me

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Actually, risk diversification is the point of the article. They are saying it is advisable to spread, rather than consolidate.

Akin to investing in the stock market, you don't put all your money in stock from one company, or your money in just one market; the idea being to spread your investment across the markets for diversified returns, to increase the likelihood that you get any return at all.