When "Insiders" are Really Idiots

[efin98]

He was wrong about 2007 as well. Kareem Brown made the team out of camp and was cut because the Patriots had so many injuries in the secondary and the Pats needed the roster space for a CB. Mike Richardson is also from that draft class and he is still on the team.

To take it one step further about 2007. There are 4 picks ( Rogers, Oldenberg, Hilliard, Elgin) other than Brown that the Patriots made from that year that are still in the NFL on other teams.

My source hadn't updated the stats directly, I didn't even notice Richardson...and that just proves the point against him.

 

[Brady-To-Branch]

I like CHFF's idea of judging drafts...

Cold, Hard Football Facts.com: Your team's statistical wire hangers: AFC edition

NEW ENGLAND
Bend 10

Score 14

OHI 9t

DHI 16

PYPA 13

DPR 23

BPI 23

Rel 9

The Patriots have swung and missed on so many draft picks in recent years that we thought Bob Gibson circa 1968 was throwing the selections at them.

As one reader, Matt Price, noted in a recent email, 31 of the team’s 76 draft picks in the Bill Belichick Era failed to even make the team – a failure rate of 40.8 percent.

The result is a team that has declined rapidly in the performance of its pass defense – easily New England’s great statistical wire hanger from 2008.

How bad has the decline been?

* The Super Bowl champion 2003 Patriots posted an incredibly stingy 56.2 Defensive Passer Rating, one of the toughest pass defenses of the Live Ball Era.
* The missed-the-playoffs 2008 Patriots posted a incredibly porous 89.8 Defensive Passer Rating, one of the worst pass defenses of the season.

The Patriots will score plenty of points in 2009. The return of Tom Brady, assuming he stays healthy, not to mention the acquisition of productive players like WR Joey Galloway and RB Fred Taylor, should result in a club that can put 500 points in the board again this year.

But they won’t return to championship form as long as the pass defense struggles in the regular season and collapses in critical moments of the postseason, like it has for several years now.

The rebuilding process begins with some smart draft picks in the defensive backfield on Saturday.

Cold, Hard Football Facts.com: We’re so f!$#*$! awesome it’s not even funny

For the three or four folks on Planet Pigskin who still don't comprehend the theory behind the Cold, Hard Football Facts, this is how it works:

We don’t ask for “expert” or “insider” opinions. We don’t break down game film or comment on a player’s “hip flexibility.” We don’t make judgments or issue edicts based upon biases, assumptions or long-standing conventional wisdom. And we certainly never offer our opinions.

Here’s what we do do: We look at the numbers, those we've identified as critical to success in real-life, on-the-field football, and we then tell you what these numbers tell us. The theory is that the numbers have no biases or agendas and will therefore prove more consistently reliable than traditional and tragically flawed humans and human sources and all the inherent biases and agendas that come with these unreliable sources.

The theory of the Cold, Hard Football Facts has worked so well for us over the years that the science community may soon elevate it to the Law of the Cold, Hard Football Facts, like gridiron gravity.

The 2009 draft provided a textbook example of the Law of CHFF in action. It told us that the coaches and GMs bottled up inside various draft war rooms are not reading Mel Kiper’s comically bad mock drafts. Instead, teams are probably doing the same thing we do in the lead-up to the draft: they’re studying key numbers and raw data about their own team's performance and then trying to determine which players will best fill those concrete, statistical needs. They’re studying, in other words, the Cold, Hard Football Facts – not necessarily our Cold, Hard Football Facts, but some version of them that, if the 2009 draft is any indication, apparently look quite similar to ours.

In most cases this draft, our analysis and the actions of NFL teams moved in almost perfect lock step. For proof, here below is what we wrote about each AFC and each NFC team in our pre-draft analysis, and how they acted this weekend in the draft.

We then grade our own performances: we get a high grade when our actions would have been the same as those a team actually took. Our consistently high grades simply re-confirm the unbridled, prairie-roaming awesomeness of the Cold, Hard Football Facts.

NEW ENGLAND
We wrote: “They won’t return to championship form as long as the pass defense struggles … The rebuilding process begins with some smart draft picks in the defensive backfield on Saturday. “

New England’s actions: The Patriots began the rebuilding process with some smart picks in the defensive backfield on Saturday. They grabbed defenders with their first three picks, including a hard-hitting safety in Oregon’s Patrick Chung with their first selection and a potential cover corner in Connecticut’s Darius Butler with their third selection – both second rounders.

CHFF’s grade: A. Hard to be more accurate than that.

 

[captain stone]

I like CHFF's idea of judging drafts...

And I agree with the CHFF's judgement of the Patriots drafts.

The second-day (Round 4 & later) picks in 2004 and from 2006-09 have been nothing short of embarassing, smarter-than-thou disasters. And some of the first-day picks (Bumblin' Bennie Watson instead of Karlos Dansby; Stomper Meriweather instead of David Harris, Justin Blalock or even Eric Weddle; Lil' Terry Wheatley; Chicken Legs Crable instead of Cliff Avril; Sebastien - the German Ryan O'Callahan - Vollmer instead of Will Beatty) were flawed decisions, too. Passing up Connor Barwin in favor of a luxury pick - Ron Brace - was bad enough, but choosing UDFA-talented Rich Ohrnburger instead of Lawrence Sidbury was Special Olympic-sized ******ed, and an insult. Who the **** is going to rush the passer? Tubby Banta-Cain't? Chicken Legs? Un-EFFIN-believable.

The current HC/ FO "genius"(snicker) of the NEP will never win another SB as long as 2 things continue:
Light & Kaczur remain the starting Tackles (Koppen may be regressing, too);
and the non-existent pass-rush remains unresolved.

 

[Clonamery]

The current HC/ FO "genius"(snicker) of the NEP will never win another SB as long as 2 things continue:
Light & Kaczur remain the starting Tackles (Koppen may be regressing, too);
and the non-existent pass-rush remains unresolved.

Hey, submit your resume.

 

[Pats726]

Hey, submit your resume.

For what...what the poster said about insiders??

 

[Clonamery]

For what...what the poster said about insiders??

No, for the genius in waiting...

 

[Synovia]

He was right about one year though, they had a bad 2007 draft- only Meriweather made the team, all the rest either flopped out of football or were released. The rest is total garbage.

They drafted one 1st rounder, who is good, and then all 4th and later. 4th and later aren't really expected to make the team.


That being said, most of them are still on rosters, and quite a few are playing regularly. The colts have a couple, the eagles have a couple, the jets do, and the cowboys have one. That was an okay draft, they just had no roster spots for the borderline players.

 

[Synovia]

As one reader, Matt Price, noted in a recent email, 31 of the team’s 76 draft picks in the Bill Belichick Era failed to even make the team – a failure rate of 40.8 percent.

And how does that compare with league average?

 

[Clonamery]

And how does that compare with league average?

That would be the reasonable, intelligent question.

 

[AzPatsFan]

The pats only had one pick above round 4 (meriweather), there were 6 picks in the 6th and 7th rounds. But you are wrong about those late round picks. Almost every player cut by the Pats in 2007 made another teams opening day roster.

Not sure they lasted, but the idea that only two Pats made an opening day roster from the last three (or any) drafts is just wrong.

Efin98 is a real draft nebbish.

Acquiring a HOF WR and perhaps the best to ever play the position; and a probowl Slot WR doesn't count beccause... ??? The Pats selected them with their 2nd, 4th and 7th in the 2007 draft, from the NFL veteran talent pool rather than the the collegiate talent pool,and that doesn't count to Efin98. :snob::snob:

 

[AzPatsFan]

Fixed your post for you.

i see we have an ignorant green loon amongst us...

 

[VrabelMayeWin]

And how does that compare with league average?

It's kind of irrelevant anyway. Some teams keep players just to make their drafts look good, others stay away from FA and plan to keep more draftees, etc, there's more to it than "average number of picks who make the team".

 

[VrabelMayeWin]

Since this thread has been bumped I should mention that someone challenged him on this and he replied saying that "This is the third draft in a row where they’re not likely to have more than two players make the opening day roster" referred to gameday actives so guys like O'Connell, Crable, Wheatley and Wilhite didn't count even though they were on the roster.

Cop out IMO but it makes it a LITTLE better. Instead of an idiot is makes him an attention seeker.

 

[ctpatsfan77]

i see we have an ignorant green loon amongst us...

Um, no, "you" have someone who believes in keeping political arguments out of football fora amongst "you."