Last 5 Draft Classes

[TBR]

I hope we're not scratching our heads again next May. The Patriots have one
#1 pick, two #2 picks, and three #3 picks. The time has come to trade up to enhance the picks rather than trade down and collect #6 picks and #7 picks.

And if they do, it better not be for a QB.

 

[fightingirish595]

not one impact player on the list. Bad

 

[AlexB]

… and we've been to 2 super bowls, and won one since then, so.

That's the point, though. Those SBs relied heavily on players from the 2010-2013 classes, and the more recent draft classes haven't provided the same level of talent (due to missed picks, stolen picks, injuries, and luck)

 

[AlexB]

not one impact player on the list. Bad

James White and Trey Flowers say hi

 

[fightingirish595]

James White and Trey Flowers say hi

Nice players, not impact players. James white is not even top 20 at his position. In fact they just took a running back in the first round.

Trey Flowers, nice player. Not good enough that hes the best pick on defense in the last 5 years

 

[luuked]

This thread is about their drafts between 2014-18. It’s cherry picking to contrast those five years with the five years prior to that? The CBA has little if anything to do with talent evaluation and drafting; it has to do with rookie contracts but shouldn’t impact a team’s talent evaluation. You do understand that correct? Or are you going to argue about this too?

You cherry picked a range to fit your narrative. There is no reason to limit it to five years other than to make a misleading point.

 

[luuked]

I think I saw you write this earlier too?

You would think so but it's just not true.
I read this elsewhere too but this is from Forbes 2018
But one thing that surprisingly isn’t a factor is a team’s total number of draft picks. It may seem intuitive that having more draft picks would result in greater total performance, but it turns out that there’s very little relationship between the two. In fact, there’s almost no correlation at all (R-squared score of just 8.1%). Case in point: San Francisco leads all teams with 51 picks over the last five years, yet the Niners still rank third-worst in total AV per season from those selections.

I think thats pretty misleading because among other things one of the key difference here is that SF went through multiple GMs and head coaches over the same time. Harbaugh worked with other pieces than Tomsula. Chip Kelly looked for other players than Shanahan.

If you don't have stability in terms of schemes or general philosophy then the majority of your drafted players will never reach their potential.

So I completely disagree with that.

 

[luuked]

What did you think of Belichick wanting to trade Gronkowski?

I have been saying since January that I didnt think Gronk would be on the 2019 roster. I openly expected him to be moved for a long time because I assumed the team and the player would never agree on the salary in a potential extension. He might be the most impactful chess piece in the entire league and could easily be paid top WR money.

So the information that BB explored moving him was not particularly surprising. It also made sense to me if they wanted to do it to move up in the draft to grab a QB.

As a fan I didnt like it because it would have been a major setback for 2018 but it was consist with how BB is running the team. Value trumps it all.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

I think thats pretty misleading because among other things one of the key difference here is that SF went through multiple GMs and head coaches over the same time. Harbaugh worked with other pieces than Tomsula. Chip Kelly looked for other players than Shanahan.

If you don't have stability in terms of schemes or general philosophy then the majority of your drafted players will never reach their potential.

So I completely disagree with that.

The 49ers are a case in point and represent just 1/32 of the analyzed data. The overall correlation on all teams is low and essentially proves that trading down (quantity) does not translate to success over fewer, higher picks (quality).

I do think your analysis of the first/second round is pretty interesting, though. The Patriots love to trade down on their first pick, which is usually in the high 20s or so. I’ve heard during numerous drafts that the Patriots have expressed a similar view to yours, which that essentially players 20-60 or so are not that much different, making that an ideal time to trade down from their first pick, and that scenario could be easily buried when looking at all seven rounds and doing a massive study of correlation.

 

[Hercules Rockefeller]

Great and what do we have as a result of that? The potential to select the next Jordan Richards?

Really loving this one, because this is the post where you drop the "I've studied the data" routine and just cut to the part where you whine and stomp your feet.

 

[luuked]

Just shows that you have issues with reading comprehension if you think this is the point I was making. But you sure sound like someone who would argue against doing something that has a e.g. 60% success rate just because it fails the first 3-4 times in a row. Seems like the concept of probabilities is hard to understand for some people.

 

[DarrylS]

Have always advocated in threads such as this that you need to do this for the upper echelon teams in the NFL... alone it does not mean all that much, somehow, I used to keep track of this sort of thing to argue that the Pats somehow team build despite the draft, but after a while they just kept winning and no longer saw the need..

And of course the Pats have gone to 12 of the last 17 AFC Championships, winning 8 of them... the Pats have been AFC championships 3 of the last 4 years.. not bad for a team that does not know how to draft.

 

[archstanton543]

And of course the Pats have gone to 12 of the last 17 AFC Championships, winning 8 of them... the Pats have been AFC championships 3 of the last 4 years.. not bad for a team that does not know how to draft.

That's not what the data is showing. It's showing that they've drafted a lot of players that are no longer on the team for one reason or another. Some are just bad luck injuries, some are willful subtractions (trades) and, yes, some are outright busts. To say that the pretty high number of players drafted in the last 3 years, let's say, hasn't effected the team right now, this year, is disingenuous.

 

[1960Pats]

For this chart to be completely useful, we need all of the other NFL team's numbers too.

Which franchises are drafting well and which are not? Are most in the middle?

I think I have the list for the other AFCE teams. I'll put them together when I get a chance.

 

[RobertWeathers]

Nice players, not impact players. James white is not even top 20 at his position. In fact they just took a running back in the first round.

Trey Flowers, nice player. Not good enough that hes the best pick on defense in the last 5 years

If you want to judge Bill on production relative to draft status BB killed it with those two.

 

[1960Pats]

We shouldn't expect that, but we probably shouldn't have expected the draft haul from 2009-2013 either, since there were plenty of Patriots picks who were among the best players in the NFL at their position. It's just such an enormous contrast from 2009-13 to 2014-18 that you have to look at it and ask what's going on. I'm guessing the Patriots are looking at this as well and wondering if they need to make some changes, or if they were just really lucky and then really unlucky. My guess is Belichick doesn't believe luck alone can account for this difference.

Rob Gronkowski
Chandler Jones
Dont'a Hightower
Devin McCourty
Julian Edelman
Marcus Cannon
Nate Solder
Sebastian Vollmer
Jamie Collins
Pat Chung
Shane Vereen
Nate Ebner
Logan Ryan
Duron Harmon

That list is a great example of why the draft needs to be evaluated beyond just the first round. Even if the Pats are drafting at 30+ every year they're still drafting before every other team drafts their second player, or third, or fourth and so on.

The HOF is chock full of players drafted after #30 and more will be added.

 

[patriot1136]

I hated the Dominique Easley First Round selection in 2014 wish we had Traded the selection. Easley had damaged goods written all over him.

This one still bothers me. I realize there is always a risk with draft picks, but Easley was one I thought was just way too risky.

 

[Brady6]

Really loving this one, because this is the post where you drop the "I've studied the data" routine and just cut to the part where you whine and stomp your feet.

I’m not whining at all if I was Kraft I would have fired Belichick.

• Benching Butler
• 2 poor drafts in a row
• 2 poor free agency periods
• Difficulty coaching the top 2 players on the team
• Trading Garoppolo and not making that pick a conditional first to protect against the possibility of them falling out of the top 5 in the draft
• Trading Jamie Collins for the same thing he would have received just letting him walk in UFA
• Trading Chandler Jones for a bottom the second round pick
• Giving big money to Hightower despite constant injury issues
• Giving Rex Buckhead almost the same amount of guaranteed money that the Titans gave Lewis

It is very clear that Belichick is not the coach or the team builder he once was and it is time to move on from him.

I still love the Patriots and I will watch them win or lose but if we are having a discussion about Belichick’s performance then I’m going to express my views on what I did not like, and that is not whining it is discussing the topic at hand.

 

[fightingirish595]

If you want to judge Bill on production relative to draft status BB killed it with those two.

Like I said nice players.

Eventually the patriots are going to suck. That’s the way the league is designed. The lower you pick the harder it is to find those game changing impact players because they are few and far between after the first round

 

[JayNM]

I’m not whining at all if I was Kraft I would have fired Belichick.

• Benching Butler
• 2 poor drafts in a row
• 2 poor free agency periods
• Difficulty coaching the top 2 players on the team
• Trading Garoppolo and not making that pick a conditional first to protect against the possibility of them falling out of the top 5 in the draft
• Trading Jamie Collins for the same thing he would have received just letting him walk in UFA
• Trading Chandler Jones for a bottom the second round pick
• Giving big money to Hightower despite constant injury issues
• Giving Rex Buckhead almost the same amount of guaranteed money that the Titans gave Lewis

It is very clear that Belichick is not the coach or the team builder he once was and it is time to move on from him.

I still love the Patriots and I will watch them win or lose but if we are having a discussion about Belichick’s performance then I’m going to express my views on what I did not like, and that is not whining it is discussing the topic at hand.

This is an interesting perspective, even though some of what you say is not a complete fair judgement becasuse "bad free agency" is certainly debatable - i remember being pretty optimistic last season after FA - and is still early to see if our draft picks aren't going to pan out - although I grant you that the early results are pretty much horrible for the last 2 yeasr).

Still, the easy answer is to say that the Results outspeak your points.... Yeah, benching Butler might have lost us the game, but he still got us there and almost there every single year. It is also true that Brady/BB Gm/BB Coach are all so connected it is impossible to say for certain who is responsible for this run of success.

We'll see... I think this next game is crucial. The result is less important than how we play, too