Content Post How Current NFL Teams Were Built and How Pats Compare

[KCSVEN]

I did some deep analytical on the 2024 NFL teams. I analyzed where all the current starters or major contributors on offense and defense came from. I compared that to the 2024 won loss record to try to analyze what factors are most important in assembling a winning team.
This is solely where player came from, if they were drafted by you and started in 2024 then it counts as a successful draft pick. If they were drafted by you and left in free agency they count as a starter acquired in free agency by the other team but a miss for you because they are not starting for you. This goes back to 2016 NFL draft. I analyzed first round trades from 2015 to 2023 as 2024 is too early to determine winner.

I'll summarize the data and then list the data in multiple screen shots at the end.

What the data tells me

-Overall draft hit rate is the most correlated data point with success in winning (you had to go to team #12 in those rankings to find the first bottom 10 team in winning % in 2024

-Starters from the draft % had similar success (team 13 was the first bottom 10 team)

-Rounds 1-2 were especially correlated with success. 5 of the top 6 in this data point were within the top 10 of teams in the NFL in 2024 in terms of winning %

-Round 1 hit rate alone: only Browns and Jets represented the only 2 with bad records in the top 14.

-Round 3 has an above average correlation w/ winning but well below round 1 and 2 success.

-Round 4-7 success is not statistically correlated with winning. The worst 16 in this data point had 9 teams with winning records, the best 16 had 8 teams with winning records.

-Having more total picks had no correlation with winning nor did having more 1st and 2nd round picks.

-Eliminating trades with future 1’s and 2’s included (mostly QB’s), trading up was the better strategy 72% of the time in hindsight. Trading down is likely to be a bad move 3 out of 4 times.

-96% of first team All Pro Players were drafted in rounds 1-3, 87% if you include 1st and 2nd team all pro combined. 61% and 55% respectively were drafted in round 1.

-If you fail in the draft you can have a playoff team by using free agency well or making trades to make up for it. You are making things difficult but there is a chance to still field a winning team.

-Your best odds of success are to hit in the first 3 rounds at an above average rate. If not, you need to make it up being well above average in rounds 4-7 and/or nailing free agency.

-There is a chart that shows # of starters by position from rounds 4-7. Don't draft DL and do draft LB, for example.

-Shockingly, if you draft well you are likely to have a winning team.

Success rate by round:

First: 54.5%
Second: 37.3%
Third: 24.3%
Fourth: 13.7%
Fifth: 9.1%
Sixth: 6.3%
Seventh: 3.9%

How An Average NFL team is built

-5 first round picks
-3-4 second round picks
-2-3 third round picks
-1 fourth round pic
-1 fifth round picks
-0-1 sixth round picks
-0 seventh round picks

-6-7 Free Agents
-1-2 UDFA/Waiver Pickups
-2 trades

PATRIOTS ANALYSIS
-Overall, the Patriots are slightly below average drafters, however with 2 moves, that BB was solely responsible for, being changed they become slightly above average
-BB let Thuney go and chose Harry over the scouts preferred receivers Brown/Deebo.
-Patriots rank 16th in hit % of draft picks but only 28th in rounds 1 and 2. They would be 11th and 17th (just ahead of Chiefs) with signing Thuney and drafting Deebo/Brown. The difference having had 2 perennial pro bowl players would be huge.
-Patriots are 4th best in NFL in the rounds 4-7. They have been excellent, relative to other teams, in that part of the draft. Of course, there is an average 8.4% hit rate in rounds 4-7. An average team gets 1-2 starters from there every 3 years.
-They are below average in free agency success.
-The combination of failure in rounds 1 and 2 (Thuney/Harry) and the free agency being below average is the main reason for the poor roster/record

Other Teams
-Washington and Minnesota are outliers. Absolutely terrible drafts but a large number of free agents that start. Adam Peters should have been the run away exec of the year. Kevin O Connel was the coach of the year and was deserved. These 2 teams prove you can make the playoffs but be bad drafters. The Commanders were good at nothing, Vikings at least hit on a good number of first round picks,
-Bucs and Colts are the top 2 drafting teams. The Colts' entire starting offense was drafted by them.
-Browns are the best team drafting rounds 1-2 but near the bottom in rounds 4-7
-Colts and Browns look like 2 teams that suffer greatly from the lack of QB
-Eagles are second to Browns in rounds 1-2 but only 18th in rounds 4-7 and 2nd to Jets in acquiring starters by trade. Hit on rounds 1-2 and make some smart trades was huge part of the formula.
-Chiefs are average drafters, above average in free agency Aquisition.
-Titans (Vrabel's old team) were poor drafters.

What Should Patriots Strategy be to build a team
-DO NOT trade down for more picks, the odds of any pick after the first round of becoming a contributing starter is small. A 2nd round pick fails 2 out of 3 times. A trade down in the same draft fails 3 out of 4 times. Trade down and get a future first or second but that's it.
-Do Trade up. The 2nd and the first 3rd by the draft value chart gets you to 23 in the first. All Day, every day.
-If you want D Line you must draft in rounds 1-3, the higher the better.
-Rounds 4-7 are a complete crap shoot with incredibly low odds of success, sticking with TE/RB/LB in rounds 4-5, WR/Guard in round 6. Always try to trade a 4-7 in current year for a round earlier the following year. Take a flyer on a QB every year down there, most important position and whomever you draft is likely a bust anyways might as well take a flier on a QB.
-YOU CANNOT miss on the first-round pick. Increase your odds on the second pick by trying to move up. I would always try to take the 2nd and 3rd and move up. 75% of 3rd round picks bust.
-The average team gets 2 long term starters out of the draft in a year. The NFL scooting is very good, almost all the ALL Pros are first rounders, success rate by round shows all the teams are pretty decent at analyzing the talent. Accept that you don't have some secret recipe (other than analytics) and try to get picks higher in the draft by moving up.
-You need 5-6 starters from free agency. Your resources put into free agency needs to be just as much as you put into the draft
-Put most of your draft resources and evaluation in the top 100 players, You should spend WAY more time on those prospects over any expected to go later.
-Only 8 of 32 teams have a starter from the 7th round drafted from 2016-2024
-If you are at the top of the draft, take the best player regardless of need. Draft your DL in the first 2 rounds.

Summary
There is a ton of data here, I thought there might be some big reveal that was the secret sauce to contending. Its more nuanced than that. I'm not posting all the data but if any questions let me know.

 

[captain stone]

Very impressive. Bottom line: the Patsies under arrogant Little Bill & his ****ing incompetent ****ing nepo toadies (which includes BOTH children STILL Upstairs) have absolutely ****ing SUCKED in the draft since and including 2017. THAT'S why we are where we are now.

 

[WhatJustHappened]

Thanks

 

[NormZauchin]

I did some deep analytical on the 2024 NFL teams. I analyzed where all the current starters or major contributors on offense and defense came from. I compared that to the 2024 won loss record to try to analyze what factors are most important in assembling a winning team.
This is solely where player came from, if they were drafted by you and started in 2024 then it counts as a successful draft pick. If they were drafted by you and left in free agency they count as a starter acquired in free agency by the other team but a miss for you because they are not starting for you. This goes back to 2016 NFL draft. I analyzed first round trades from 2015 to 2023 as 2024 is too early to determine winner.

I'll summarize the data and then list the data in multiple screen shots at the end.

What the data tells me

-Overall draft hit rate is the most correlated data point with success in winning (you had to go to team #12 in those rankings to find the first bottom 10 team in winning % in 2024

-Starters from the draft % had similar success (team 13 was the first bottom 10 team)

-Rounds 1-2 were especially correlated with success. 5 of the top 6 in this data point were within the top 10 of teams in the NFL in 2024 in terms of winning %

-Round 1 hit rate alone: only Browns and Jets represented the only 2 with bad records in the top 14.

-Round 3 has an above average correlation w/ winning but well below round 1 and 2 success.

-Round 4-7 success is not statistically correlated with winning. The worst 16 in this data point had 9 teams with winning records, the best 16 had 8 teams with winning records.

-Having more total picks had no correlation with winning nor did having more 1st and 2nd round picks.

-Eliminating trades with future 1’s and 2’s included (mostly QB’s), trading up was the better strategy 72% of the time in hindsight. Trading down is likely to be a bad move 3 out of 4 times.

-96% of first team All Pro Players were drafted in rounds 1-3, 87% if you include 1st and 2nd team all pro combined. 61% and 55% respectively were drafted in round 1.

-If you fail in the draft you can have a playoff team by using free agency well or making trades to make up for it. You are making things difficult but there is a chance to still field a winning team.

-Your best odds of success are to hit in the first 3 rounds at an above average rate. If not, you need to make it up being well above average in rounds 4-7 and/or nailing free agency.

-There is a chart that shows # of starters by position from rounds 4-7. Don't draft DL and do draft LB, for example.

-Shockingly, if you draft well you are likely to have a winning team.

Success rate by round:

First: 54.5%
Second: 37.3%
Third: 24.3%
Fourth: 13.7%
Fifth: 9.1%
Sixth: 6.3%
Seventh: 3.9%

How An Average NFL team is built

-5 first round picks
-3-4 second round picks
-2-3 third round picks
-1 fourth round pic
-1 fifth round picks
-0-1 sixth round picks
-0 seventh round picks

-6-7 Free Agents
-1-2 UDFA/Waiver Pickups
-2 trades

PATRIOTS ANALYSIS
-Overall, the Patriots are slightly below average drafters, however with 2 moves, that BB was solely responsible for, being changed they become slightly above average
-BB let Thuney go and chose Harry over the scouts preferred receivers Brown/Deebo.
-Patriots rank 16th in hit % of draft picks but only 28th in rounds 1 and 2. They would be 11th and 17th (just ahead of Chiefs) with signing Thuney and drafting Deebo/Brown. The difference having had 2 perennial pro bowl players would be huge.
-Patriots are 4th best in NFL in the rounds 4-7. They have been excellent, relative to other teams, in that part of the draft. Of course, there is an average 8.4% hit rate in rounds 4-7. An average team gets 1-2 starters from there every 3 years.
-They are below average in free agency success.
-The combination of failure in rounds 1 and 2 (Thuney/Harry) and the free agency being below average is the main reason for the poor roster/record

Other Teams
-Washington and Minnesota are outliers. Absolutely terrible drafts but a large number of free agents that start. Adam Peters should have been the run away exec of the year. Kevin O Connel was the coach of the year and was deserved. These 2 teams prove you can make the playoffs but be bad drafters. The Commanders were good at nothing, Vikings at least hit on a good number of first round picks,
-Bucs and Colts are the top 2 drafting teams. The Colts' entire starting offense was drafted by them.
-Browns are the best team drafting rounds 1-2 but near the bottom in rounds 4-7
-Colts and Browns look like 2 teams that suffer greatly from the lack of QB
-Eagles are second to Browns in rounds 1-2 but only 18th in rounds 4-7 and 2nd to Jets in acquiring starters by trade. Hit on rounds 1-2 and make some smart trades was huge part of the formula.
-Chiefs are average drafters, above average in free agency Aquisition.
-Titans (Vrabel's old team) were poor drafters.

What Should Patriots Strategy be to build a team
-DO NOT trade down for more picks, the odds of any pick after the first round of becoming a contributing starter is small. A 2nd round pick fails 2 out of 3 times. A trade down in the same draft fails 3 out of 4 times. Trade down and get a future first or second but that's it.
-Do Trade up. The 2nd and the first 3rd by the draft value chart gets you to 23 in the first. All Day, every day.
-If you want D Line you must draft in rounds 1-3, the higher the better.
-Rounds 4-7 are a complete crap shoot with incredibly low odds of success, sticking with TE/RB/LB in rounds 4-5, WR/Guard in round 6. Always try to trade a 4-7 in current year for a round earlier the following year. Take a flyer on a QB every year down there, most important position and whomever you draft is likely a bust anyways might as well take a flier on a QB.
-YOU CANNOT miss on the first-round pick. Increase your odds on the second pick by trying to move up. I would always try to take the 2nd and 3rd and move up. 75% of 3rd round picks bust.
-The average team gets 2 long term starters out of the draft in a year. The NFL scooting is very good, almost all the ALL Pros are first rounders, success rate by round shows all the teams are pretty decent at analyzing the talent. Accept that you don't have some secret recipe (other than analytics) and try to get picks higher in the draft by moving up.
-You need 5-6 starters from free agency. Your resources put into free agency needs to be just as much as you put into the draft
-Put most of your draft resources and evaluation in the top 100 players, You should spend WAY more time on those prospects over any expected to go later.
-Only 8 of 32 teams have a starter from the 7th round drafted from 2016-2024
-If you are at the top of the draft, take the best player regardless of need. Draft your DL in the first 2 rounds.

Summary
There is a ton of data here, I thought there might be some big reveal that was the secret sauce to contending. Its more nuanced than that. I'm not posting all the data but if any questions let me know.

Best statistical analysis on any football topic that I have seen in the almost two decades I have been on this site. Thanks. Puts a lie to the concept of trading down "to acquire more ammunition."

 

[PATSYLICIOUS]

Agreed with trading up vs trading down. The only exception id see is going from 4 to 6 and getting #40. Its only 2 slots (1 of whom would likely be a qb) so really just 1 slot down for all intents and purposes and you are getting pick 40 which is JUST outside the first rd and much more likely to hit on another starter. Just not sure id wanna miss out on mason graham.

 

[KCSVEN]

Agreed with trading up vs trading down. The only exception id see is going from 4 to 6 and getting #40. Its only 2 slots (1 of whom would likely be a qb) so really just 1 slot down for all intents and purposes and you are getting pick 40 which is JUST outside the first rd and much more likely to hit on another starter. Just not sure id wanna miss out on mason graham.

I looked at trades that were only a few slots and there wasn't much difference in outcome. Of course, if you're trading down its probably because you weren't taking that guy so speaks more to scouting than it being a bad trade. Plus it did work out over 25% of the time which is not a small #. Teams should use the analytics, but nothing is 100% so there are always going to be situations that you can analyze and go against the history. You just need to have very good information before you trade down

The Pats were expected to take Trent McDuffie but apparently BB really wanted Strange so traded down. If he did not get a trade down does he still take Strange, sounds like he would have. That is one thing I could not really capture.

Do draft picks that fall in the first round well past where most mocks have them (Jalen Carter, Vince Wilfork, Micah Parsons all come to mind) do better than their draft position? I'd guess that's true but no way to quantify that easily.

Opposite question, if you draft a guy well ahead of consensus in first round, do they normally underperform their draft position. The examples I saw were yes but I could only remember a few.

Logically it seems the general consensus is pretty accurate so you should not take a guy in the first round that is 30 picks or more before consensus (Cole Strange) and if a consensus top 10 guy falls out of top 10 you should be all over them.

 

[silentone]

Hi KCSVEN -

Thanks for your work on the draft and trades

Regarding

"Eliminating trades with future 1’s and 2’s included (mostly QB’s), trading up was the better strategy 72% of the time in hindsight. Trading down is likely to be a bad move 3 out of 4 times."

I believe you looked at this from 2015-2024 and this was 1st round picks trading down - do I have that right?
I'd enjoy looking at more closely (I started by looking at the two trades in 2015)

How did you determine who won the trade?
Who did you have win the two 1st round tradedowns in 2015 and why/how did you evaluate it?

Thanks

Silent one

 

[Nikolai]

Great write up. Nice to have another data dude with Excel tisms around these parts.

 

[KCSVEN]

Hi KCSVEN -

Thanks for your work on the draft and trades

Regarding

"Eliminating trades with future 1’s and 2’s included (mostly QB’s), trading up was the better strategy 72% of the time in hindsight. Trading down is likely to be a bad move 3 out of 4 times."

I believe you looked at this from 2015-2024 and this was 1st round picks trading down - do I have that right?
I'd enjoy looking at more closely (I started by looking at the two trades in 2015)

How did you determine who won the trade?
Who did you have win the two 1st round tradedowns in 2015 and why/how did you evaluate it?

Thanks

Silent one

Yes. the analysis concluding trading down was worse 72% of the time was solely based on trading down in the first round and accumulating more capital in the CURRENT draft.

I eliminated a lot of trades. If it involved a starting player in the current NFL coming over in the trade I didn't count it.
There were also washes where both teams won equally. Getting a future first eliminated the trade from the calculation though I looked at those and were more 50/50.

I used PFF rankings in many cases to determine which pick would have been better. but also factored all pro or pro bowls. 2015 example Arik Armstead was a better pick than Melvin Gordon. Had a better PFF average per year and played for SF his entire career where Gordon moved on from Broncos. If I didn't think there was a clear winner it was a wash. Most trades had clear winners though.

It obviously has issues in terms of the team trading down may not have taken the player the other team took. My main theory is just take the best player available and don't draft for need, outside of QB. Since the consensus draft rankings are prety good I would assume the better player would have been taken if the team stayed there.

I was mainly trying to see if something obvious came out of it. Most obvious thing is no real benefit comes form accumulation more picks later in the draft. It is not going to kill you to do it, just no reason to do it.

Based on analytics the odds are better, NOT DEFINITIVE, to stay and pick but it is just one factor you need to take into account.

I think the casual fan, myself included at 1 point, believes the draft is a crap shoot and the more picks you have the better. I can conclude that, it is at best 50-50 and more likely a losing strategy in the long run. Accumulating more picks for the sake of getting more shots should not be a strategy you actively pursue. Does not mean you never do it but you shouldn't have that as a main strategy going into a draft.

It seems the real conclusion is the general NFL scouting consensus on draft picks are pretty good and the higher you pick the better chance you have of success and picks after round 1 are more likely to bust than work out thus accumulating more picks for the sake of increasing odds is not a good strategy in itself.

I hypothesize that much of this trend goes away when you take into account the positions drafted by each team. As we know different positions have different success rates. If you are trading down and taking an offensive lineman your success is probably different if trading down and taking a wr.


There is no black and white answers. Analytics just gives a trend.

 

[Toofy]

I hope the front office sees this post and takes this seriously. Impressive work. Got to wonder if our front office and scouts were really working the last few years and the fact that we have higher success in later rounds than other is more due to probability or prevalence of more picks as opposed to real success .

If not for incompetence of ron Rivera we might have lost gonzo too . Thank God, else we might have drafted forbes.

I don't know how we can trade down and get a good player at 6 . We need Hunter/ Carter/Graham / Campbell .

If only Graham and Campbell were available at 4, I am leaning more towards Campbell. Even if he turns out to a guard he will at least be a pro bowler. Whereas if he turns out to be above average LT, we don't need to wait for trades or draft picks next year.

 

[silentone]

Yes. the analysis concluding trading down was worse 72% of the time was solely based on trading down in the first round and accumulating more capital in the CURRENT draft.

I eliminated a lot of trades. If it involved a starting player in the current NFL coming over in the trade I didn't count it.
There were also washes where both teams won equally. Getting a future first eliminated the trade from the calculation though I looked at those and were more 50/50.

I used PFF rankings in many cases to determine which pick would have been better. but also factored all pro or pro bowls. 2015 example Arik Armstead was a better pick than Melvin Gordon. Had a better PFF average per year and played for SF his entire career where Gordon moved on from Broncos. If I didn't think there was a clear winner it was a wash. Most trades had clear winners though.

It obviously has issues in terms of the team trading down may not have taken the player the other team took. My main theory is just take the best player available and don't draft for need, outside of QB. Since the consensus draft rankings are prety good I would assume the better player would have been taken if the team stayed there.

I was mainly trying to see if something obvious came out of it. Most obvious thing is no real benefit comes form accumulation more picks later in the draft. It is not going to kill you to do it, just no reason to do it.

Based on analytics the odds are better, NOT DEFINITIVE, to stay and pick but it is just one factor you need to take into account.

I think the casual fan, myself included at 1 point, believes the draft is a crap shoot and the more picks you have the better. I can conclude that, it is at best 50-50 and more likely a losing strategy in the long run. Accumulating more picks for the sake of getting more shots should not be a strategy you actively pursue. Does not mean you never do it but you shouldn't have that as a main strategy going into a draft.

It seems the real conclusion is the general NFL scouting consensus on draft picks are pretty good and the higher you pick the better chance you have of success and picks after round 1 are more likely to bust than work out thus accumulating more picks for the sake of increasing odds is not a good strategy in itself.

I hypothesize that much of this trend goes away when you take into account the positions drafted by each team. As we know different positions have different success rates. If you are trading down and taking an offensive lineman your success is probably different if trading down and taking a wr.


There is no black and white answers. Analytics just gives a trend.

Thanks KCSVEN, appreciate your thoughts and your work.

I'd like to start with the 2015 Melvin Gordon / Arik Armstead trade. I believe the trade was pick #15 for pick #17, #117, and a 2016 5th round pick with SD getting #15 & SF getting the three other picks. I think we are in agreement that SF got the better of this trade, ie trading down was better. I like that you used PFF grades which is how I'm looking at it also.
Some question/thoughts - how do you incoroporate the following:

Armstead's position, defensive end is more valuable than Gordon's position running back (although it might not have been in 2015).
The money component, Armstead cost less salary cap money than Gordon did.
Pick #117 was Blake Bell who had a 9 year NFL career albeit somewhat modest.
2016 pick #143 was Ronald Blair DL, 5 year career, played his four year contract with SF, ie never cut/dropped

So this was a win for SF. However, I don't think it's enough to say 1 point for the trade down column. How big a win was this. Should we scale on 1-100? If 50=fair trade, should we call this a 75?

Opportunities for improvement on my understanding of how you are looking at these trades: (just my thoughts)

Grading the size of the win or loss of trading down
Incorporating salary or % of salary cap used in the evaluation of who won
Recognizing that non-starters may add surplus value
Incorporating postional value

For me, this one trade was a decisive win for trading down. Do you agree?

I also share your point of view "My theory is just take the best player available and don't draft for need"
Regarding "Most obvious thing is no real benefit comes from accumulation more picks later in the draft" - I don't believe in trading down to accumulate more picks for that sake. However, I generally believe in trading down if someone is overpaying for my higher pick using the more current draft pick value analytical models.

What are your thoughts on the other trade down in the 2015 Draft:
Denver gets pick #23
Detroit gets pick #28, #143, 2016 5th, and OG/C Manny Ramirez (not the baseball player)

 

[Real fan 02]

I did some deep analytical on the 2024 NFL teams. I analyzed where all the current starters or major contributors on offense and defense came from. I compared that to the 2024 won loss record to try to analyze what factors are most important in assembling a winning team.
This is solely where player came from, if they were drafted by you and started in 2024 then it counts as a successful draft pick. If they were drafted by you and left in free agency they count as a starter acquired in free agency by the other team but a miss for you because they are not starting for you. This goes back to 2016 NFL draft. I analyzed first round trades from 2015 to 2023 as 2024 is too early to determine winner.

I'll summarize the data and then list the data in multiple screen shots at the end.

What the data tells me

-Overall draft hit rate is the most correlated data point with success in winning (you had to go to team #12 in those rankings to find the first bottom 10 team in winning % in 2024

-Starters from the draft % had similar success (team 13 was the first bottom 10 team)

-Rounds 1-2 were especially correlated with success. 5 of the top 6 in this data point were within the top 10 of teams in the NFL in 2024 in terms of winning %

-Round 1 hit rate alone: only Browns and Jets represented the only 2 with bad records in the top 14.

-Round 3 has an above average correlation w/ winning but well below round 1 and 2 success.

-Round 4-7 success is not statistically correlated with winning. The worst 16 in this data point had 9 teams with winning records, the best 16 had 8 teams with winning records.

-Having more total picks had no correlation with winning nor did having more 1st and 2nd round picks.

-Eliminating trades with future 1’s and 2’s included (mostly QB’s), trading up was the better strategy 72% of the time in hindsight. Trading down is likely to be a bad move 3 out of 4 times.

-96% of first team All Pro Players were drafted in rounds 1-3, 87% if you include 1st and 2nd team all pro combined. 61% and 55% respectively were drafted in round 1.

-If you fail in the draft you can have a playoff team by using free agency well or making trades to make up for it. You are making things difficult but there is a chance to still field a winning team.

-Your best odds of success are to hit in the first 3 rounds at an above average rate. If not, you need to make it up being well above average in rounds 4-7 and/or nailing free agency.

-There is a chart that shows # of starters by position from rounds 4-7. Don't draft DL and do draft LB, for example.

-Shockingly, if you draft well you are likely to have a winning team.

Success rate by round:

First: 54.5%
Second: 37.3%
Third: 24.3%
Fourth: 13.7%
Fifth: 9.1%
Sixth: 6.3%
Seventh: 3.9%

How An Average NFL team is built

-5 first round picks
-3-4 second round picks
-2-3 third round picks
-1 fourth round pic
-1 fifth round picks
-0-1 sixth round picks
-0 seventh round picks

-6-7 Free Agents
-1-2 UDFA/Waiver Pickups
-2 trades

PATRIOTS ANALYSIS
-Overall, the Patriots are slightly below average drafters, however with 2 moves, that BB was solely responsible for, being changed they become slightly above average
-BB let Thuney go and chose Harry over the scouts preferred receivers Brown/Deebo.
-Patriots rank 16th in hit % of draft picks but only 28th in rounds 1 and 2. They would be 11th and 17th (just ahead of Chiefs) with signing Thuney and drafting Deebo/Brown. The difference having had 2 perennial pro bowl players would be huge.
-Patriots are 4th best in NFL in the rounds 4-7. They have been excellent, relative to other teams, in that part of the draft. Of course, there is an average 8.4% hit rate in rounds 4-7. An average team gets 1-2 starters from there every 3 years.
-They are below average in free agency success.
-The combination of failure in rounds 1 and 2 (Thuney/Harry) and the free agency being below average is the main reason for the poor roster/record

Other Teams
-Washington and Minnesota are outliers. Absolutely terrible drafts but a large number of free agents that start. Adam Peters should have been the run away exec of the year. Kevin O Connel was the coach of the year and was deserved. These 2 teams prove you can make the playoffs but be bad drafters. The Commanders were good at nothing, Vikings at least hit on a good number of first round picks,
-Bucs and Colts are the top 2 drafting teams. The Colts' entire starting offense was drafted by them.
-Browns are the best team drafting rounds 1-2 but near the bottom in rounds 4-7
-Colts and Browns look like 2 teams that suffer greatly from the lack of QB
-Eagles are second to Browns in rounds 1-2 but only 18th in rounds 4-7 and 2nd to Jets in acquiring starters by trade. Hit on rounds 1-2 and make some smart trades was huge part of the formula.
-Chiefs are average drafters, above average in free agency Aquisition.
-Titans (Vrabel's old team) were poor drafters.

What Should Patriots Strategy be to build a team
-DO NOT trade down for more picks, the odds of any pick after the first round of becoming a contributing starter is small. A 2nd round pick fails 2 out of 3 times. A trade down in the same draft fails 3 out of 4 times. Trade down and get a future first or second but that's it.
-Do Trade up. The 2nd and the first 3rd by the draft value chart gets you to 23 in the first. All Day, every day.
-If you want D Line you must draft in rounds 1-3, the higher the better.
-Rounds 4-7 are a complete crap shoot with incredibly low odds of success, sticking with TE/RB/LB in rounds 4-5, WR/Guard in round 6. Always try to trade a 4-7 in current year for a round earlier the following year. Take a flyer on a QB every year down there, most important position and whomever you draft is likely a bust anyways might as well take a flier on a QB.
-YOU CANNOT miss on the first-round pick. Increase your odds on the second pick by trying to move up. I would always try to take the 2nd and 3rd and move up. 75% of 3rd round picks bust.
-The average team gets 2 long term starters out of the draft in a year. The NFL scooting is very good, almost all the ALL Pros are first rounders, success rate by round shows all the teams are pretty decent at analyzing the talent. Accept that you don't have some secret recipe (other than analytics) and try to get picks higher in the draft by moving up.
-You need 5-6 starters from free agency. Your resources put into free agency needs to be just as much as you put into the draft
-Put most of your draft resources and evaluation in the top 100 players, You should spend WAY more time on those prospects over any expected to go later.
-Only 8 of 32 teams have a starter from the 7th round drafted from 2016-2024
-If you are at the top of the draft, take the best player regardless of need. Draft your DL in the first 2 rounds.

Summary
There is a ton of data here, I thought there might be some big reveal that was the secret sauce to contending. Its more nuanced than that. I'm not posting all the data but if any questions let me know.

Great, Great work . Kudos to you for your time, research and information. Much appreciated. Always giving us the good stuff!

 

[Real fan 02]

I hope the front office sees this post and takes this seriously. Impressive work. Got to wonder if our front office and scouts were really working the last few years and the fact that we have higher success in later rounds than other is more due to probability or prevalence of more picks as opposed to real success .

If not for incompetence of ron Rivera we might have lost gonzo too . Thank God, else we might have drafted forbes.

I don't know how we can trade down and get a good player at 6 . We need Hunter/ Carter/Graham / Campbell .

If only Graham and Campbell were available at 4, I am leaning more towards Campbell. Even if he turns out to a guard he will at least be a pro bowler. Whereas if he turns out to be above average LT, we don't need to wait for trades or draft picks next year.

I agree. What I like that Vrabel said last week was that his Coordinators input will be heavily considered. Josh and Williams are veteran coaches that have seen a lot of ball. I believe Campbell is the exact type of Matt light type of tackle this team needs.

 

[Vindicate]

Do you plan on looking at previous drafts and then amending the idea of "success", should some of those picks that didn't perform immediately, end up developing into solid players? (An example would be Edelman)?

Otherwise great stuff. Thanks for providing!

 

[KCSVEN]

Thanks KCSVEN, appreciate your thoughts and your work.

I'd like to start with the 2015 Melvin Gordon / Arik Armstead trade. I believe the trade was pick #15 for pick #17, #117, and a 2016 5th round pick with SD getting #15 & SF getting the three other picks. I think we are in agreement that SF got the better of this trade, ie trading down was better. I like that you used PFF grades which is how I'm looking at it also.
Some question/thoughts - how do you incoroporate the following:

Armstead's position, defensive end is more valuable than Gordon's position running back (although it might not have been in 2015).
The money component, Armstead cost less salary cap money than Gordon did.
Pick #117 was Blake Bell who had a 9 year NFL career albeit somewhat modest.
2016 pick #143 was Ronald Blair DL, 5 year career, played his four year contract with SF, ie never cut/dropped

So this was a win for SF. However, I don't think it's enough to say 1 point for the trade down column. How big a win was this. Should we scale on 1-100? If 50=fair trade, should we call this a 75?

Opportunities for improvement on my understanding of how you are looking at these trades: (just my thoughts)

Grading the size of the win or loss of trading down
Incorporating salary or % of salary cap used in the evaluation of who won
Recognizing that non-starters may add surplus value
Incorporating postional value

For me, this one trade was a decisive win for trading down. Do you agree?

I also share your point of view "My theory is just take the best player available and don't draft for need"
Regarding "Most obvious thing is no real benefit comes from accumulation more picks later in the draft" - I don't believe in trading down to accumulate more picks for that sake. However, I generally believe in trading down if someone is overpaying for my higher pick using the more current draft pick value analytical models.

What are your thoughts on the other trade down in the 2015 Draft:
Denver gets pick #23
Detroit gets pick #28, #143, 2016 5th, and OG/C Manny Ramirez (not the baseball player)

I think the rabbit hole you are going down is one I avoided. I did not want to have the time to analyze every trade in such detail and opens too many variables. RB less important than DE? Would you like Saquon Barkley or Chris Jones? Or in the 2015 case Barkley vs Josh Sweat?
The main focus was to get a general analytical approach using the same type of analytics and not adjusting for all these variables.

The idea was to see if there was some strong obvious trend toward trading down. I probably did not have to do that exercise as the other data shows how big a bust rate there is after the first round. Other analyses has already shown the higher you pick the better the odds of hitting.

Ramirez was the intended starting guard for Lions, I avoided trades with players coming back as my focus was solely limited to trading draft picks in the same draft which is the likely scenario the Patriots are in. I focused on that due to the Patriots position in this draft.

How teams build a starting offense and defense was the bulk of my research and time on this. This was a quicker exercise to see if it confirmed what the other data already suggested. If I saw a strong bias I would have then gone into more detail but was comfortable with what I did have.

I can say I'm not sure the overall conclusions were worth the time I spent LOL.

I expected a data point or 2 to just scream, that's 100% important! Like having more first round picks would be big! (Wasn't)
In the end the answers on how to build a team are very nuanced, there are better way to do things but as Vikings and Commanders proved there is more than 1 way to build a contender.

I wish the data had more WOW outcomes but basically the better you draft, especially in rounds 1-3 the more likely you are to build a winner. You can, though odds are against you, be a bad drafter and still contend thru free agency and trades. Rounds 4-7 are complete crap shoot and very low odds of success. Draft consensus is pretty good on player ratings. That's pretty much it.

 

[Brotherblues]

I think this highlights one thing many have said about last year's Polk trade. The Chargers moved up in the 2nd (valuable), whilst the Pats got a move up in day 3 (worthless). I know hindsight makes it even worse, but this felt terrible the moment it happened.

 

[SlowGettingUp]

A trade down in the same draft fails 3 out of 4 times.

Just to be clear here, assuming you get two picks for the trade down, are you comparing the chance of the original pick succeeding vs. the chance of either of the two picks succeeding?

 

[silentone]

I think the rabbit hole you are going down is one I avoided. I did not want to have the time to analyze every trade in such detail and opens too many variables. RB less important than DE? Would you like Saquon Barkley or Chris Jones? Or in the 2015 case Barkley vs Josh Sweat?
The main focus was to get a general analytical approach using the same type of analytics and not adjusting for all these variables.

The idea was to see if there was some strong obvious trend toward trading down. I probably did not have to do that exercise as the other data shows how big a bust rate there is after the first round. Other analyses has already shown the higher you pick the better the odds of hitting.

Ramirez was the intended starting guard for Lions, I avoided trades with players coming back as my focus was solely limited to trading draft picks in the same draft which is the likely scenario the Patriots are in. I focused on that due to the Patriots position in this draft.

How teams build a starting offense and defense was the bulk of my research and time on this. This was a quicker exercise to see if it confirmed what the other data already suggested. If I saw a strong bias I would have then gone into more detail but was comfortable with what I did have.

I can say I'm not sure the overall conclusions were worth the time I spent LOL.

I expected a data point or 2 to just scream, that's 100% important! Like having more first round picks would be big! (Wasn't)
In the end the answers on how to build a team are very nuanced, there are better way to do things but as Vikings and Commanders proved there is more than 1 way to build a contender.

I wish the data had more WOW outcomes but basically the better you draft, especially in rounds 1-3 the more likely you are to build a winner. You can, though odds are against you, be a bad drafter and still contend thru free agency and trades. Rounds 4-7 are complete crap shoot and very low odds of success. Draft consensus is pretty good on player ratings. That's pretty much it.

KCSVEN - thanks for your thoughts. I'm probably not going down that rabbit hole either.

Sometimes comments come across as snarky or mean spirited or getting personal. I don't mean any of the following comments in that way. I appreciate you and your work.

I think in general your comment below is simply wrong.

"Eliminating trades with future 1’s and 2’s included (mostly QB’s), trading up was the better strategy 72% of the time in hindsight. Trading down is likely to be a bad move 3 out of 4 times."

I'm not sure how you can say this if you haven't done a deep dive into the details of each trade.
If someone has some deep analytics to support what you've posted, I'd welcome it.

I think a lot of time and effort has gone into the draft pick value models such the Fitzgerald-Spielberger model over at overthecap.com. I also believe most first round trades over the years involve a team overpaying for trading up or at worst a fair trade based on these models. What you write implies all these models are wrong.

I think over the years, the market (NFL GMs) has better utilized the models and trades might be fairer today.
Although there continue to be recent drastic over pays like the Vikings last year
This link at overthecap provides a nice analysis.

Valuing the 1st Round Trades in the 2024 NFL Draft | Over the Cap

Valuing the 1st Round Trades in the 2024 NFL Draft | Over the Cap

overthecap.com

While we may not agree on this, I believe if another team offers the Pats meaningful surplus value for trading down in the first round, in general, they should do it. The models strongly support this.

Just my two cents

 

[KCSVEN]

Just to be clear here, assuming you get two picks for the trade down, are you comparing the chance of the original pick succeeding vs. the chance of either of the two picks succeeding?

No the combined picks so the value of both players picked vs 1. Of course, only 1 in 3 second round picks succeed and even worse for 3rd and later so in many cases the second pick was a bust. This was probably a big factor.
Your adding a bust and dropping to where a lesser player would be on average.

Of course, Chris Jones was taken in the 2nd round after a trade down so its not a be all end all by any means.
KC traded 28 and 249 for 37,105 and 178. SF took Guard Garnett who was a bust and KC took Jones at 37 who is future hall of famer.

Every other pick ended up a bust. Chiefs could have taken Jones at 28, never made the trade and would have had the same outcome. The other picks were meaningless. So this is a win for trading down but in reality the trade down didn't help the Chiefs at all unless they liked someone more than Jones between 28 and 37. A trade down win like this is kind of a questionable win.

 

[KCSVEN]

I think in general your comment below is simply wrong.

"Eliminating trades with future 1’s and 2’s included (mostly QB’s), trading up was the better strategy 72% of the time in hindsight. Trading down is likely to be a bad move 3 out of 4 times."

Well, I think everything is in the context of the way the analytics were done and that should be assumed with comments like I made.

I think what I did was a good place to start and it follows the logic from the other data which is why I decided to take a look at it. Logically it makes sense that this would be true, and this add on work doesn't dispute the other data. What % certainty is there that this is true? Not 100, not 50, 75% probably if I was to guess.
If most picks after round 1 are busts and higher first round picks have a higher % chance of success(and these are actual facts) it logically fits that trading to a less likely success rate in the first round to pick up extra picks that probably bust would in the long run be a losing strategy.

Hopefully someone else somewhere does a deeper dive and helps clarify the argument one way or the other. This type of back and forth helps to that end and I actually appreciate it.