Another Theory on Patriot Draft Performance

mcsully said:

You're an idiot by the pure homer goggles u wear.. my 8 year old nephew knows that with more draft picks, you have more failures. Maybe you can come over and he'll show you how to do his math homework.. Seriously piss poor way of starting out a post.

& i know people don't want to hear this but the Pats are a middle of the road team when it comes to drafting.

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Awesome. Now define the teams that you consider to be "middle of the road" and we'll go over their draft history over the past decade - or since the current regime took over - and see how they stack up.

I'll give you a hint. It's not nearly as good as NE. Cause NE stacks up against the best of the best in the draft.

Seriously, we'll go through it year by year.

We have 2 members who won't be posting on this thread. There is no need to be calling each other idiots, or not that bright.

If that is the case is will shine through without the name calling, which only esculates. I've done a lot of shining in my time on the board. No one needs to tell me.

The proclamations of how 'below average' the Patriots are when it comes to drafting means absolutely nothing.

Zilch.

Not unless one of you people can actually show us some type of statistical backing for the claim.

A bunch of fables about how you would have drafted player A instead of player B mean nothing in this context.

We could do that for every team in the NFL.

livinginthe past said:

The proclamations of how 'below average' the Patriots are when it comes to drafting means absolutely nothing.

Zilch.

Not unless one of you people can actually show us some type of statistical backing for the claim.

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Stats are easy to do. You could do it yourself as a rebuttal.

livinginthe past said:

A bunch of fables about how you would have drafted player A instead of player B mean nothing in this context.

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That's nonsensical. OF COURSE examples of better picks impacts the analysis of draft performance. I'm stunned that you'd claim otherwise.

livinginthe past said:

We could do that for every team in the NFL.

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Indeed, we could. It's part of what message boards throughout the league do.

Deus Irae said:

Stats are easy to do. You could do it yourself as a rebuttal.

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Its funny you should say that.

Cold, Hard Football Facts.com: Insider

Deus Irae said:

That's nonsensical. OF COURSE examples of better picks impacts the analysis of draft performance. I'm stunned that you'd claim otherwise.

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Not unless you do it equally for each and every team.

Criticism of one team without any type of context is worthless.

The example of the baseball player who hits only 4 out of 10 balls is a good one - because it doesn't sound great 0 - until you compare it with his peers.

You cannot criticize if you can't quantify a standard.

Deus Irae said:

Indeed, we could. It's part of what message boards throughout the league do.

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Yep. And just like most teams in the NFL we have been cursed by atrocious offensive co-ordinating.

I wonder why that is?

Maybe because no-one is looking at their Offensive co-ordinating through the prism of context.

Really, I think people need to seriously go back and review the Draft History of the consensus "elite" draft teams, like Balt, Pit, Indy, and possibly SD (and yeah, they were the toast of the town from 2004-2007). I cannot think of another "elite" drafting team with a GM in place for 5+ years (sorry ATL). Anything short of that is too small to guage.

Cause right now, the expectations are just nothing short of unrealistic. Then again, our drafts in 2010 and possibly 2001 and 2003 also fit that description: unrealistic. People who expect that every year are out to lunch

Go see the links below. I see bad years for all. Even in good years which netted a 1st rd Pro Bowler, I often see 2nd and 3rd rd busts. I'd also argue NE has done a better job of getting quality players in latter rounds by a large margin. Mind you, not in leiu of 1st rd ers, but often to bolster those 1st rd ers (cause we've had quite a few of those picks work out too).

But really, even our bad years netted Pro Bowlers like Ghostkowski and, yes, Merriweather. Hell, even Maroney ran for 800 yards @ 4.2. That's considerable, IMO, as far as "bad" years go. Cause every team has bad years. And they are way, way, way worse than NE's 06 and 07.

Balt Draft History

Pit Draft History

Indy Draft History

SD Draft History

livinginthe past said:

Its funny you should say that.

Cold, Hard Football Facts.com: Insider

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That's what I'm talking about. Stats are easy to do. I've also generally been a defender of the Patriots drafts, but I have to say that the CHFF isn't going to be the end all and be all, because it makes different assumptions, and keys on different issues, than the skeptics will.

livinginthe past said:

Not unless you do it equally for each and every team.

Criticism of one team without any type of context is worthless.

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Not true at all in regards to the draft, because the criticism is singular without being in total isolation. I don't need to know how well other teams are doing when I'm seeing my team miss easy calls. Conversely, I don't need to know how well others are doing when I'm seeing my team nailing it.

Knowing about other teams will help me rank the drafts, and it might give me an explanation for my team's success/failure, but it's not necessary for the discussion of how my team did.

livinginthe past said:

You cannot criticize if you can't quantify a standard.

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Of course you can. A standard is only important in a generalized structure. The entire league can have a 10% success rate, and you can have a 50% success rate, but if you miss on drafting Peyton Manning when you needed a QB and went with Ryan Leaf, you screwed the pooch.

livinginthe past said:

Yep. And just like most teams in the NFL we have been cursed by atrocious offensive co-ordinating.

I wonder why that is?

Maybe because no-one is looking at their Offensive co-ordinating through the prism of context.

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No, it's because people look to blame those they have no connection to, and most people don't get close to the coordinators. Unless they are the Buddy Ryans of the world, they're all but unknown. Also, everyone thinks they can call a game. But this is off topic. You seem to have misunderstood the point I was making with the last part of my post, so I'll end this here in order to avoid us getting derailed.

I really find it hilarious that we try to find reasons for why BB is only winning alot and no longer winning it all. We act like it is easy to just perenially put out a playoff contender and that there must be some huge problem that we need to identify before we will be SB contenders again.

He had a few poor drafts and all of the sudden that becomes the easy thing to point out. But the truth is despite poor drafting in 06,07,08 we were able to have a 16-0 regular season, 11-5 without Brady, 14-2 regular season, We've had byes, we have reached the AFC championship game twice. You dont just accidentally do this.

There is nothing specific wrong in New England we just have missed out on a few opporunities. I think in 06 we were missing a few pieces as the talent depletion from 3 out of 4 caught up to us. I think in 07 no one can say anything went wrong except we blew a great opportunity to a good team with a superior game plan. 08 again nothing went wrong per say we just lost the best NFL player in a couple decades in quarter one. 09 and even a little in 08 age was catching up to us and the youth we pulled in 09 was too young. 10 09 class was still a little young and 10 were obviously young and alot of the guys were playing big roles.

So in the end I dont think anything specific was the problem as I dont think their really was a problem. We aged a little and fixed it to quick so in turn we were a little immature. I dont see either as being a huge problem as the teams competed I think in they end they were the reason we couldnt get over the top.

I think there is a big difference between not being able to get over the top and having problems that keep you from getting there.

What stands out to me with the last few weeks was how quick we went from being over the hill a few seasons ago to almost to young last year and now with the 09 and 10 class being more mature BB also brought in a bunch of Vets and all the sudden we are near the bottom of the league in age again. What it signals to me is that we may have that mix again of experienced players still close enough or in their primes where they should be able to make that difference when the playoffs come around and the smallest of disparity can be that difference.

I think drafting is just hard, 50/50 at best. When your team is good there is less room on the roster and good players get cut.

Go back and look at any team over a five year period, you will see a whole lot of names that never amounted to anything.

So, you can admit the NE has had the best drafts in the NFL over the past decade....but that you are still dissapointed?

signbabybrady said:

I really find it hilarious that we try to find reasons for why BB is only winning alot and no longer winning it all. We act like it is easy to just perenially put out a playoff contender and that there must be some huge problem that we need to identify before we will be SB contenders again.

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There's nothing hilarious about it at all, IMO. I'm sure Belichick does precisely the same thing.

If you flip a true coin over and over again, the ratio of heads to tails will approach 1. But heads and tails are not equally distributed in the results. You will find long runs of heads and you will find long runs of tails to a degree that is quite surprising.

You can probably find tables of a 1000 coin flips on the web if you are interested. The results are completely counterintuitive.

Some years will have a stronger draft class than other years. But leaving that out, for a GM with a particular level of skill, I have no reason to believe that successful drafts and unsuccessful drafts are anything other than random chance.

Drafting is always a matter of probabilities. Even if a GM were completely accurate in assigning probabilities to possible draft picks (as accurate as the probabilities are for a true coin), you would still get large variations in the successes of the drafts.

This is what happens when you gamble at a casino in a game where the probabilities are well known. Sometimes you win a lot; sometimes you lose a lot. What you don't do is always have consistent results. This is simply in the nature of probabilities.

I realize that this observation does not give you much to talk about. I'm just pointing out that you may be looking for explanations where there is just the randomness that you always find when dealing with probabilities.

Deus Irae said:

That's what I'm talking about. Stats are easy to do. I've also generally been a defender of the Patriots drafts, but I have to say that the CHFF isn't going to be the end all and be all, because it makes different assumptions, and keys on different issues, than the skeptics will.

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Skeptics?

The skeptics have no quantifiable, challengeable assumptions.

Just a bunch of one eyed nonsense.

Deus Irae said:

Not true at all in regards to the draft, because the criticism is singular without being in total isolation. I don't need to know how well other teams are doing when I'm seeing my team miss easy calls. Conversely, I don't need to know how well others are doing when I'm seeing my team nailing it.

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Yes you do, because you can't quantify what an 'easy call' is unless you know, well, how easy it is.

What you are telling me is that you don't need context to criticise, which is an extremely illogical and foolish stance to take.

How would you feel if you were criticised by your boss at work for not performing well, when he can't actually tell you what the standard for 'good performance' actually is.

As I say, foolish and illogical.

Deus Irae said:

Knowing about other teams will help me rank the drafts, and it might give me an explanation for my team's success/failure, but it's not necessary for the discussion of how my team did.

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Yes it is.

By all means, 'discuss' away.

Just know that is is completely without merit.

Deus Irae said:

Of course you can. A standard is only important in a generalized structure. The entire league can have a 10% success rate, and you can have a 50% success rate, but if you miss on drafting Peyton Manning when you needed a QB and went with Ryan Leaf, you screwed the pooch.

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Cool story.

Impossible to quantify.

I can see why you picked it.

Deus Irae said:

No, it's because people look to blame those they have no connection to, and most people don't get close to the coordinators. Unless they are the Buddy Ryans of the world, they're all but unknown. Also, everyone thinks they can call a game. But this is off topic. You seem to have misunderstood the point I was making with the last part of my post, so I'll end this here in order to avoid us getting derailed.

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Game, set, match.

Yes Deus, everyone does think they can call a great game.

Just like how everyone thinks they can call a great draft.

Your unquantified criticism is as worthless as all those Armchair OC's at home crying about 'another damn screen play'.

I'm sure it's been said in this and other "Patriots draft" threads, but one thing to consider is the average draft position of the Patriots vs. other teams. I mean, it's pretty obvious (yet bears repeating) that not all first round picks are alike. They're all first rounders, so if one measurement is to simply say, "Look how many first rounders are still on the team", that's hardly a fair metric.

Consider two teams: Buffalo vs. New England. Last 8 years, first round picks only.

2011
Buf - #3 - DE Marcell Dareus - on the roster
NE - #17 - OL Nate Solder - on the roster

2010
Buf - #10 - RB CJ Spiller - on the roster
NE - #27 - CB Devin McCourty - on the roster (pro bowl)

2009
Buf - #11 - OL Aaron Maybin - cut, out of the league
NE - no pick

2008
Buf - #11 - RB Leodis McKelvin - on the roster
NE - #10 - LB Jerod Mayo - on the roster (pro bowl)

2007
Buf - #12 - RB Marshawn Lynch - not on the roster, still in the NFL (made 1 pro bowl)
NE - #24 - DB Brandon Meriweather - 2-time pro bowler with NE, no longer on the team, still in the NFL

2006
Buf - #8 - DB Donte Whitner - not on the roster, still in the NFL
NE - #21 - RB Laurence Maroney - cut, out of the league

2005
Buf - no pick
NE - #32 - OL Logan Mankins - on the roster (pro bowl / all-pro)

2004
Buf - #13 - WR Lee Evans - not on the roster, still in the NFL
NE - #21 - DL Vince Wilfork - on the roster (pro bowl)
NE - #32 - TE Benjamin Watson - not on the roster, still in the NFL

Ok, here are some interesting facts...

# of first round picks over these 8 years:
- Buf: 7
- NE: 8

Average 1st round draft position (not counting having no pick; both NE and Buf had a year with no 1st round pick):
- Buf: 9.7
- NE: 23.0

# of first round picks still in the NFL
- Buf: 6 of 7 (85.7%)
- NE: 7 of 8 (87.5%)

# of first round picks still on their original team
- Buf: 3 of 7 (42.9%)
- NE: 5 of 8 (62.5%)

# of first round picks to make a pro bowl or all-pro
- Buf: 1 of 7 (14.3%)
- NE: 4 of 8 (50.0%)

This is a truly tiny sample, but no way am I going to go through this with every team, every round, for every year BB has been coach. All this is meant to show is that the Patriots have had probably the worst drafting position in the league over BB's tenure, because the team is so successful. And yet, compared to a franchise that consistently gets to pick higher in the draft (and thus has access to better players), NE not only has more hits, but more home runs. It's one reason (out of many) that the Patriots continue to be the single most dominant franchise over the past 10 years.

Deus Irae said:

Of course you can. A standard is only important in a generalized structure. The entire league can have a 10% success rate, and you can have a 50% success rate, but if you miss on drafting Peyton Manning when you needed a QB and went with Ryan Leaf, you screwed the pooch.

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I find your example to be amazingly intriguing given this debate. Despite the Chargers missing on Leaf and the Colts getting Manning both teams went on to have a pretty damn good decade to follow. But only one of them was able to turn the succesful decade into a SB and that was the team that got said special player who makes up for all other failure.

I think this would obviously be much more valuable an example if your %10 and %50 were based of factual numbers but I suspect you just abitrally made up numbers because you were just giving an example and it wasnt based of fact but just an abitrary number to prove what you were trying to say.

In the end I dont really think this debate as whole means alot though as yes we clearly had a few bad drafts but we also clearly contended despite the poor drafts. Sure you could argue that had we hit on just one player where missed he could have been the difference but you could just as easily say had we traded the pick instead for a vet this could have been the difference and you could easily say had we just decided to shell out huge money for Big Al two years ago or or player X whenever it could have been the difference.

livinginthe past said:

Yes you do, because you can't quantify what an 'easy call' is unless you know, well, how easy it is.

What you are telling me is that you don't need context to criticise, which is an extremely illogical and foolish stance to take.

How would you feel if you were criticised by your boss at work for not performing well, when he can't actually tell you what the standard for 'good performance' actually is.

As I say, foolish and illogical.

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1.) The Context is the draft and the players. History, not what other teams do, eventually supplies the answers, as examples of late round greats show over and over.

2.) If I'm failing to get things done, it doesn't matter what percentage of my peers are also failing. The bottom line is that I'm not getting it done. What you're missing here is the question of reasonableness, not the issue of comparison. Comparison is only a potential part of the equation, as opposed to being some required component.

livinginthe past said:

Yes it is.

By all means, 'discuss' away.

Just know that is is completely without merit.

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No, it's not. Again, you fail to understand the issue. My team can suck or excel, independent of what other teams do. If 31 teams pass up on Peyton Manning in the draft, that doesn't make the 32nd team ok for doing it too. A combination of factors (need being a great one) enter into play, and you're ignoring them.

livinginthe past said:

Cool story.

Impossible to quantify.

I can see why you picked it.

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Quantification wasn't needed. If you need a QB and you choose Leaf over Manning, you screwed up your draft. That's about as basic as it gets. If you can't even admit to something that obvious, you really shouldn't be posting on this topic.

livinginthe past said:

Game, set, match.

Yes Deus, everyone does think they can call a great game.

Just like how everyone thinks they can call a great draft.

Your unquantified criticism is as worthless as all those Armchair OC's at home crying about 'another damn screen play'.

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Wait, so you completely misunderstanding my post, and then following that up with a botched analogy, is supposed to be "Game, set match."?

Good comedy.

The reality is that this is a message board. If you don't care to discuss the issues of the team, you should feel free to avoid threads that do discuss them. After all, your comments are every bit as worthless as other posters' comments.

Again, we can look back at a draft and determine success or failure with some arguable degree of accuracy. That doesn't require looking at other teams. It doesn't require an MBA, or a Harvard degree, or anything but access to the data.

Deus Irae said:

There's nothing hilarious about it at all, IMO. I'm sure Belichick does precisely the same thing.

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True but I also think BB is much prouder of the performance of his teams 05-present than this board seems to be.

I might be wrong but I dont think BB looks at those draft classes and says if I had got player X or player Y we would be all set now. regardless of how bad those classes were he had 80 players each year and took the 53 he felt gave him the best chance to win regardless of how they were accuired and I am sure he could come up with much better tangible reasons than just screaming about draft classes. He would probably point to player X, Y, and Z and say these were their diffencencies and they got exposed in games P and Q and that is why we blew it. I highly doubt he would ever sit there and say man if we just had player A,B and C we would have won because that is pointless.

signbabybrady said:

I find your example to be amazingly intriguing given this debate. Despite the Chargers missing on Leaf and the Colts getting Manning both teams went on to have a pretty damn good decade to follow. But only one of them was able to turn the succesful decade into a SB and that was the team that got said special player who makes up for all other failure.

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I'm not sure how that's intriguing, but history plays it out pretty well, actually. The Colts chose correctly with the Manning pick and went on to long term success. The Chargers got stuck with the leavings, a head case who couldn't get it done and led them to bad years. They then hit on Brees (and either hit on Rivers or got lucky when Manning didn't want to play for them, depending upon how the background really went down) and became a powerhouse.

signbabybrady said:

I think this would obviously be much more valuable an example if your %10 and %50 were based of factual numbers but I suspect you just abitrally made up numbers because you were just giving an example and it wasnt based of fact but just an abitrary number to prove what you were trying to say.

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Of course the numbers were used to make a point. That was the whole intent of the response. No matter how well the Colts hit in the rest of that draft, that draft's success or failure was going to rest on the choice of Manning v. Leaf.

signbabybrady said:

In the end I dont really think this debate as whole means alot though as yes we clearly had a few bad drafts but we also clearly contended despite the poor drafts. Sure you could argue that had we hit on just one player where missed he could have been the difference but you could just as easily say had we traded the pick instead for a vet this could have been the difference and you could easily say had we just decided to shell out huge money for Big Al two years ago or or player X whenever it could have been the difference.

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Almost no debate on Patsfans.com means a lot. It's not as if Belichick and company are waiting upon our discussions to determine the moves of the team. What's fascinating, though, is watching the homers consistently retreating into this non-defense defense when they know they've lost the discussion, yet they preen about the theoretical successes without blinking an eye to their hypocrisy.

Reality: If you can't debate the bad draft, you can't debate the good draft. It's all off limits, because it's all the same except the final grade.

So, since pretty much all the debates are meaningless in the end, should we shut down all of Patsfans.com, or just shut down any threads with disagreements and make the place a nice, safe echo chamber?

Just for reference...

I remember -- according to, I believe, Education of a Coach, possibly Patriot Reign -- that it is a rule within the Pats organization when evaluating drafts that they only grade according to who they selected, and not who they could've selected. Again, they DO NOT grade according to who they could have had, because it is wholly unclear as to what that player would've done in NE, as opposed to on the other team.

So, in trying to access the draft by pointing out that they could've had Clay Matthews is invalid by the Patriots internal standards.

Deus Irae said:

Again, we can look back at a draft and determine success or failure with some arguable degree of accuracy. That doesn't require looking at other teams. It doesn't require an MBA, or a Harvard degree, or anything but access to the data.

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I dont think you neccessarily need a side by side comparison but clearly when you look back at the Pats drafting say the last decade and try to quantify how good or bad it was you do so with a lifetime of watching and knowing how other Teams and GMs have done which gives you a point of reference. With the exception of those few drafts where you get a Peyton Manning type or chose a Leaf instead of the Peyton Manning type. And Even still with the Peyton Manning type draft you still use a lifetime of knowledge to gauge the success.

If we were to completely erase your memory of all past drafts and all past success of players there would be no way for you to know how good Peyton has truly been and wether or not said Peytons come around alot for the taking.