article: Pats and Bengals only teams to not draft a Pro Bowler the last 6 years

[BaconGrundleCandy]

I wouldn't have gone nuts with picking Jackson. He has a nice set of skills, and (using the JG example) would have been an excellent choice after 3 years of sitting behind Brady. But there is still a lot of 20-20 hindsight in that selection

Idk, there weren't many but a few of us were on record at the time?

 

[patfanken]

Idk, there weren't many but a few of us were on record at the time?

Well here's my general thoughts about drafting in the first round when you are generally drafting at the end of the round.

I think the best use of the pick in on DT's and OT's. Usually you get a players who will start for you for several years. You don't always get HOFer's but good starters. I'm less enthralled with skilled players like RB's and WR's. Again at the end of the round you are getting sloppy seconds at the position. Not to say you can't get good players there, its just a lot more hit or miss.

From what I understand, every year there are 8-12 athletes who are elite prospects athletically. Those who have the mental toughness, love of the game and the desire to be great, will become game changers. But from 13-to around 45 you get the next level of athlete....and so on.

The thing that so many of us forget is what you are in college is not necessarily what you will become over the first 5 years in the league. Guys like Edelman, were over night successes, 4 years in the making. Ninko came to us after failing twice to win jobs in NO and Miami. He recorded his first sack in his 4th year in the league and was a consistent 6-8 sack guy who provided good pressure despite a 4.9 forty. In other words he improved...a lot over his first few years.

Of course some guys improve while others don't. Lets see how that 2019 class impacts this team over the next few years. I suspect it will go down as one of our best since 2010

 

[Doctor DDS]

Would be nice to have Jackson now but am not sure the Pats win the Super Bowl in 2018 without Michel. He was a monster the entire post season.

 

[Kasmir]

First of all, I applaud the attempt to use a comparative analysis to try and prove BB a bad drafter. Obviously cherry picking the last 6 years shows that's the intent; as going back even one more year let alone 10 ruins the argument.

So the years in question are 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. It's kind of early to be judging the latest three drafts, which is why the PatsPulpit article says it didn't include them.

Looking at the three years that do overlap in the two studies, 2014, 2015, and 2016, I note that the Pats had a slightly above average year in 2014, and the 2nd best year in the league for both 2015 and 2016 (the Bengals had one slightly above average year, one slightly below average year, and one stinker). In fact, by the PatsPulpit analysis, 2016 was the best year the Pats had in the 20 years graded, and 2015 was the 3rd best. And 2016 is rated the 5th best draft by any team in the last 20 years!

So what accounts for the disparity; how could the Pats have very good drafts yet not produce any ProBowlers?

Well, one big difference is the PatPulpit analysis weights by draft position, i.e. the Pats are graded higher because their pickling position(s) have been consistently lower. The Pats had the 29th pick in 2014, the 32nd pick in 2015, and no first round picks in 2016 or 2017.

One hypothesis -- which is testable -- is that it's difficult to draft ProBowlers if you only have very low 1st round picks, and the Patriots run the last 6 years probably involved historically low opportunities to pick in the 1st round.

But to reiterate, the PatsPulpit weighted analysis in the years that overlap indicate the Pats drafted very well indeed in those years.

Nice try, though.

The Patriots are better at drafting than you may think - Pats Pulpit

 

[XLIX]

First of all, I applaud the attempt to use a comparative analysis to try and prove BB a bad drafter. Obviously cherry picking the last 6 years shows that's the intent; as going back even one more year let alone 10 ruins the argument.

So the years in question are 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. It's kind of early to be judging the latest three drafts, which is why the PatsPulpit article says it didn't include them.

Looking at the three years that do overlap in the two studies, 2014, 2015, and 2016, I note that the Pats had a slightly above average year in 2014, and the 2nd best year in the league for both 2015 and 2016 (the Bengals had one slightly above average year, one slightly below average year, and one stinker). In fact, by the PatsPulpit analysis, 2016 was the best year the Pats had in the 20 years graded, and 2015 was the 3rd best. And 2016 is rated the 5th best draft by any team in the last 20 years!

So what accounts for the disparity; how could the Pats have very good drafts yet not produce any ProBowlers?

Well, one big difference is the PatPulpit analysis weights by draft position, i.e. the Pats are graded higher because their pickling position(s) have been consistently lower. The Pats had the 29th pick in 2014, the 32nd pick in 2015, and no first round picks in 2016 or 2017.

One hypothesis -- which is testable -- is that it's difficult to draft ProBowlers if you only have very low 1st round picks, and the Patriots run the last 6 years probably involved historically low opportunities to pick in the 1st round.

But to reiterate, the PatsPulpit weighted analysis in the years that overlap indicate the Pats drafted very well indeed in those years.

Nice try, though.

The Patriots are better at drafting than you may think - Pats Pulpit

It's tough for me to take seriously any metric which looks at the Patriots 2000 draft and assigns a grade where they are just a shade over average. According to this guy, 2000 is their 8th best draft of that 17 year period, right in the middle.

So after I finished laughing, I had a pretty hard time taking anything else in there terribly seriously.

 

[Kasmir]

It's tough for me to take seriously any metric which looks at the Patriots 2000 draft and assigns a grade where they are just a shade over average. According to this guy, 2000 is their 8th best draft of that 17 year period, right in the middle.

So after I finished laughing, I had a pretty hard time taking anything else in there terribly seriously.

I'm not going to be able to defend their methodology because they don't fully describe it. I'm sure the issue is related to how Pro Football Reference's AV metric works -- in particular how they assign AV to QB's in general and Brady specifically -- and how PatsPulpit assigns AV, i.e. what AV do they assign to the Brady pick, i.e do they use lifetime average AV, initial contract AV or what.

But I'm sure your particular problem -- how can the year the GOAT was selected not be the best draft ever -- comes down to how ProFootballReference AV metric weights QB's vs other players. Brady has the highest AV of all time, and in 2007 set the record for single season AV at 24. But they assigned Randy Moss a 20 for that season. I suspect you think the Brady:Moss ratio should be much larger, i.e that QBs are much more valuable than PFR AV thinks they are.

PatPulpit should absolutely answer to eyeball tests like your own, and improve their analytics when necessary.

It's a hard problem. You can laugh all you want, but the PFR AV system and PatsPulpit's analytic efforts have the virtue of being comparative, systematic and objective. I haven't seen any fan screeds here that even attempt to be comparative.

 

[XLIX]

I'm not going to be able to defend their methodology because they don't fully describe it. I'm sure the issue is related to how Pro Football Reference's AV metric works -- in particular how they assign AV to QB's in general and Brady specifically -- and how PatsPulpit assigns AV, i.e. what AV do they assign to the Brady pick, i.e do they use lifetime average AV, initial contract AV or what.

But I'm sure your particular problem -- how can the year the GOAT was selected not be the best draft ever -- comes down to how ProFootballReference AV metric weights QB's vs other players. Brady has the highest AV of all time, and in 2007 set the record for single season AV at 24. But they assigned Randy Moss a 20 for that season. I suspect you think the Brady:Moss ratio should be much larger, i.e that QBs are much more valuable than PFR AV thinks they are.

PatPulpit should absolutely answer to eyeball tests like your own, and improve their analytics when necessary.

It's a hard problem. You can laugh all you want, but the PFR AV system and PatsPulpit's analytic efforts have the virtue of being comparative, systematic and objective. I haven't seen any fan screeds here that even attempt to be comparative.

It reminds me of ESPN's QBR.... a pretty vague way to assign a single number that no one really understands and if you look hard enough you can find ridiculous situations of a bad player having a better stat than a good one. So let's put it this way: If you take next year's Patriots QB - whomever he shall be - and gave me the following 2 options:

1) Makes the Pro Bowl as a legit starter (not a replacement) but has a mediocre PFR AV, or
2) Has a top-3 PFR AV for his position but does not make the pro bowl

I would take option 1 every single day of the week.

 

[jal]

We’ve had a relatively poor run starting in 2014 after an extraordinarily strong run of drafts from 09-13. That doesn’t mean Bill is a poor drafter, it means that the draft is largely a crapshoot. Coaching up those players after you draft them is the more controllable piece of it and we have some of the best in the biz, let’s see if that continues now after Scar retired and we’ve had some positional coaching turnover.

 

[DarrylS]

Cannot remember when I watched or cared about the Pro Bowl.. always viewed that as some sort of football like entertainment to fill space during the "down" week before the SB..

 

[Doctor DDS]

The Patriots are 19 years into the greatest run in league history. If you break down every draft since Brady was drafted in 2000 you will see the best ones typically include 2 impact players and maybe an additional role player or 2. I honesty do not see much difference between the last 5 years and any other 5 year stretch in this run. 2015 was a very good draft, 2016 produced Thuney, Brissett, Roberts and Karras. 2017 was clearly a dud. Pats have 2 starters already from 2018 and Bentley has a chance to prove himself this year. Not sure this stretch is much different than 2005 - 2008.

 

[neuronet]

Wonderlic tests don't measure how quickly you react or process in football, just like being good at Jeopardy or bar trivia doesn't make you a good accountant or whatever. It doesn't tell you anything other than how good you are taking Wonderlic tests.

This sounds like canned IQ test hate, which I'm fine with. Are there data based analyses showing no correlation between wonderlic and qb performance? Intuitively I would expect some correlation but happy to be shown wrong.

 

[primetime]

This sounds like canned IQ test hate, which I'm fine with. Are there data based analyses showing no correlation between wonderlic and qb performance? Intuitively I would expect some correlation but happy to be shown wrong.

Study in 2009 that I posted earlier found negative correlation for tight ends and defensive backs (just noise) and no correlation for any other position.

This blog post found a negative correlation with regards to quarterback play if you look only at 1st and 2nd rounders (i.e. QBs who are drafted with the expectation they'll start in the near-term.

The Wonderlic Does Not Matter In Predicting QB Performance in the NFL

As you say, a canned IQ test just doesn't measure anything of value with regard to playing football.

 

[neuronet]

Study in 2009 that I posted earlier found negative correlation for tight ends and defensive backs (just noise) and no correlation for any other position.

This blog post found a negative correlation with regards to quarterback play if you look only at 1st and 2nd rounders (i.e. QBs who are drafted with the expectation they'll start in the near-term.

The Wonderlic Does Not Matter In Predicting QB Performance in the NFL

As you say, a canned IQ test just doesn't measure anything of value with regard to playing football.

Thanks a lot I will peruse this later tonight as I want to give it some time.

Edit: not sure if there is a paywall or what but none of those graphs are appearing for me. Just a BigLead image shows without any data.

 

[ashley]

This coming from the person who repeatedly criticized Brady last year and said he was horrible and was done.

Please stop trolling. (I feel like I'm in midseason form)

Tim Brady covered up for alot of Bill's bad drafting... Let's see what happens this season... I'm thinking 7-9 at best

 

[DropKickFlutie]

Well here's my general thoughts about drafting in the first round when you are generally drafting at the end of the round.

I think the best use of the pick in on DT's and OT's. Usually you get a players who will start for you for several years. You don't always get HOFer's but good starters. I'm less enthralled with skilled players like RB's and WR's. Again at the end of the round you are getting sloppy seconds at the position. Not to say you can't get good players there, its just a lot more hit or miss.

From what I understand, every year there are 8-12 athletes who are elite prospects athletically. Those who have the mental toughness, love of the game and the desire to be great, will become game changers. But from 13-to around 45 you get the next level of athlete....and so on.

The thing that so many of us forget is what you are in college is not necessarily what you will become over the first 5 years in the league. Guys like Edelman, were over night successes, 4 years in the making. Ninko came to us after failing twice to win jobs in NO and Miami. He recorded his first sack in his 4th year in the league and was a consistent 6-8 sack guy who provided good pressure despite a 4.9 forty. In other words he improved...a lot over his first few years.

Of course some guys improve while others don't. Lets see how that 2019 class impacts this team over the next few years. I suspect it will go down as one of our best since 2010

One area I've pondered is how value grouping draft philosophy has this flaw. The players at the bottom of the same grouping are likely less quality, whereas taking one of the first from the grouping may increase likelihood of success. So taking the first DT or OLine guy or TE from his position, picking late in the first round, is better than taking the last couple WR/RB guys in the first round as part of the "same" positional value grouping.

.

 

[LightSkinSmurf]

It's hard to care about not drafting pro bowlers while you're winning SB's and going to AFC title games every year.