Reese comparison...

[gmenroc]

So here's what I did. I went through the drafts for all 32 teams for the past 5 years. You want to go back further, feel free. I scored them as follows. I took the drafted player's games played and multiplied that by the round number they were drafted in to get a score for that player. That means that a 7th rounder drafted in 2011 that only recorded 1 game played in his career...earned 7 points. A first rounder who only recorded 7 games played...earned the same 7 points. This, because I feel a GM should get more credit for finding the diamonds in the rough as they say. So, the highest scoring players are the 7th rounders who have logged the most games played. The lowest scoring players are those 1st rounders who only ever played in 1 game (or those players that never recorded any games played).

 

So then, I added the scores for each team's last 5 drafts. Scores ranged from 1862 (New Orleans Saints) to 4883 (Philadelphia Eagles), with the Giants coming in at #26 with 2743 points.

 

But then, I figured I'd take those point totals and multiply by the team's overall win percentage over those 5 years (2010 through today, 12/3/2014). That, to link the draft scores to the team's performance. So, if a team performed extroardinarily well, but didn't draft so well, they would earn a higher percentage of their draft score.

 

So at that point, I have adjusted scores. Below are both the total score rankings and the adjusted score ranking.

 

Total Scores

 

4883 Philadelphia Eagles

4417 Miami Dolphins

4345 Seattle Seahawks

4322 Houston Texans

4294 Green Bay Packers

4244 Oakland Raiders

4132 San Francisco 49ers

3935 New England Patriots

3892 St. Louis Rams

3883 Minnesota Vikings

3758 Buffalo Bills

3719 Tennessee Titans

3718 Arizona Cardinals

3675 Pittsburgh Steelers

3564 Baltimore Ravens

3542 Cleveland Browns

3507 Carolina Panthers

3447 Denver Broncos

3425 Washington Redskins

3388 Tampa Bay Buccaneers

3385 Atlanta Falcons

3014 Kansas City Chiefs

2969 San Diego Chargers

2958 Dallas Cowboys

2809 Cincinatti Bengals

2743 New York Giants

2711 Indianapolis Colts

2661 Jacksonville Jaguars

2605 NY Jets

2448 Chicago Bears

2442 Detroit Lions

1862 New Orleans Saints

 

Adjusted Scores

 

3113.15 Green Bay Packers

3104.72 New England Patriots

2689.93 San Francisco 49ers

2631.94 Philadelphia Eagles

2628.73 Seattle Seahawks

2298.78 Baltimore Ravens

2271.15 Pittsburgh Steelers

2130.25 Denver Broncos

2048.63 Houston Texans

2036.24 Miami Dolphins

2003.92 Atlanta Falcons

1810.67 Arizona Cardinals

1600.29 San Diego Chargers

1570.23 Cincinatti Bengals

1506.60 Minnesota Vikings

1499.18 Indianapolis Colts

1479.00 Dallas Cowboys

1469.01 Tennessee Titans

1467.82 Kansas City Chiefs

1459.50 St. Louis Rams

1435.56 Buffalo Bills

1406.31 Carolina Panthers

1396.28 Oakland Raiders

1371.50 New York Giants

1353.74 Chicago Bears

1215.88 Washington Redskins

1202.74 Tampa Bay Buccaneers

1200.91 NY Jets

1165.32 Cleveland Browns

1150.72 New Orleans Saints

1125.76 Detroit Lions

734.44 Jacksonville Jaguars

[gmenroc]

This is simply the backup to the overall consensus that we need to move on from Reese.

[Bigblue25]

great stuff

[gmenroc]

I have it broken down by draft year and round as well. So I can tell you, according to how I scored it, that the highest scoring draft in any of the 5 years I looked at was Philadelphia in 2010 where they scored 2070 points....by player below.

 

1st - Brandon Graham - 60 GP (60 pts)

2nd - Nate Allen - 70 GP (140 pts)

3rd - Daniel Te'o-Nesheim - 39 GP (117 pts)

4th - Trevard Lindley - 11 GP (44 pts)

4th - Keenan Clayton - 36 GP (144 pts)

4th - Mike Kafka - 4 GP (16 pts)

4th - Clay Harbor - 64 GP (256 pts)

5th - Ricky Sapp - 17 GP (85 pts)

5th - Riley Cooper - 68 GP (340 pts)

6th - Charles Scott - 0 GP (0 pts)

7th - Jamar Chaney - 53 GP (371 pts)

7th - Jeff Owens - 1 GP (7 pts)

7th - Kurt Coleman - 70 GP (490 pts)

[gmenroc]

I can also tell you the New Orleans Saints hate the 6th and 7th rounds of the draft...given they've yielded exactly 7 total points from those 2 rounds combined.

 

2014 - 6th - Tavon Rooks - 0 games played

2013 - 6th - Rufus Johnson - 0 games played

2012 - 6th - Andrew Tiller - 0 games played

2012 - 7th - Marcel Jones - 0 games played

2011 - 7th - Greg Romeus - 0 games played

2011 - 7th - Nate Bussey - 1 game played

2010 - 7th - Sean Canfield - 0 games played

[Sephiroth]

I posted this in the "Reece's Pieces" thread but I'll re-post here too. Interesting how injured the Giants are each year.

 

 

Just to muddy things up a bit... the Giants led the league with starter games lost to injury last year.

 

Also, 2013 saw them at the bottom, and they beat the next closest team by over 30 points.

 

That next closest team both years? The Indianapolis Colts. Who seem to be pretty good. How fucking great would that team be if they weren't so injured every year?

 

So yeah. Let the injures vs. coaching vs. bad drafting debate rage on!

[gmenroc]

I thought about posting this in that thread, but given the length and the time it took, I figured a new thread was in order.

 

Regarding injuries - good drafting would provide depth to cover for that.

 

When I multiplied the draft score by the win percentage to get the adjusted scores...that's where I took coaching into account.

[fishgutmartyr]

I appreciate what you're trying to do here, and how much time it took to do.

[CrazedDogs]

That is a tremendous amount of research, good work!

 

However, the Dallas News study on injuries that Seph links to, by way of NFL.com, somewhat mitigates these results. Your draft picks will not see the field if they are not healthy, and aside from the player drafted with an existing injury, that isn't on the GM.

 

For a point of reference on the impact of injuries, in 2006 the Giants were likewise dubiously positioned at the top of the league in starter games lost to injury, and made the playoffs despite this. The next two seasons they were closer to the league average, and were arguably the best team in the NFL over that two season span. Injuries, or the lack thereof, are the single biggest factor in NFL success. We're a notoriously negative bunch, but an unbiased, statistically inclined person could have predicted the 2007 Giants would be quite good merely by the law of averages.

 

Its not Reese's fault that Wilson busted up his neck, that Steve Smith had spectacularly destructive knee injuries, or that Chad Jones' career ended in a single car accident. Avoiding injury, I believe, is very much a player skill, but there will always be an element of luck there, and I highly doubt many teams have suffered more fluky injuries over the last several seasons than the Giants.

 

Also, by your methodology, you're actually PENALIZING Reese for finding good undrafted players, like Cruz, who happen to keep drafted players off the field.

[gmenroc]

I had to draw the line somewhere, so admittedly, I didn't go into the undrafted free agents...but I excluded them from all teams...not just the Giants.

 

I agree, that injuries are an x factor that can't necessarily be predicted in many cases. I agree further, that that's not necessarily on the GM. I could argue though, that it's the GM's responsibility to maintain the depth on the team. And, that in my scenario, that a GM who provides his team with depth as opposed to superstars, could score better. Consider a team that drafts a 1st round OT and a 5th round OT in the same year. Assuming the first round OT earns the starting spot and gets injured in the team's 8th game. The GM could earn more points from the backup in the 2nd half of the season than they would in the 1st half of the season. So, the injury would actually help the GM...

 

That said, I won't argue that the way I did this doesn't have flaws.

• It IS only 5 years.
• Some teams have changed GMs in that period of time...so in some cases, it's comparing TEAMS as opposed to GMs...a point I made in a thread here last week.
• Injuries are a wild card...but the only real way I could come up with to account for that is to penalize all teams for the injuries they sustained because in the case of a Chad Jones, there is no way of knowing if he would have registered 'games played' or not.

[JMFP]

Great post. Between the low-impact drafts, and the injured players, it's no wonder Coughlin's job is now once again in jeopardy.

[Nas]

Great post. Between the low-impact drafts, and the injured players, it's no wonder Coughlin's job is now once again in jeopardy.

 

Coughlin is part of the problem...

[NightFire]

Wow way to research. A good addon would be performance. Maybe adding those profocus ratings to player scores to get a better picture of success. I do think scoring more for later rounds is a great idea. With so many injuries depth is critical. Next man up doesn't work if there is no competent next man.

[gmenroc]

Wow way to research. A good addon would be performance. Maybe adding those profocus ratings to player scores to get a better picture of success. I do think scoring more for later rounds is a great idea. With so many injuries depth is critical. Next man up doesn't work if there is no competent next man.

 

Thanks, I was wondering about a way to distinguish between the 7th rounder who plays 3-5 special teams plays a game and a 1st round offensive or defensive starter...but the site I was using for the stats part of this only distinguished between games started and games played. As far as I know, that 7th rounder who only plays 3-5 downs per game, was still looked upon as a starter.

 

Where are these profocus ratings that you speak of?

[fishgutmartyr]

 

I had to draw the line somewhere, so admittedly, I didn't go into the undrafted free agents...but I excluded them from all teams...not just the Giants.

 

I agree, that injuries are an x factor that can't necessarily be predicted in many cases. I agree further, that that's not necessarily on the GM. I could argue though, that it's the GM's responsibility to maintain the depth on the team. And, that in my scenario, that a GM who provides his team with depth as opposed to superstars, could score better. Consider a team that drafts a 1st round OT and a 5th round OT in the same year. Assuming the first round OT earns the starting spot and gets injured in the team's 8th game. The GM could earn more points from the backup in the 2nd half of the season than they would in the 1st half of the season. So, the injury would actually help the GM...

 

That said, I won't argue that the way I did this doesn't have flaws.

• It IS only 5 years.
• Some teams have changed GMs in that period of time...so in some cases, it's comparing TEAMS as opposed to GMs...a point I made in a thread here last week.
• Injuries are a wild card...but the only real way I could come up with to account for that is to penalize all teams for the injuries they sustained because in the case of a Chad Jones, there is no way of knowing if he would have registered 'games played' or not.

 

 

I think you've taken this as far as someone can without earning a paycheck for the trouble.

 

Without going into even more ridiculous amounts of detail, this sort of thing is still going to be flawed. I could argue stuff like Chad Jones, but I'll go the other way--James Brewer:

• 4th rounder;
• played in 26 games (8 starts);
• gets a win percentage multiplier that includes a 10-6 season and a Superbowl, when he's only played games for teams comfortably below .500

Anyone care to argue that Brewer deserves to be that many points in the Giant's total, value-wise?

 

Meanwhile, guys like Cruz and Hynoski aren't factored in at all.

 

A great pick on a shitty team is going to be worth less than a terrible pick on a great team, playing the same amount of games. Of course, you'd expect a great pick to play more on a bad team, but I could think of circumstances that would block that (better, more expensive FA, coach with concussion history, etc.).

 

Like I said, I applaud you on the work you've done. That's a damn impressive task to take on for ungrateful bastids like me.

[gmenroc]

 

I think you've taken this as far as someone can without earning a paycheck for the trouble.

 

Without going into even more ridiculous amounts of detail, this sort of thing is still going to be flawed. I could argue stuff like Chad Jones, but I'll go the other way--James Brewer:

• 4th rounder;
• played in 26 games (8 starts);
• gets a win percentage multiplier that includes a 10-6 season and a Superbowl, when he's only played games for teams comfortably below .500

Anyone care to argue that Brewer deserves to be that many points in the Giant's total, value-wise?

 

Meanwhile, guys like Cruz and Hynoski aren't factored in at all.

 

A great pick on a shitty team is going to be worth less than a terrible pick on a great team, playing the same amount of games. Of course, you'd expect a great pick to play more on a bad team, but I could think of circumstances that would block that (better, more expensive FA, coach with concussion history, etc.).

 

Like I said, I applaud you on the work you've done. That's a damn impressive task to take on for ungrateful bastids like me.

 

I appreciate the comments. Again, it's not a perfect tool (unlike bastids like you).

 

I'll say again in regards to Cruz...while this analysis doesn't factor him in, it wouldn't factor in any UDFA signings for other teams either (Arian Foster, Wes Welker, Adam Vinatieri, Priest Holmes, Rod Smith, Jeff Saturday, Kurt Warner, Antonio Gates...assuming this analysis was expanded to include the years these guys came into the league).

 

In regards to Brewer, there is a stat on the site I've used called Weighted Career Average Value. I'm looking into incorporating it.

 

This is the stat site I've used: http://www.pro-football-reference.com/

[mastershake]

So here's what I did. I went through the drafts for all 32 teams for the past 5 years. You want to go back further, feel free. I scored them as follows. I took the drafted player's games played and multiplied that by the round number they were drafted in to get a score for that player. That means that a 7th rounder drafted in 2011 that only recorded 1 game played in his career...earned 7 points. A first rounder who only recorded 7 games played...earned the same 7 points. This, because I feel a GM should get more credit for finding the diamonds in the rough as they say. So, the highest scoring players are the 7th rounders who have logged the most games played. The lowest scoring players are those 1st rounders who only ever played in 1 game (or those players that never recorded any games played).

 

So then, I added the scores for each team's last 5 drafts. Scores ranged from 1862 (New Orleans Saints) to 4883 (Philadelphia Eagles), with the Giants coming in at #26 with 2743 points.

 

But then, I figured I'd take those point totals and multiply by the team's overall win percentage over those 5 years (2010 through today, 12/3/2014). That, to link the draft scores to the team's performance. So, if a team performed extroardinarily well, but didn't draft so well, they would earn a higher percentage of their draft score.

 

So at that point, I have adjusted scores. Below are both the total score rankings and the adjusted score ranking.

 

Total Scores

 

4883 Philadelphia Eagles

4417 Miami Dolphins

4345 Seattle Seahawks

4322 Houston Texans

4294 Green Bay Packers

4244 Oakland Raiders

4132 San Francisco 49ers

3935 New England Patriots

3892 St. Louis Rams

3883 Minnesota Vikings

3758 Buffalo Bills

3719 Tennessee Titans

3718 Arizona Cardinals

3675 Pittsburgh Steelers

3564 Baltimore Ravens

3542 Cleveland Browns

3507 Carolina Panthers

3447 Denver Broncos

3425 Washington Redskins

3388 Tampa Bay Buccaneers

3385 Atlanta Falcons

3014 Kansas City Chiefs

2969 San Diego Chargers

2958 Dallas Cowboys

2809 Cincinatti Bengals

2743 New York Giants

2711 Indianapolis Colts

2661 Jacksonville Jaguars

2605 NY Jets

2448 Chicago Bears

2442 Detroit Lions

1862 New Orleans Saints

 

Adjusted Scores

 

3113.15 Green Bay Packers

3104.72 New England Patriots

2689.93 San Francisco 49ers

2631.94 Philadelphia Eagles

2628.73 Seattle Seahawks

2298.78 Baltimore Ravens

2271.15 Pittsburgh Steelers

2130.25 Denver Broncos

2048.63 Houston Texans

2036.24 Miami Dolphins

2003.92 Atlanta Falcons

1810.67 Arizona Cardinals

1600.29 San Diego Chargers

1570.23 Cincinatti Bengals

1506.60 Minnesota Vikings

1499.18 Indianapolis Colts

1479.00 Dallas Cowboys

1469.01 Tennessee Titans

1467.82 Kansas City Chiefs

1459.50 St. Louis Rams

1435.56 Buffalo Bills

1406.31 Carolina Panthers

1396.28 Oakland Raiders

1371.50 New York Giants

1353.74 Chicago Bears

1215.88 Washington Redskins

1202.74 Tampa Bay Buccaneers

1200.91 NY Jets

1165.32 Cleveland Browns

1150.72 New Orleans Saints

1125.76 Detroit Lions

734.44 Jacksonville Jaguars

 

Interesting and not a bad Model. I would be interested to see Games Started factor into the equation as well, not just Games Played. Also, since many rookies won't necessarily develop until 2-3 years down the road, I'd be interested to see some time of "lagged effect."

 

Overall, I like it though and think it's a good indicator of results.

 

On a related note, how can I get a job at the Jags front office? Seems they have a deep, deep need.

[gmenroc]

 

Interesting and not a bad Model. I would be interested to see Games Started factor into the equation as well, not just Games Played. Also, since many rookies won't necessarily develop until 2-3 years down the road, I'd be interested to see some time of "lagged effect."

 

Overall, I like it though and think it's a good indicator of results.

 

On a related note, how can I get a job at the Jags front office? Seems they have a deep, deep need.

 

Thanks. Note the Giants aren't too far off the Jags. Also, the lagged effect...I'd view that as the negative it gets incorporated as. You're wasting years of a player's career. Reward for immediate impact.

 

Anyway, I've got some approximate values in my spreadsheet now. I need to weight games played vs. approximate value. I'm thinking 25% games played and 75% approximate value....or should I go 20/80?

[mastershake]

 

Thanks. Note the Giants aren't too far off the Jags. Also, the lagged effect...I'd view that as the negative it gets incorporated as. You're wasting years of a player's career. Reward for immediate impact.

 

Anyway, I've got some approximate values in my spreadsheet now. I need to weight games played vs. approximate value. I'm thinking 25% games played and 75% approximate value....or should I go 20/80?

 

On lagged effect, I guess the question is; How does one quantify impact, and not just immediate but overall? What I mean is, a guy could take longer to develop or start, but may be better in the long run than someone who is more NFL ready. For example (only anecdotal I know) Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady.

[gmenroc]

 

On lagged effect, I guess the question is; How does one quantify impact, and not just immediate but overall? What I mean is, a guy could take longer to develop or start, but may be better in the long run than someone who is more NFL ready. For example (only anecdotal I know) Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady.

 

I would imagine that that would only work out over time. I'm not going any further back than the 5 years I've already gone...except maybe after the 2015 draft, I'll update the spreadsheet I'm working off of.

[Treehugger]

I appreciate what you're trying to do here, and how much time it took to do.

 

I do to. However, I'd suggest an unweighted analysis as well, just 1 point per game played regardless of draft position. That would give you the total games for all players drafted in the last 5 years, and be a less biased way to examine which teams are drafting usable talent and which are wasting their picks.

 

I agree that starts would be a better number to tally than games played too, to discount those who only play special teams.

[fishgutmartyr]

I just thought of something--we're not getting that many games out of our draft choices, that's been established all over the place.

 

On the other hand, I'm having a real problem thinking of any huge influx of FAs (other than this year, obviously) that we've been relying on between 2010 and 2013. Canty (gone), Boley (gone), Antrelle Rolle, Dan Conner(one game wonder), Baas (gone), Patterson/Jenkins, Beason, Jon Conner(we signed because we had to), Dallas Reynolds (we signed because we had to), Rivers(gone), and Bennet (for one year). Locklear(gone). Oh, and a couple of former picks that were ancient and/or broken down: Ross and Andre Brown, both gone.

 

I'm not counting guys who never made it out of preseason like Curry.

 

So not only have our drafts been unproductive (we all agree on that phrase--we argue about why it they were unproductive), we haven't been trying to upgrade/compensate for free agency losses/retirement through free agency, either. It's like we took an older 2010 team and said "Let it ride," for 3 years, hoping that things will magically not go to shit as players age or go elsewhere.

 

I'm not going to list the players we lost--it's too depressing.

[NightFire]

 

Thanks, I was wondering about a way to distinguish between the 7th rounder who plays 3-5 special teams plays a game and a 1st round offensive or defensive starter...but the site I was using for the stats part of this only distinguished between games started and games played. As far as I know, that 7th rounder who only plays 3-5 downs per game, was still looked upon as a starter.

 

Where are these profocus ratings that you speak of?

 

Pro Football Focus I think it's called. I don't use it but I have seen Herc post the grades before. They grade players by position and I think they have a lot of stats. As Fish pointed out though getting all the nuanced variables is something you'd want to do for a paycheck because of work involved. I would say impact on team is the greatest measure of draft success. Hard to quantify that exactly is though.

 

[gmenroc]

Okay, try this one on. Took each player drafted. Scored them as follows: Score = (DR x GP x 25%) + (CarAV x 75%)

 

DR = draft round

GP = games played

CarAV = Career Approximate Value

 

First two are self explanatory. Third one is a far-too-detailed-to-explain-here statistic developed by www.pro-football-reference.com. The direct link to what they refer to as approximate value is here: http://www.sports-reference.com/blog/approximate-value-methodology/. Then, for career approximate value, they take 100% of the player's best AV, 95% of the players 2nd best AV, 90% of 3rd best AV...etc. Look it up, it's a pretty overwhelming task getting those numbers...not just for current players, but for ALL past players. So, I just borrowed their calculations for CarAV and used it for my own purpose.

 

Added up the scores for each team. Again, multiplied by the win percentage to get adjusted scores.

 

Normal Scores

 

1390.25 Philadelphia Eagles

1320.25 Seattle Seahawks

1258.75 Miami Dolphins

1233.50 Houston Texans

1211.50 Green Bay Packers

1201.75 San Francisco 49ers

1185.50 New England Patriots

1183.25 Oakland Raiders

1126.75 St. Louis Rams

1090.00 Minnesota Vikings

1077.00 Pittsburgh Steelers

1076.00 Tennessee Titans

1074.25 Arizona Cardinals

1070.75 Buffalo Bills

1061.25 Denver Broncos

1058.00 Cleveland Browns

1016.25 Carolina Panthers

1008.75 Baltimore Ravens

998.50 Tampa Bay Buccaneers

992.75 Washington Redskins

970.00 Atlanta Falcons

893.75 Kansas City Chiefs

884.50 Cincinnati Bengals

875.25 Dallas Cowboys

870.50 San Diego Chargers

794.75 Indianapolis Colts

774.25 New York Giants

753.25 NY Jets

752.25 Jacksonville Jaguars

728.25 Detroit Lions

714.00 Chicago Bears

574.25 New Orleans Saints

 

Adjusted Scores

 

935.36 New England Patriots

878.34 Green Bay Packers

798.75 Seattle Seahawks

782.34 San Francisco 49ers

749.34 Philadelphia Eagles

665.59 Pittsburgh Steelers

655.85 Denver Broncos

650.64 Baltimore Ravens

584.68 Houston Texans

580.28 Miami Dolphins

574.24 Atlanta Falcons

523.16 Arizona Cardinals

494.44 Cincinnati Bengals

469.20 San Diego Chargers

439.50 Indianapolis Colts

437.63 Dallas Cowboys

435.26 Kansas City Chiefs

425.02 Tennessee Titans

422.92 Minnesota Vikings

422.53 St. Louis Rams

409.03 Buffalo Bills

407.52 Carolina Panthers

394.84 Chicago Bears

389.29 Oakland Raiders

387.13 New York Giants

354.89 New Orleans Saints

354.47 Tampa Bay Buccaneers

352.43 Washington Redskins

348.08 Cleveland Browns

347.25 NY Jets

335.72 Detroit Lions

207.62 Jacksonville Jaguars

[gmenroc]

I took this yet another step forward.

 

I took the 2010 (NON-ADJUSTED) draft class point totals for each team, and divided by 4.75 (number of seasons to date)...to get an annual contribution by that draft class. For example, the Patriots scored 571.25 for their 2010 draft class. I divided that by 4.75 to see what that draft class has done, on average, since they've been drafted. That came to 120.26.

 

I did this for each of the 32 teams' 2010 draft classes.

 

I did the same for the 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 draft classes as well...dividing by 3.75, 2.75, 1.75, and 0.75. This gave me 160 numbers (32 teams x 5 draft classes each). There were only 21 draft classes that scored higher than 100.00.

 

2010 New England Patriots

2013 Green Bay Packers

2011 Seattle Seahawks

2012 Seattle Seahawks

2010 San Francisco 49ers

2011 San Francisco 49ers

2010 Philadelphia Eagles

2011 Philadelphia Eagles

2010 Pittsburgh Steelers

2014 Houston Texans

2013 Miami Dolphins

2012 Cincinnati Bengals

2012 Minnesota Vikings

2010 St. Louis Rams

2012 St. Louis Rams

2011 Buffalo Bills

2010 Carolina Panthers

2013 Oakland Raiders

2011 Washington Redskins

2012 Cleveland Browns

2013 Jacksonville Jaguars

 

For comparison purposes, the Giants best contributing draft class in these 5 years was 2011, which scored 74.13