How to use your draft picks: Draft theory | Page 2 | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

How to use your draft picks: Draft theory

Excellent post.

Eliminate units on your team you don’t need a rookie.

Hi light your need positions

Pick bpa at one of those need positions because they are more valuable to your team than other teams.

Don’t believe in where rookies are slotted to go by the media.

If you love a player on, off and inside, and have a high conviction that he is gonna be good, overdraft him relative to where the pundits rate them screw them .
 
Feverdream said:
I believe that a lot of fans have unrealistic expectations about the draft, and how (and why) GMs use their draft picks... stay with me, and I'll try to convince you.

Let's start with a few premises.
1) A good % of first and second round picks bust. They always have; they always will. Even the Hall of Fame GMs miss on at least half of their picks.
2) Many great players needed a year or two (or three) to hit their stride. There are a lot of Hall of Fame players who barely played as rookies. Heck, some of them stunk.
So...
3) Expecting that our picks will play immediately... and be successful... is well, like believing in magic or a flat Earth. This has nothing to do with Grier... it's just the reality of the NFL.

That brings me to the following observations:
1) Fans who say, we lost this star player, so that means we have to draft his same position to keep pace with what we had... well, that's poorly thought out, as well as wildly optimistic.
2) Positional value is king in the NFL. Some positions are waaaaay cheaper than others. Go to a site like overthecap.com and look at their lists of the top-paid players at each position.
Scan down to the players listed 20-40. That is what an average FA player from that position will typically receive when they sign a 1-2 year contract. These are the band-aid players; players good enough to start for you when you are in need... guys who'll save you the aggravation of drafting a rookie. These guys, unlike rookies, are KNOWN commodities; they are what their playing position is actually worth.

So, on to what you should be considering with your draft picks.
1) Since we've identified what a position is worth; we are clearly trying to maximize value... right? If there are 20 Free Agent Safetys with starting experience... and they only cost 2-4m per year. Why would you draft one with an early pick? It's only gonna pay off if that player ends up as a Hall of Fame caliber player, and in the salary cap era, maybe not even then.
So...
2) The smart play is in drafting players from EXPENSIVE positions (again, go to the OTC site and see which ones qualify). Yes, need is part of the equation, but you have to draft players that you'll be willing to eventually pay. Drafting a player that you will just let walk away in 4 years is well... stupid (and why I led the resistance to drafting Najee Harris).
And finally...
3) You've got to consider WHEN your existing players are going to fall off your roster before you draft potential stars at expensive positions. Next year, we KNOW that Armstead is gone. Last year, we KNEW we'd be cutting Hoard this year.
So you get out ahead of your losses. We took Cam Smith in the 2nd, and while we are unsure of whether this will work, it was the right play. Replace the expensive player a year early... SCHEDULE X's departure.
Unexpected losses... you fill those with league average FAs. That's how we got Connor Williams... and Elliot.

Yes, I've gone through a lot of words to tell you WHY Tackle is first on our list of needs. It's a year early for a WR. We have Smith at CB and need to give him a year. Tua... we are resigning. Chubb and Phillips... might not be ready right away, but they are keepers.

The expensive position where we have a scheduled NEED is at LT. Yes, we need a Guard and a Center immediately... but go back to OTC and look at the price for average players.
...and yes, we have immediate needs at several positions, but again... go back to the basic premises... at least half of the rookies will NOT fill these needs. 80 years of NFL history will show this.

As always... your milage may differ.
Click to expand...
Totally agree and I've said I thought OT would be our first pick unless just no value there and then we'd almost have to in round 2. But wherever we get him ideally we find a guy that can sub in for Armstead when injured but also contribute at guard this year ala Tunsil/Wilson back when Wilson was on last legs and Tunsil a rookie.
 
Good Post! I see your point but LT is not as much a priority for a left handed QB plus we have Lamm (FA) and Kion Smith, who may be players. I am more a best center available guy unless there's a 'can't miss' TE there.
 
I don't think looking at salary is a good way to determine positional value. Teams might just be behind and paying more for a position than it's actually worth.
 
A couple things I disagree with....

given our history, it is a bad sign if a rookie doesn't get much playing time. all of our quality starters we have now played and started games significantly their rookie years. And the ones who dont play much if at all usually turn out to be busts. This isn't true for everyone but for the majority it appears to hold true. AVG did not play much as a rookie and he has turned out to a fine player for us. Same with Smythe. But the others who did not start many games for us as rookies such as Dion Jordan, Charles Harris, Leonte Carro, Noah Iggy, Hunter Long, Channing Tindall, and now Cam Smith who all had two or less starts as rookies turned out to be busts for us. So I'm not saying that Cam Smith is doomed but the odds aren't great now. conversely some quality starters we have drafted all had at least 5 or more starts as rookies and/or had a significant amount of snaps played such as Devon Achane and J. Phillips his rookie year. So it does matter if we see rookies on the field getting snaps, its not a death sentence if we dont but the odds are against them more.

I think we need as many draft picks as we can get. I would trade down from our spot in the 1st round to give ourselves as many dart throws as we can get because we need that. Unless someone falls unexpectedly to them they feel is too good to pass up (but if that's the case then that may determine is trading down is even an option).
 
Blake the great said:
A couple things I disagree with....

given our history, it is a bad sign if a rookie doesn't get much playing time. all of our quality starters we have now played and started games significantly their rookie years. And the ones who dont play much if at all usually turn out to be busts. This isn't true for everyone but for the majority it appears to hold true. AVG did not play much as a rookie and he has turned out to a fine player for us. Same with Smythe. But the others who did not start many games for us as rookies such as Dion Jordan, Charles Harris, Leonte Carro, Noah Iggy, Hunter Long, Channing Tindall, and now Cam Smith who all had two or less starts as rookies turned out to be busts for us. So I'm not saying that Cam Smith is doomed but the odds aren't great now. conversely some quality starters we have drafted all had at least 5 or more starts as rookies and/or had a significant amount of snaps played such as Devon Achane and J. Phillips his rookie year. So it does matter if we see rookies on the field getting snaps, its not a death sentence if we dont but the odds are against them more.

I think we need as many draft picks as we can get. I would trade down from our spot in the 1st round to give ourselves as many dart throws as we can get because we need that. Unless someone falls unexpectedly to them they feel is too good to pass up (but if that's the case then that may determine is trading down is even an option).
Click to expand...
I am a FIRM believer in trading down... almost every time.
The bust rate is so high in the NFL and it is almost always better to have more darts than big darts.
Some positions generally require early draft picks, like QBs, but for most positions, quantity IS quality.
 
Agree. Excellent post.

However, it's still about collecting talent. Have to avoid overdrafting for those premium positions as well. Iggy versus Jonathan Taylor as an example. Taylor was as close to a sure thing as you are going to find at running back. Iggy was a developmental player with a much higher miss rate.

Another related point is how valuable versatile players are in the salary cap era. A player like Barton, from Duke, who can play center, guard and tackle gives teams a lot of possibilities. And are valuable when injuries occur.
 
SF Dolphin Fan said:
Agree. Excellent post.

However, it's still about collecting talent. Have to avoid overdrafting for those premium positions as well. Iggy versus Jonathan Taylor as an example. Taylor was as close to a sure thing as you are going to find at running back. Iggy was a developmental player with a much higher miss rate.

Another related point is how valuable versatile players are in the salary cap era. A player like Barton, from Duke, who can play center, guard and tackle gives teams a lot of possibilities. And are valuable when injuries occur.
Click to expand...
Any idea where Barton is projected to go?
 
Feverdream said:
I am a FIRM believer in trading down... almost every time.
The bust rate is so high in the NFL and it is almost always better to have more darts than big darts.
Some positions generally require early draft picks, like QBs, but for most positions, quantity IS quality.
Click to expand...

Maybe you can take over drafting?

If Grier isn't pick Top-40 he's not bringing in talent that's very useful. I'm sorry, but the drop-off after his Top-40 picks is extreme. History shows we should expect near-bust level of production from Grier beginning as early as late-R2. It's sad but that's his history.

The idea that trading for more R3 and R4 picks doesn't mean much for us. I'm half-way to believing he gave up two R4 picks in that Tyreek trade partly because of that. He doesn't care about the mid-rounds and given his history, why should he? He has 1 hit and that's AVG who's a solid player, certainly not a star like some of the best teams have capitalized on.

The only exception is at RB where Grier can snag a reasonably-productive player in R3. Big whoop. To your point it's a cheap position in FA and they rarely sign second contracts anyway.
 
Danny said:
agree with a lot of what you have here as usual......now the reality.......grier continues to try to save his job and hence the bandaid moves so often by him. An OT might be the best player on the board at 21 but I highly doubt we'll draft one.......keep in mind with Tua, the RT is what the LT is to other teams and we extended Jackson.......center has become just as important as OT if not even more and with Williams hitting free agency we don’t have a real center....I normally don’t want to draft IOL with our top pick but in this draft it could be the way to go. Most people like JPJ including me but I also like Barton and he can play T/G and center.

Hard to tell what this team will do but almost nothing will shock me from this team.
Click to expand...
Another thing to consider. Is there a viable free agent DT that can replace Wilkins? Nothing too exciting from my standpoint, but maybe I'm missing something.

Teams still win in the trenches so I do think a DT is a high priority if Wilkins leaves.
 
SF Dolphin Fan said:
Agree. Excellent post.

However, it's still about collecting talent. Have to avoid overdrafting for those premium positions as well. Iggy versus Jonathan Taylor as an example. Taylor was as close to a sure thing as you are going to find at running back. Iggy was a developmental player with a much higher miss rate.

Another related point is how valuable versatile players are in the salary cap era. A player like Barton, from Duke, who can play center, guard and tackle gives teams a lot of possibilities. And are valuable when injuries occur.
Click to expand...

You can always make the rear view mirror argument for a player that succeeded over a player that busted... so in general, I'm not a fan of these arguments, because EVERY player that succeeded is better than a bust, so I don't think this really factors into the positional argument.

Looking at Taylor though, you are correct, he looked like he had a really high percentage of success (and as a 2nd round pick, it was early for a RB) and he went to a team that was run first... but let's take another look at his longterm value.

Like many (most?) RBs, he's had a injury and his performance has already tailed off. His yards per carry and TD numbers are less than elite.
Not to mention that Taylor was drafted after Helaire and Swift... neither who have done much. ...and right after Taylor, Akers and Dobbins (again... less than stellar).

So... it's a tough call, but even though some here LOVED Taylor, the NFL people were less sure.
 
Good OP

I think we need to spend first rounders (obviously can’t do this in one year) to replace the following players

TStead
Hill
Ramsey
Chubb
Seiler

Hoping Troy F drops to us at 21 so we can prepare for Armstead departure
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom