Replacements for X, Wilkins, Hunt, Berrios, Ogbah, Wilson in the draft

[Ray R]

Go along with 90+% of that. I would suppose if there were a way to objectively plot pick by pick, which I can't imagine there would be, it would be a non linear, progressive decay type of curve.

One could make a case that it's actually "worse" than it appears.

Bad teams get the top picks so it should, in theory, be easier to supplant another, likely inferior, player, while the converse would be true for teams picking at the bottom of round one.

My thoughts exactly, but I felt once the curve was established, then a look at the Standard Deviation at each drafting selection point would offer some interesting insights.

Couple that by identifying the personal making the selection decisions could tell us a lot about their teams' future performance in the draft and make a good tool for evaluating when "trading up" in the draft is more or less likely to be successful. - Know your enemy, so to speak. - LOL

The affect of inversion of the most successful teams to the least successful teams in the drafting sequence is a good point to bring up, as those teams' success, or lack thereof, will probably be reflected in their drafting success rates.

It should also be noted that this would lead to following a drafted players NFL success with the team that first drafted them and their performance with the next team they played with.

As a case in point, players who were high draft picks whose 2nd team was the Patriots. Wes Welker would be a good example of what I would expect to see.

 

[Ray R]

If finding average starters is the goal, then yes, the data points to that being true.

On the other hand, if you are looking for a "high impact" player where most measurables are in the top percentiles, the " creme de la creme" if you will, that's a different story.

Tough call as to what the Phins are better off doing here. It's fairly clear to me, though, that trading rd1 picks for 3rd and 4ths is not the wise thing to do.

I guess if you can move back a couple spots and pick up mid rounders in the process, that's fine as long as you have multiple guys rated similarly and you are confident that at least one will still be there.

But trading a rd1 for a 2+ lower rd picks is a fools game, at least historically.

I agree.

If you follow the "first things first" approach to drafting, you will want to start your preference list with those players who are anticipated to be "average starters" at your particular positions of need. Next, you will need to add other players who are anticipated to be even better and meet your teams' current critical needs.

The last thing you do is look for exceptional players, possibly a BPA, and determine if they would help the team more than just a good starter at a currently weak position for the team. If there are any that meet those criteria, add them to your list. Don't be too surprised if there aren't any.

That approach should yield a highly effective list to use when selection time comes. Of course, you will need to update that list before each of your assigned draft selection positions come up due to a change of player being available or not.

 

[DOLFANMIKE]

I wouldn't mind seeing Justin Simmons take the safety job opposite Holland. Talk about great players!