General draft strategy

[fansinceGWilson]

OF ALL THE gambles NFL teams will take on players during this year's draft, perhaps the riskiest move will be betting on their own flawed judgment. Organizations invest millions of dollars in scouting and player analysis, applying everything from extensive physical testing to pseudo-scientific written examinations in an attempt to weed out true talents from the chaff. You can understand why: Given that rookie salaries are capped by the CBA, the potential return on investment is enormous. The difference between what Russell Wilson made during his first three seasons in the NFL and what it would have cost to acquire a similarly talented quarterback in free agency runs over $50 million. There's one big problem: All the empirical evidence we can find suggests that nobody in the league is actually any good at picking players. The best plan? In the scratch-off lottery that is the draft, the smartest strategy is simply to have more tickets. Several studies, notably recent analyses by Chase Stuart of FootballPerspective.com and Neil Paine of FiveThirtyEight, suggest that no NFL team exhibits any sort of year-to-year consistency in acing the draft. By all accounts, despite all the energy and money teams pour into picking players, the draft is mostly a crapshoot. Even if you want to make the argument that those teams were overstuffed with talent and couldn't support more picks, consider how the truly great personnel executives have made mistakes. Baltimore GM Ozzie Newsome sent first- and second-round picks to the Patriots to trade up for Kyle Boller. Bill Belichick has traded up to grab the likes of Bethel Johnson and Ron Brace. Teams run by people who have forgotten more about football than you or I will ever know traded up to grab Blaine Gabbert and Trent Richardson. Their boards were remarkably, catastrophically wrong. entire article here . . . http://espn.go.com/nfl/draft2016/story/_/id/15159462/successful-drafting-all-volume-nfl