Warning: This is another one of my TLDR; post.
About this time last year I made a post about positional value in the draft. Things were pretty straightfoward as it pertained to the Fins; they basically needed everything so it was easy to draft for positional value, which they did with their 1st 2 picks. At the top of the draft, value wise, QB >>> LT >> WR, and what do you know, Fins drafted a QB followed by a LT.
Things are going to be murkier this season as they find themselves at the top again with both of the top value positions filled to an extent. The way the NFL is setup makes it very hard for teams to commit to a pure value strategy when it comes to the draft. The free agency being before the draft sets teams up to build a good part of their team through FA, and leave them trying to fill remaining holes through the uncertainty of the draft.
This is mostly to make sure vets are getting taken care of first... This only makes sense so dont expect it to change, but its not ideal for teams trying to build their teams the right way. In other words, NFL GMs would be much more likely to draft exclusively for value if they knew FAs was right around the corner to fill in the gaps.
All that being said, the Fins clear objective this off-season should be to go from bum to one on offense, as they did on D this season. Offense success mainly runs through the QB position, the WRs and the OL, followed by TEs and RBs. I will focus on the #3 pick in this post as its the most interesting one for many reasons, one of which is the Fins can actually pick anyone they want with that pick minest 2 players.
QB
There's no doubt if the Fins find themselves in position to draft a QB in the top 5, this would be the pure value option to make. And its not even close. But when it comes to the overall strategy of building a top 5 offense, it gets complicated.
If the Fins want to optimize the QB position, they need to upgrade the receiving options. To be realistic, they could very well need 2 top notch WRs and a decent slot. The draft isnt the only place to get those players, but the #3 pick gives you a 100% shot at one top notch option and could very well give you 2 of them if you split the value in a trade down.
There's also the fact that the pure value of picking the QB here doesnt translate to simply adding the value of Tua + the value of the drafted QB as only one of them gets to see the majority of the snaps on offense(hopefully). While you do split the risk, you dont necessarily increase upside. Simply put, the loser of the starting job only retains implied value, meaning there's no on fied value of increasing offensive production.
There's no FA move to be made on any QB except for backup(which is beyond the scope of this post) so Im not going to go there.
Tackle
The 2nd option is to bypass QB and draft the Tackle. The difference here is even if the Fins already have a tackle on team, adding the value of Jackson on top of the value of Sewell applies. Both can start on the offensive line and contribute to offensive success. Whether its the optimal way to go to go from bum to one on offense warrants a dicussion. The obvious yay here is that there's no value mistake being made, the obvious nay is that this might not be the optimal route to take in your strategy of building a top offense.
There's no FA move to be made here except for backups, not going there.
WR
This is the most interesting one of the bunch IMO, there are alot of ways to go about it and alot of them are very close calls. These kind of decisions(close value calls) always warrant the most discussion because very often, there's no completely wrong anwser and you get get 50% of people on one side, 50% on the other, going back and forth on it, no one is absolutely right and no one absolutely wrong.
The most straight foward way to go here would be to pick your prefered WR at #3, boom 1/3rd of your problem solved, off to #18. Problem here is you're making a value mistake. In a prefect world, you pick the WR between 7-10, or when the QBs and Tackles are gone. A trade down here would be ideal, to a spot where the WR is your absolute value move. You dont control the trade offers you get, but needless to say you listen.
Best case scenarion is you trade down, get an extra 2nd and pick your player. So the net mistake of picking the WR at #3 is a 2nd round pick(Or whatever you think would be the fair value of trading down)
Or you could try and fill the position in FA. The problem with FA is the higher the value of the position, the bigger the % of your cap is attributed to an overpayment. For example, over paying for a good RB in FA might me a 2-3M/per affair, when overpaying for a WR in FA could be as much as a 6-8M overpayment. These things add up quick, its basically why you want to draft high value positions, instead of overpaying, you're underpaying.
One thing the Fins need to figure out is: Is picking a WR #3, should that be our only option, a bigger loss of value than overpaying for one in FA? Another way to put this, Does it make sense to overpay for a WR in FA so we can avoid making a mistake picking one a #3 if overpaying for one is the bigger mistake? And the problem here is that this decision needs to be made before free agency, before they know what the offers will look like. Its a though spot to be in.
This can be avoided over time by drafting for positional value on a consistent basis... After a while, you're always stocked with young talent at high value positions which makes FA moves easy, you fill in the gaps with the added value from the draft. But every time you start drafting for need, you sacrifice value. Its always a balancing act between what do we want to look like this season and how do we want to run things on a consistant basis. The more you deviate, the more your results vary, and there's no telling if they'll vary towards good or bad.
So what do you do with #3?
