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The New NFL - Positional Value - NFL Draft Round 1 value

Has anyone considered picking 2 QBs in this draft? Im not for or against this but I read the thread on the main about what would it take to trade up for Burrow. While it wont happen, at least I dont think it will, I got me to think about this question. If given the option of giving up 3x 1st round picks for the perceived best QB in the draft or using your 1a and 1b for drafting the 2nd and 3rd best perceived QBs in the draft, which option would you chose?

Now Im not saying Im even proposing they do this, just interested in what you guys think...

Depends. Getting the QB day one and going for another day 3? Maybe. Too many holes for two high QBs. I doubt Flo will do it regardless what fans want
 
Depends. Getting the QB day one and going for another day 3? Maybe. Too many holes for two high QBs. I doubt Flo will do it regardless what fans want
I guess I should've underlined the real question Im interested in, as it is buried in the middle of a paragraph, my bad. This more of a theorical question than what the Fins might do,

If given the option of giving up 3x 1st round picks for the perceived best QB in the draft or using your 1a and 1b for drafting the 2nd and 3rd best perceived QBs in the draft, which option would you chose?

FWIW, I'd really like to have your opinion on that...
 
I guess I should've underlined the real question Im interested in, as it is buried in the middle of a paragraph, my bad. This more of a theorical question than what the Fins might do,

If given the option of giving up 3x 1st round picks for the perceived best QB in the draft or using your 1a and 1b for drafting the 2nd and 3rd best perceived QBs in the draft, which option would you chose?

FWIW, I'd really like to have your opinion on that...
In that case I take two qbs with 1b and 1c. I feel in this particular class there are several qbs that Flo can make successful. So I'll take my chances with two possibilities over one. Side note that's because burrow will go 1st and I'm not totally convinced with him.
 
I guess I should've underlined the real question Im interested in, as it is buried in the middle of a paragraph, my bad. This more of a theorical question than what the Fins might do,

If given the option of giving up 3x 1st round picks for the perceived best QB in the draft or using your 1a and 1b for drafting the 2nd and 3rd best perceived QBs in the draft, which option would you chose?

FWIW, I'd really like to have your opinion on that...

With a gun to my head, option one. No gun? Neither
 
Well.....I suppose it depends upon the draft and who you consider the next two best QB's. Pretty sure most of us would gladly take Dan Marino, Jim Kelly, and Darrell Green over only John Elway. Now if it was Blackledge and Eason that makes a difference.

For me, the deal breaker is having to use picks 1A and 1B on QB's (but that depends on how far apart the picks are). I could see someone like Fromm (picked later) being able to acknowledge that a Tua/Love/Herbert might one day take the reins, even though he starts out of the gate.

But yes, I see value in your proposal because bad things happen sometimes (says the guy who got run over by a drunk driver while he was mowing his yard). So always good to hedge your bet if it is affordable.
 
I quoted my post because I want to expand on what I said there. I just got done with what amounts to about a month of work on this, not full time of course, but still a ****load of hours so I was kind of excited to finally have the results in front of me.

This figures to be a long *** one, as I will explain the whole thing and how *I think* it relates to team building.

IMO the salary cap is the actual amount of talent you're allowed to have on your team. At least theorically. And the number of picks you get per year is your pipeline for adding talent. In order to quantifiy the value of a draft pick, we need to connect the 2. This was the main idea that drove me to start this research. What is the value of a draft pick?

Expected value is a well known term,



And so I took 30 years worth of draft picks, classified them into 4 categories: Elite, Good, Jag and bust. This part was a grind, I tried alot of different ways to get those right, at some point realized that no matter what metrics I'd use for different positions, the ratios would change very marginally.

Then it was all a metter of getting odds for every category and positions for each draft picks. We cant use the raw data by itself, we need to smooth out the curves a little bit. So I built a multinomial logistic regression for that part. This is how I got the % used for the EV formula.

Then I needed the outcome, which is player salary. Here we assume that money is directly associated with talent. Which can be flawed on a case by case analysis but seems to hold true when used on a whole population. All I needed was the average salary for 4 different groups[elite, good,jag,bust] and around 10 different positions.

Then its just filling up the EV formula. I substracted the rookie salary associated with each pick to result. The slope of the rookie salaries was simply to steep to ignore, had it been more linear, I might have just ignored it.

Now what I think it all means?

Those results pretty much confirmed what I originally thought...
  1. QB obviously
  2. T theorically I know it makes sense but I was somewhat surprised it actually came out 2nd
  3. WR again, Im surprised, but this just pretty much follows the theory that the passing game is king
  4. Bunch of positions really close to each other
  5. RB, TE and interior OL basically undraftable at the top of the draft. Does that really surprise anyone?
Now to elaborate on my previous post...

For a team starting from scratch, we could view the actual expected value of draft picks for that team to be the average of all of the positions available to them's expected value.

This average EV is shown as the red line on the chart
The average EV when a team already has QB sloved is the yellow line on the chart
The average EV when a team has both QB and T solved is the green line
View attachment 35374

Now nevermind that those positions are QB, T and WR in that order, the real takeaway here is that by nailing higher value positions, you are lowering the actual value of a draft pick to your team. While this might sound counter intuitive, this is actually a good thing. We've all heard the saying getting value from the draft, IMO the way to get value from your draft picks is to get players who have more value than the pick you used to get them.

Sure as a GM, you are looking at this problem and trying to fix your end of it, get better at picking good players... But fundamentally, I think trying to increase the value of the players you pick might just be thougher, and more out of your control, than just trying to nail high priority positions first, thus lowering the overall value of your draft picks, making it easier for you to actually get value.
The webapp to explore this concept is now online. All you need to do is input a pick using the top slider, and select the position groups of need on your team and you'll see the results charted at the bottom on 2 charts.

The left chart illustrates the Expected Value over average adjusted for team needs. In other words, the average value is the average EV of all positions of need for your team and the bars are how much value above or below avg for every position groups.

The right chart is basically the EV(regardless of team needs) plotted for a number of picks before and after the actual pick selected, it is useful for identifying the slopes for different positions and also when trying to spot where some positions by pass others... ie. Interior OL starts out 8th in EV abv avg but ends up bypassing every group but QB and Tackle by the end of the draft.

The single Position dropdown(Make sure you have a position selected as if it is empty, the bottom charts wont upgrade, Im working on that little problem atm) only controls the 4 sliders underneath it to show a quick glimpse of the odds of landing different tiers of players at that pick. You can move those sliders around but they dont do anything a this moment. I'll try to incorporate them if I have time later on.

I have no idea how it will behave if 2 of you show up there at the same time, just let me know if something isnt working correctly for you, I would appreciate it. I also have only 550 hours per month for this so if you read this later on at the end of a month and its not working, it might be because I've exhausted the allocated hours for that month.

Here's the link: https://draftev-app.herokuapp.com/

Any feed back is welcome and appreciated.
 
I think DB and pass rusher are always great positions to go BPA when the draft gets foggy.
 
Great post. One thing I would add is the influx of talented defensive tackles that have come into the league over the last five years or so. In a sense, that has made interior offensive linemen more valuable.

Also, the trend in the postseason was running the football. Teams are now designed more to slow down the passing game. How will that affect players value?
 
Great post. One thing I would add is the influx of talented defensive tackles that have come into the league over the last five years or so. In a sense, that has made interior offensive linemen more valuable.

Also, the trend in the postseason was running the football. Teams are now designed more to slow down the passing game. How will that affect players value?
I think the OL will gain significant value in the future as they are a significant part of passing the ball efficiently. Its also a vulnerable unit as the weakest link is usually not to diffucult to exploit. You could have 4 solid guys, if the 5th is Dallas Thomas, your OL is going to struggle.

The trend of the running game losing value has been going on for around 15 years, I wouldnt be surprised if some teams would over react and maybe try to replicate the 49ers or Titans and I'm starting to worry that the Fins might be one of those teams. It's certainly doable but you have to really hit on a perfect strom in order for it to work, it involves alot of moving parts.

Either way, I expect the interior OL to gain alot of value in the coming years and Edge seems to be losing ground. Imo
 
I think the OL will gain significant value in the future as they are a significant part of passing the ball efficiently. Its also a vulnerable unit as the weakest link is usually not to diffucult to exploit. You could have 4 solid guys, if the 5th is Dallas Thomas, your OL is going to struggle.

The trend of the running game losing value has been going on for around 15 years, I wouldnt be surprised if some teams would over react and maybe try to replicate the 49ers or Titans and I'm starting to worry that the Fins might be one of those teams. It's certainly doable but you have to really hit on a perfect strom in order for it to work, it involves alot of moving parts.

Either way, I expect the interior OL to gain alot of value in the coming years and Edge seems to be losing ground. Imo
Gailey seems to favor three and four wide receivers and running out of the spread. So I guess we'll see on the running game.
 
Gailey seems to favor three and four wide receivers and running out of the spread. So I guess we'll see on the running game.
I do like the fact he likes to run out of running formations, this is something that has come up in J-off's thread alot. Running from passing formations and passing from running formations seems to be very effective. What I dont like with Gailey is that his frequencies are all out of whack. For example the situations in which liked to run the most were:

2015:
  • 1st and 10
  • 2nd and 10+
  • 2nd and 7-9
  • Important to note here is that there's close to 70 running attempts in 2nd and 7+
2016:
  • 1st and 10
  • 2nd and 7-9
  • 50/50 between 2nd and 1-3 and 2nd and 10+
  • Its really not arguable that running on 2nd and 1-3 is much more valuable than running on 2nd and 10+, so that 50/50 ratio is quite baffling.
This is just a glimpes of my concerns as I dont want to go too far off topic here. I dont have a problem with Gailey as a coach, Im concerned with him calling the plays.
 
The NFL is all about the passing game. Running and stopping the run is important but it is very hard to win without a strong passing game.SF is doing it with exceptional defense and running but that is hard to count on year in year out. Passing at a high level covers over a lot of flaws and makes it much easier to score points.

Therefore the most important position is obviously QB.This is beyond dispute so we will move on.

On offense I believe O Line play is more important than the skill positions. Protect your QB and open holes and your less talented backs and WR's will thrive. The Pats have shown this for years.

I would not spend big $$$ or high draft picks on WR's or RB's. An exceptional TE is a different matter because they are very rare.

On defense the D Line is the most important unit without question. You must pressure the QB and stuff the run when called for. IF you can pressure the QB consistently then your secondary does not need to be as talented(and expensive)as it would without a quality pass rush.

LB's are becoming more and more marginalized by the need to play 5+ DB's most of the time so I would not invest significant resources there either. Good, solid play is what you need.

NFL rules have made it harder and harder to play defensive back so the dream of a "shutdown corner" is pretty much dead. But you still need talent in the secondary.This is the 3rd area i would be willing to spend cash and draft assets on.


1. QB..........Obviously
2. Offensive Line
3. D Line
4. Secondary


I would bargain shop at WR/RB/LB, those positions are luxuries in my view. Not to say i wold not want an exceptional talent at those spots but not at the cost of huge cap space, real money, or high draft picks.
 
The NFL is all about the passing game. Running and stopping the run is important but it is very hard to win without a strong passing game.SF is doing it with exceptional defense and running but that is hard to count on year in year out. Passing at a high level covers over a lot of flaws and makes it much easier to score points.

Therefore the most important position is obviously QB.This is beyond dispute so we will move on.

On offense I believe O Line play is more important than the skill positions. Protect your QB and open holes and your less talented backs and WR's will thrive. The Pats have shown this for years.

I would not spend big $$$ or high draft picks on WR's or RB's. An exceptional TE is a different matter because they are very rare.

On defense the D Line is the most important unit without question. You must pressure the QB and stuff the run when called for. IF you can pressure the QB consistently then your secondary does not need to be as talented(and expensive)as it would without a quality pass rush.

LB's are becoming more and more marginalized by the need to play 5+ DB's most of the time so I would not invest significant resources there either. Good, solid play is what you need.

NFL rules have made it harder and harder to play defensive back so the dream of a "shutdown corner" is pretty much dead. But you still need talent in the secondary.This is the 3rd area i would be willing to spend cash and draft assets on.


1. QB..........Obviously
2. Offensive Line
3. D Line
4. Secondary


I would bargain shop at WR/RB/LB, those positions are luxuries in my view. Not to say i wold not want an exceptional talent at those spots but not at the cost of huge cap space, real money, or high draft picks.
Great post! I think WRs have become valuable enough to separate them from the RBs in any analysis... They would come right at 3rd in your rankings. I would also rank Secondary over Dline but I think its really close and this might come down to scheme and team needs.
 
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