The NFL Draft. A Closer Look
by Just Dave on Feb 17, 2012 9:09 AM CST
Email
Print
Think you know what it takes to be an NFL scout? Neither do I. But I've been following the NFL for quite a while now. There were times when I thought I had all the answers and times where I knew I didn't have a clue. Usually the truth was somewhere in the nether regions. We all have an opinion on what position the Bears should draft in 2012. Several of you have the names you'd like to see on our roster. Some of those moves will be right, but more will be wrong. (How many wanted Mendenhall over Forte?) And that goes for every team in the NFL. Join me for a look at why I feel the draft is (almost) a complete crapshoot and always has been.
Editor note: Welcome back to the front page kid...
I know this is oversimplifying things but lets look at some recent drafts. How many "draft rejects" make it big time every year? Look at Tony Romo. UDFA. Yet the numbers he puts up year in and out have consistently placed him in the top half (if not the top third) of all NFL quarterbacks. Wasn't that what we were all hoping Caleb Hanie would have been? Take Tom Brady. 102 teams passed on him before he was finally taken (over a close second choice, Tom Rattay) as a supplementary pick in the 6th round of the draft. Yes, I know there aren't 102 teams in the NFL but 102 team's NFL scouts had a shot at drafting him before the Pats. He was passed up that many times. Kurt Freaking Warner was a GROCERY CLERK in my own state of Iowa before the Arena League took a chance on him and then a chance with the Packers before becoming a Super Bowl MVP and all that good stuff. Look at Arian Foster. Undrafted. Want to know how many times he was passed on by NFL teams scouting staffs? 256 chances to draft one of the leagues arguably best running back. And that's with guys like Knowshawn Moreno and Donald Brown (going in the 1st) Glen Coffe (3rd) and Mike Goodson and Andre Brown (both 4th rounders) being drafted well before him. But out of that same draft, LeSean McCoy was drafted in the second.
Which brings me to the second part. For every "miss" in the draft there are a TON of "sure fire" hits that fizzled out. Look no further than the Bears to see that. For every Arian Foster you'll find plenty of Curtis Enis ('s?) For each Manning, a Ryan Leaf. Leaf was actually considered by many "experts" to be the best pick in the draft that year. For each Johnny Knox we have a David Terrell. For every Matt Forte we have a Felix Jones. Every sure thing usually isn't exactly that. Closer analysis than mine would possibly reveal a pattern in the draft. Possibly teams with a highly intelligent GM and a motivated scouting staff have developed a formula for getting this right. But I bet even they "swing and miss" and I bet ever the "worst" staff ever assembled (see, Wandestadt, Dave) got lucky one in a while. (See Kreutz, Olin)
So what's the point? There may be no point. And I guess that's the food for thought. The "best" GM's just might be the ones that can get more "hits" than "misses". But even that seems to be an undefined science. So here's to hoping that our new GM has as much karma as intelligence, as much guts as wisdom, and ultimately more "luck" than anyone else.
This FanPost was written by a Windy City Gridiron member, and does not necessarily reflect the ideas or opinions of its staff or community.
43 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
I think scouting is getting really good
Computer data analysis might be the cause, I don’t know. In basketball, there used to be so many botched early picks and in recent years those occurrences are rare outside of a few terrible GMs. The top 10-15 picks on the 2011 NFL draft were ridiculously well scouted. And look at the receiver position… remember the days of Carlos Rogers, Peter Warrick, Troy Williamson, David Terrell… where the rule of thumb in fantasy was “never overpay for a rookie WR”? That’s completely turned around recently. The hit rate on 1st round WRs the past three years is around 100%.
another option should be management
It all starts with all HO parts working together with common goals. When I hear that there is a lockdown on media in Halas Hall, that means that A doesn’t trust B not to say something stupid. What it also means is that A is also holding back from B because he believes that B is the type of person who might say something stupid. B then does stupid things because A didn’t give him all the information required in order to avoid doing stupid things.
Hanie is classic example of this breakdown. Martz didn’t trust to learn the playbook, demoted him, and then put him in only when there was no choice. Hanie being developed properly could turn into a Kurt Warner, but the HO brought Martz in the middle. Now he didn’t know the playbook so he failed. JA also kept his players and coaches guessing till the last second – and then was barely man enough to take responsibility for the messed up draft trade with the Ravens. Tice on the other hand put his trust in the lineman that he was developing and stuck with them the whole way through (louis at RT, Webb at LT) and got promoted. In two years, one of them be a prowbowler, but only if he’s allowed to reach his full potential.
The HO has to give GM a budget to work with and a goal – let’s say Superbowl Champions in 3 years, then get out of the picture. Emery then has to decide how much to invest in each position, and stick with it. Also required is who has upside and who is over the hill. Then you cut them. Omiyale should have been gone last year. His roster spot just to mollify JAs feelings stinted the ability to develop a better lineman for the future.
To sum, only if HO gives the GM the trust, ability and leeway to work properly, can a team be successful in drafting properly and then developing those draft prospects to be winners.
Looking to see more of Levi Horn
by BearDownIsrael on Feb 17, 2012 2:09 AM CST via mobile reply actions
Hate to tell you man but Hanie failed himself.
He might have been somewhat limited due to the playbook, but there were a lot of everday QB fundamentals that he was completely screwing up.
Wouldnt it be funny if we had another DE with the last name Salters!
Like
you know……throwing the ball.
and something called check downs so I hear..
Cacti are prickly.
by crackedcactus on Feb 17, 2012 4:04 PM CST up reply actions
ludicrousl overrating of Hanie
we saw why no one drafted him out of college
I always turn to the sports section first. The sports page records people's accomplishments; the front page has nothing but man's failures.
~Earl Warren
by lookingdeadred on Feb 17, 2012 7:48 AM CST up reply actions
grant me this....
Someone talented can fail miserably, but he can’t succeed without talent, and we saw him succeed!! The main fundamental to success comes before you even step on the turf, and he had 0 reps with the first team the whole year. As much as he failed us, the staff failed him.
Looking to see more of Levi Horn
by BearDownIsrael on Feb 17, 2012 8:41 AM CST via mobile up reply actions
I Agree on that
its easy to blame Hanie for being a talentless loser but people have now said that Martz hardly ever spent time in trying to teach him anything. even when Cutler went down.
But its not just Martz, the Bears coaches in general have hardly developed new players.
*You can’t take the " deer in the headlights " away from him, and that has nothing to do with coaching. I liked him in that championship game, but for him to regress that much is unacceptable, he could not do more than 1 read at NFL speed, in 4 games.
by transylvanian bear on Feb 17, 2012 9:42 AM CST up reply actions
Lack of ability was Hanie's problem, not preparation
I always turn to the sports section first. The sports page records people's accomplishments; the front page has nothing but man's failures.
~Earl Warren
by lookingdeadred on Feb 18, 2012 9:16 AM CST up reply actions
Todd was a decent backup QB until we got him.
if you remember at first he was retired and didn’t want to come back, we just threw enough money at him that he had to. He was old and done and knew it, but he had been a decent backup most of his career.
. "Most football teams are temperamental. That's 90% temper and 10% mental."
--Doug Plank
and he was approaching 65 years old...
Hoping that Peppers does the belt dance over Rodgers crumpled on the turf
What does it take to run a successful NFL draft?
We have good scouts by all accounts. That turd Angelo didn’t listen to them the arrogant SOB – that’s why he got fired.
Scouting
I feel that is one of the biggest problems with a lot of the draft in and of itself is the scouts. It almost seems like a lot of them feed off of collegiate hype about certain players every season who just happened to be good because of the system they were in. Thus how your Ryan Leafs appear at the top of the draft sometimes..or your Tebows etc. A good scouting unit that can remain impartial to hype and focus purely on a players ability in compare to their peers in their position, plus an affluency when it comes to relaying said information up the chain to your GM, can make for a good drafting team.
by Pretender85 on Feb 17, 2012 9:45 AM CST reply actions 1 recs
Sometimes I feel the Bear's scouts do their scouting by watching SportsCenter.
Seriously though, all the NFL teams go by the scouting combines and the statistical data. It’s too expensive keeping on large numbers of scouts and much of the decision process is from watching film. It’s impossible to see every player you might draft, and most teams won’t admit that they waited too long and had another team snatch the players they were eying in the later rounds, right before them. Teams take risks in deciding what round to grab a player, and often they lose out. I won’t even get into Lovie’s reluctance to using rookies their first season and the coaching staff’s deficiencies in developing players.
This is the one reason why I LOVE the NFL over all other sports.
In Basketball, the Greats are all known about since their Sophomore year in High School. Normally, the closest thing you’ll see to a “breakout” star is somebody like Taj Gibson, a useful cog in an elite team that was taken in the second half of the first round. A UDFA like Jeremy Lin is completely unheard of in the NBA. Whereas a UDFA star in the NFL, while not exactly commonplace, happens with surprising regularity.
Take MLB as another example. Because of the million and a half different levels of professional baseball, you pretty much know which players are going to become stars in the league before they even step foot on an MLB diamond. And it’s annoying as heck.
I like a sport with this kind of unpredictability. Where a UDFA or a 7th rounder can become a perennial AllStar. It’s great for the game, and great for the fans.
Baseball is boring.
I hate the Miami Heat.
Football is king. Thank god.
Cacti are prickly.
by crackedcactus on Feb 17, 2012 4:07 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
People who cannot play and or understand baseball tend to call it boring
I always turn to the sports section first. The sports page records people's accomplishments; the front page has nothing but man's failures.
~Earl Warren
by lookingdeadred on Feb 18, 2012 9:18 AM CST up reply actions
So you could watch back to back baseball games
and devote your sole attention to them?
I get baseball. I understand baseball (and the travesty that is the DH)
Watching a pitcher wander around the mound or staring off into space doesn’t appeal to me.
Cacti are prickly.
by crackedcactus on Feb 18, 2012 12:51 PM CST up reply actions
as if all football fans devotre their sole attention to the game in front of them
baseball is a very subtle game, not all can get it
I always turn to the sports section first. The sports page records people's accomplishments; the front page has nothing but man's failures.
~Earl Warren
by lookingdeadred on Feb 19, 2012 9:03 AM CST up reply actions
People don't understand baseball?
When Mike Ditka calculates pi it's decimal representation ends. | @wiltfongjr
by Lester A. Wiltfong Jr. on Feb 20, 2012 2:55 PM CST up reply actions
yep
I always turn to the sports section first. The sports page records people's accomplishments; the front page has nothing but man's failures.
~Earl Warren
by lookingdeadred on Feb 22, 2012 8:00 AM CST up reply actions
It's luck
pure luck.
You can scout a guy every day of his life and he could be the best college player ever and be a model citizen, but it just comes down to luck. No one can know if he’s going to be a good NFL player
Same goes for the undrafted guys. What’s saying they won’t turn into Wes Welkers
"I'm too drunk to taste this chicken" - Colonel Sanders
It's all about THE []_[] baby!!!
~"Smile when u being attacked,laugh when they talking boutcha,wave when they hating on u and Pray when they leave u alone Somethings wrong!"~ Deion Sanders
At least FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER before you judge me fool
Luck can play a part (freak injuries) but...
…it’s not just pure luck.
I see it more like percentages without guarantees just like any risk or gamble. Andrew Luck is a high-percentage play, he’s very likely to succeed. Say you want to arbitrarily anoint him with a 90% chance of being a successful QB. That’s still 10% chance of failure. If he does flame out (Ryan Leaf) then it’s a bigger deal because they had almost everything you look for in someone to be successful at this level.
The only misnomer is “sure thing”, because there are none of those. There’s a reason, though, why guys in later rounds don’t make rosters as much or aren’t Pro Bowlers as much.
I guarantee you if a team had, say, seven 1st round picks each year vs. the normal one in each round, that team would get real good, real quick. It’s also the reason why some teams consistently draft better than other teams. Because good scouting and smart drafting are skills.
That's your opinion
"I'm too drunk to taste this chicken" - Colonel Sanders
It's all about THE []_[] baby!!!
~"Smile when u being attacked,laugh when they talking boutcha,wave when they hating on u and Pray when they leave u alone Somethings wrong!"~ Deion Sanders
At least FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER before you judge me fool
True. But it's an opinion supported by a mountain of evidence.
It’s not coincidence that more players from higher rounds succeed in pretty much every sport.
Duh
Better players go in higher rounds
"I'm too drunk to taste this chicken" - Colonel Sanders
It's all about THE []_[] baby!!!
~"Smile when u being attacked,laugh when they talking boutcha,wave when they hating on u and Pray when they leave u alone Somethings wrong!"~ Deion Sanders
At least FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER before you judge me fool
most people expect #1 draft picks to be stars
but only about half of them ever are and that runs just as true for teams with good reputations drafting as other theams which may include Da Bears.
. "Most football teams are temperamental. That's 90% temper and 10% mental."
--Doug Plank
brilliant retort
I always turn to the sports section first. The sports page records people's accomplishments; the front page has nothing but man's failures.
~Earl Warren
by lookingdeadred on Feb 18, 2012 9:21 AM CST up reply actions
Ooooooooh
zing!
"If the good Lord had wanted us to play soccer, he wouldn't have given us arms." - Mike Ditka
by TheAwesomeMachine on Feb 19, 2012 1:49 PM CST up reply actions
I agree with you.
Mostly luck. Pretty much impossible to predict how a guy will react once he’s made it pro, has some dollars in his pocket, and has to routinely face teams of other players as good or better than him.
If it's mostly luck....
then by your argument you might as well throw darts at the dartboard in selecting players.
Like above, there’s a graduated risk to with every pick with how many hours spent scouting. I would say it’s more like blackjack when you only have one deck and are counting cards. Your risk is predicated on information and a certain amount of deduction on what COULD play next.
Cacti are prickly.
by crackedcactus on Feb 17, 2012 4:12 PM CST up reply actions
good analogy
When Mike Ditka calculates pi it's decimal representation ends. | @wiltfongjr
by Lester A. Wiltfong Jr. on Feb 17, 2012 4:32 PM CST up reply actions
baloney
luck plays a part because of the injury factor more than anything else, but the ability to identify skilled players and coach them up are much greater factors.
Same goes for the undrafted guys. What’s saying they won’t turn into Wes Welkers
The vast majority of undrafted players who never make a team that’s what. For every Welker, there are dozens of guys who never amount to anything. There is a good reason why they were not drafted, they lack ability.
I always turn to the sports section first. The sports page records people's accomplishments; the front page has nothing but man's failures.
~Earl Warren
by lookingdeadred on Feb 18, 2012 9:21 AM CST up reply actions
Location bias
Of the choices, scouting is the only viably deterministic one. Part of that is the ability of the evaluators, but part is the structure of scouting. Luckily, this sounds like it should be in Emery’s wheelhouse.
Something I’ve noticed as a Bears fan who does not live near Chicago is a location bias. I think this is a big part of what separates the good teams from the average teams. My hypothesis is that it manifests in two forms:
1) Proximity to HQ
2) Locations with previous in depth relationships.
For point 1, it seems there is a bias for players out of the central and mountain time zones, or edge of the eastern time zone. Some guys I’m going to point at: Tommie Harris, Juaquin Iglesias, Earl Bennett, Chris Williams, Aromashudu, Corey Wooten, Baizun. I could go on, but the point is that there seems to be a bias between the draftee’s proximity to Chicago and their scouting grade. Potentially this is just an exposure bias, as ancillary information from the local sports press has an inherent proximity bias. Knowing more (or more accurately, thinking you know more) would increase the confidence interval on these player evaluations.
For point 2, there are several cases of going back to the well that bear some questioning. Vanderbilt, Abilene Christian, Northwestern, and Notre Dame seem to have been revisited several times for players, although none of these schools have been football factories in recent years. This infers a higher confidence interval on the scouting obtained from these locations.
Outta park !!
VERY INSIGHTFUL !!! Those points have crossed my mind also. Thanks for fleshing them out.
In all fairness
Most everyone wanted mendenhall instead of Chris Williams messed up back, it was never a mendenhall or forte issue because forte was considered a 2nd rounder.
by lopey986 on Feb 17, 2012 1:04 PM CST via mobile reply actions
I sorta remember people wanting us to trade up and out of the second
to draft Mendenhall. Mendenhall was consider the “better” back according to most scouts.
Above all; keep 'em guessing, never let them lose their sense of confusion.
They are about the same as far as rushing goes
Forte is far and away a better all around back due to his pass catching ability. I’d rather have mendenhall inside the 10 though.
by lopey986 on Feb 17, 2012 3:08 PM CST via mobile up reply actions
Drafting is a "mixture" of factors
And it combines elements of both art and science. It’s probably 50% player history, 25% analysis of intangibles and 25% percent “luck”, or something like that. There’s always the classic “busts” like Jamarcus Russell and Ryan Leaf – guys who were studs in college and everyone thought would be NFL super stars, but didn’t have the intangibles needed to succeed at the NFL level. And occasionally you get guys like Welker who somehow fell off of everyone’s radar and turned into stars once they got their shot in the NFL.
It's like playing poker.
Scouting is like trying to predict the best hand you can get. Drafting is like predicting what the other players at the table could have and reacting to the turn and river. The higher the round, the higher the bet.
Obviously the numbers in poker are more solid, the probability more predictable. However, you can still lose a big bet with four of a kind (Leaf, Russell, Charles Rogers) and still win with a low pair (UDFA). The stupid thing is to draft to fit scheme rather than draft the BPA. That’s like quitting on a straight (Greg Olsen) because you (Martz, Angelo) REALLY wanted a flush. (I still love that press conference where Angelo said “We don’t need Kellen Winslow, we need Mike Ditka.” Everyone in the known football world was like “You realize Winslow is a Hall of Famer, right? What kind of idiot would trade Kellen Winslow?”)
There’s luck in poker, but there are people (GMs and scouting depts) that win much more often than others.
"If the good Lord had wanted us to play soccer, he wouldn't have given us arms." - Mike Ditka
by TheAwesomeMachine on Feb 19, 2012 2:09 PM CST up reply actions
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
Community Guidelines
Related FanPosts on Windy City Gridiron
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Recommended FanPosts
Recent FanPosts
In Association With
Shutdown Corner - NFL - Yahoo! Sports
- Former high-school star Brian Banks does serious time on trumped-up charge, now hopes for an NFL shot
- Former ‘idiot kicker’ Mike Vanderjagt in trouble after accosting junior-high heckler
- Adrian Peterson blows teammates away in footraces; appears to be on the mend
- UPDATE: Charlie Sheen didn’t buy Lawrence Taylor’s Super Bowl ring
- Alex Smith gets blown up by Jon Beason over Cam Newton comments
