Quarterback and running back = fail. High risk high reward I guess. Seems like the best strategy (statistically speaking anyway) for those positions would be to try and them get off someone else’s roster once they’ve shown promise. Turner and Schaub, for example.

all this does is make me want to take Stafford at 4…. even less.

Can he do it again? I like Schaub as a top-10 QB, but he didn’t start out that way. I’d have to check how many seasons before he became a solid starter. I guess a common belief could be that the first round QBs could be more ready to play. In reality, the money involved pressures teams them to play sooner. I simply don’t know enough about QB evaluation to determine if there is a ‘Schaub’ in this draft. I don’t think it’s Graham Harrell (for the love of God, no).

to me is the overall low success rate of WRs. QB low success rate is expected. RB is the lowest; wouldn’t have expected lowest, there, but anticipated it being somewhat low in general. And they say backs are fungible, heh.

RB/WR I imagine both are low partly on account of the proliferation of available talent at those two positions. I guess I shouldn’t look too deeply to try and find separate reasoning for both; both are ball carrying positions and seemingly more reliant upon physical talent, and slightly less on smarts, than other positions.

One thing to take away: this suggests that smart and successful draft strategy would be to make slightly more frequent WR/RB/QB picks, over time, regardless of need. On the other hand, you need a lot of linemen.

It shouldn’t be interpreted strictly at face value.

Teams start five offensive linemen, three to four linebackers and three to four defensive linemen. They start one running back and one quarterback.

There’s also a lot less emphasis on benching a struggling linebacker. Fans don’t get up and arms and demand a change if a linebacker has a few bad games. They probably don’t even know. Quarterbacks are afforded no such luxury. There’s no place to hide a quarterback. A struggling left tackle can move to right or to guard. A linebacker can move across positions, on the goal line or on special teams. If Seattle selected Aaron Curry first overall, and he started much of his rookie contract, a near guarantee, and ended his career playing special teams around the league, he could to 125 games played and still be a total bust.

Another way to look at it is, what if Seattle had a Brian Russell level quarterback the last two years?

This has to be adjusted for some sort of expected success rate. So, 27.3% of first round quarterbacks are “wild successes”, but only 11.4% of all quarterbacks are successful. 42.9% of all first round defensive linemen are successful, but 16.5% of all defensive linemen are successful. So, first round quarterbacks are 239% more likely to be wildly successful than the pool of all quarterbacks. First round defensive linemen are 260% more likely to be “wildly successful” than the pool of all defensive linemen. Accounting for the above, and accounting for the relative value of the positions, and I would say a team has a better risk reward drafting a quarterback in the first than drafting a defensive lineman in the first.

Success = 1 pro bowl, 3 starting seasons, or 64 games.
Wild Success = 2 pro bowls, 6 starting seasons, or 125 games.
Years are now 1993-2002 (for 7 rounds, and to take out recent players that can’t be successes, before it was 1998-2007).
Undrafted players are not mentioned, the sample size is really small anyways, 2-15 per year about.

Offensive Graph.

Offensive Chart.

Defensive Graph.

Defensive Chart.

A) Next time, mind dropping the data on to a google speadsheet so others can play with it?
B) I wonder how much of a self fulfilling prophecy the round someone is drafted is.

By (B) I mean a couple of things

 I wonder how often a team is likely to give up on a struggling player that is paid 1st round pay, vs a player that is paid 6th round play.

I wonder how often a team is likely to draft a player in the 6th round that they expect to start/start right away, vs. a player drafted in the 1st round.

Makes me think that scouts have a difficult time evaluating them. Wouldn’t surprise me due to the many different ways they can be used effectively.

Is it possible that the wild-success criteria, by privileging number of games played, help account for the discrepancies between positions in this table? As the Shaun Alexander debate illustrated, not all positions age at the same rate. Linemen live forever, but not so little backs. Or maybe more to the point, they don’t stay quick forever (whereas this matters less for OLs and DTs). Same with WRs, though I don’t have average-career-length stats at hand to corroborate my hunch that this helps account for those differences across position (but not the drop-off from round to round).

I figured since we have a top 5 pick, we may as well look and see how valuable it actually is. Of course, as many have mentioned, it would be dumb to single out individual players, because let’s be honest, no matter where Curry gets drafted, he’s going to be a success (unless he’s injured). Also, implying that Sanchez has a greater chance of success if we drafted him at 4, as opposed to Jacksonville drafting him at 8, would obviously be flawed logic.

I took out games played as a criteria since many first rounders will end up playing 64 or 125 games due to their draft position/athletic ability. If you’re picked in the first round, chances are if you don’t start for 3 or 7 seasons, you’ll be labeled a ‘BUST’ regardless of how many games you play but don’t start (though the NFL needs to find a better way to indicate starter instead of just whichever formation gets the first snap).
Data is from 1970-2002, and broken up into top 5, 6-10, 11-20, and 21-30 (sorry picks 31 and 32).

First Round Chart.

First round Graph.