Another Look at Draft Success
by abender20 on May 6, 2009 8:34 AM PDT
in Seahawks News & Rumors
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PrintThis time, from Advanced NFL Stats. The study put together by Brian Burke may remind you of the one that LantermanC put together a ways back, using Pro Bowl Selections and years as a starter as success criteria. Burke used these criteria to compare all NFL teams from 1996-2008. You'll have to click through to see the data tables.
As far as average number of years as a starter achieved out of each draft slot, Seattle came in 11th in the league. Only three teams got more average starting years out of first round picks than Seattle, but the Hawks look decidedly mediocre in all other rounds (for this measure).
By number of Pro Bowls made per draft slot, Seattle came in 5th overall, with most of that damage coming from first round picks.
Both statistics, however, are tainted by draft slot. Consistently bad teams draft higher. This is where Burke got creative. I'll let him explain:
A team that consistently picks in the top third of each round will tend to end up with players with more potential, and therefore have better individual careers. So we need to account for each team's draft positions over the time period studied.
To do this, I calculated the expected number of starting years and expected number of Pro Bowls for each slot in the draft. After smoothing the data, I compared each team's expected draft success to their actual draft success. For example, the Detroit Lions' 1st round picks averaged 3.7 years starting, but they should have averaged a lot more given their typically high pick in each round. If we sum up the differences between expected and average for all the players, we'll see how well teams really drafted.
As it turns out, Seattle is 8th in Starting Years Above Expected, and 4th in Pro Bowls Selections Above Expected. Surprisingly, Detroit and Cleveland finished last in both categories. Who'd have expected that?
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It seems like pro bowls and starts are differing.
A good player won’t get elected to a pro bowl if he plays for a bad (or small market) team.
A bad player can start on a Cleveland or Detroit simply because the team isn’t very good. It doesn’t even have to be a bad player, but a Mansfield Wrotto or something might have started for DET by now.
McCoy McCoy 2010, also acceptable, Russell Okung, Ndamukong Suh, Dez Bryant, Ciron Black, Trent Williams, and Bryan Bulaga.
I guess that starter point is incorrect though
since after actually reading the article in its entirety, CLE and DET seem to be by far the worst in terms of starters.
McCoy McCoy 2010, also acceptable, Russell Okung, Ndamukong Suh, Dez Bryant, Ciron Black, Trent Williams, and Bryan Bulaga.
Or another point,
Alex Smith, drafted to a big market, traditionally successful NFL franchise, undergoes 4 o-coordinators in as many years, and is subsequently deemed a bust. If he were drafted into the situation Rodgers or Flacco was in, would he have been more successful? Who knows? Though I do think that this mainly applies to QB, possibly the most fascinating and difficult position to scout.
McCoy McCoy 2010, also acceptable, Russell Okung, Ndamukong Suh, Dez Bryant, Ciron Black, Trent Williams, and Bryan Bulaga.
Possible, but what if rookie Peyton were put on the Raiders?
QBs are more dependent on those around them than anyone else. LT, it doesn’t really matter if his team is good, he can still be good. A QB needs someone to throw to, a line to protect him, a RB to have a viable running threat, an O-coordinator to call decent plays.
Even a slightly below average O-Coordinator deserves more than one year to prove his stuff, especially when dealing with a rookie or newbie QB.
McCoy McCoy 2010, also acceptable, Russell Okung, Ndamukong Suh, Dez Bryant, Ciron Black, Trent Williams, and Bryan Bulaga.
LT = left tackle, not Ladanian or Lawrence Taylor.
McCoy McCoy 2010, also acceptable, Russell Okung, Ndamukong Suh, Dez Bryant, Ciron Black, Trent Williams, and Bryan Bulaga.
Good quarterbacks are traditionally drafted by bad teams
Otherwise they wouldn’t have the selection to draft a good quarterback. Alex Smith made a bad team worse.
He didn't
“burn through” Norv Turner. Second year in the league, Smith had a 75 passer rating. He was, no pun intended, at least passable as an NFL QB. The Schottenheimer situation in San Diego then exploded out of the blue (in February I believe) and Norv gets the head job down there. Smith hasn’t been the same since.
Passer rating is a flawed metric and Smith was terrible in 2006.
He was ranked 35th in DVOA and 37th in DYAR. Norv Turner kept the kid gloves on, but the real reason Smith sucked less is that Jonas Jennings and Larry Allen were reasonably healthy and Frank Gore had a career year.
And both of those stats
are light years ahead of where he was in 2005: (DYAR: -880 to -125, DVOA: -89.4% to -15.3%).
I’m not arguing that he’s good or even that he would have been good had Turner stayed. I’m arguing what LantermanC is: situation does matter. Having 4 coordinators in your first 4 years in the league just isn’t conducive to success.
Whatever hope he had to be a functional QB in this league probably ended the minute Norv Turner took the Chargers position.
He improved over his rookie season
Virtually every quarterback does.
Otherwise, I’m not following you at all. So he improved after switching from Mike McCarthy to Norv Turner, but then suffered from switching from Turner to Jim Hostler? The logic seems pretty incongruous. If it was changing coordinators he suffered from, we would see something consistent, but there’s no evidence of that. He didn’t play a snap under Martz, missing the season with an injured shoulder. So it’s really only three coordinators in three years.
I think that argument is specious. It sounds like it would negatively impact a young quarterback to change the coordinator, but there’s really no evidence to support it did. Pro Football Prospectus 2006 spelled it out pretty bleakly. After one season in the league, Smith’s comparable quarterbacks were: David Carr, Ryan Leaf, Bobby Hoying, Jake Plummer, Joey Harrington, Kyle Orton, Craig Krenzel and Craig Whelihan.
I still believe in Joey...
McCoy McCoy 2010, also acceptable, Russell Okung, Ndamukong Suh, Dez Bryant, Ciron Black, Eric Berry, and Bryan Bulaga.
by LantermanC on May 6, 2009 8:28 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
How much of the Martz offense
he learned is debatable, but he had to go out and function at minicamps and the opening of training camp with Martz at the helm prior to his injury.
I just want to be clear, you don’t think having 4 offensive coordinators in 4 years has hurt Smith’s development at all? I get that you think he would have been terrible no matter what the situation and I don’t really disagree with that. But I don’t believe very many QBs would have been good given the situation Smith has endured.
Smith is garbage.
And was probably the worst #1 pick in the last decade. Anyone could have smelled him being a bust a mile away.
Let’s say Rodgers was drafted first and Smith went to the Packers (although rumor is that Jon Gruden had a mancrush on him and would have drafted Smith). Rodgers would likely not be as good as he is, and Smith would likely be better than he is, but Rodgers would still be better than Smith.
"Part, fools!
Put up your swords. You know not what you do."
by Fearless Frog on May 6, 2009 10:20 AM PDT up reply actions
I'd probably agree with that statement,
but we’ll never know unless someone builds a time machine or an infallible simulation program for hypothetical situations.
McCoy McCoy 2010, also acceptable, Russell Okung, Ndamukong Suh, Dez Bryant, Ciron Black, Eric Berry, and Bryan Bulaga.
I'm on it.
"Part, fools!
Put up your swords. You know not what you do."
by Fearless Frog on May 6, 2009 10:23 AM PDT up reply actions
Hey guys, posting from the past,
Green Bay drafted Alex Smith and he still sucks. In San Francisco, Steve Young unretired and all hell broke loose. He now plays for the Vikings.
by Airborne Hawk Guy on May 6, 2009 10:45 AM PDT up reply actions 4 recs
The weakness in this method, as I see it is
A player can start just because the team is bad enough to not have a better replacement. So bad teams can benefit from being bad.
And…
Pro Bowl is such a small sample that it’s tilted to a small group of players. Indianapolis, for instance, has a ton of Pro Bowls because of Peyton Manning. You get Manning’s nine, and then you get guys like Tarik Glenn, Ken Dilger and to a lesser extent, Reggie Wayne, Jeff Saturday and Joseph Addai that probably wouldn’t have made the Pro Bowl (or at least as many) on another team. So, one great pick can tilt the entire rating. Seattle has the same thing with Walter Jones. You get Jones’ nine, then you get Warren Moon, Mack Strong, Robbie Tobeck and Shaun Alexander.
I couldn't tell,
but what does the study say about traded players?
Does Green Bay get credit for Hasselbeck?
It would be interesting to see trades rated as well, especially trades with picks vs. players and how well that turns out. Alex Smith TE for a 5th? Who will end up winning that one. Hasselbeck, an unknown, turns out to be a good trade. Schaub, little known, turns out to be a success. Derek Anderson, a trade that never happened, might have been a disaster, jury’s still out on him.
Was Grbac a trade? Whatever happened to that guy? Did he just decide to be a lumberjack living in the mountains or something?
McCoy McCoy 2010, also acceptable, Russell Okung, Ndamukong Suh, Dez Bryant, Ciron Black, Eric Berry, and Bryan Bulaga.
This is all spot on.
As we all sort of hashed out in Chris’s analysis, it’s unfortunately one of the few ways to take a glance at something like this. With the advent of DYAR and DVOA, I could see a more thorough analysis using advanced metrics. Unfortunately, player awards will always be the product of incomplete knowledge and bias as well as “successful team buoyancy”.
Speaking of data mining/researching,
where would one find how often certain formations are called?
Like how often 3 WR sets, 4 WR sets, 2 TE, nickelback, dimeback, etc are used? Anyone know?
McCoy McCoy 2010, also acceptable, Russell Okung, Ndamukong Suh, Dez Bryant, Ciron Black, Eric Berry, and Bryan Bulaga.
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