The Importance of the 14th Pick.

The business has hit it's annual auto-pilot phase.  Our winter/holiday development cycle has concluded, and the production lines are running at a boring, profitable pace.  I hate this time of the year. I have no idea what to do with my extra hour (or two) during the day.

I decided to use a couple spare hours to create a FanPost about how critical the Seahawks first selection was; however, I needed to make sure that I wasn't doing so just "to do so".  

Instead of creating on the fly, I decided that channeling my inner Edward R. Murrow (I'm a big fan, and he is renowned for his thorough preparation) would be more appropriate. I studied. I studied draft charts. I studied trade value matrixes.  I studied scouting reports.  I studied team needs capsules (not just for the Seahawks, but for nearly every team); however, the more I studied, the more I began defending my position against myself.  I have concluded that I was wrong.  

My original title was going to be "The Importance of the 6th Pick". 

I have decided to "throw the flag" and live with the results.  This is what I now believe.

What Seattle does with the 14th pick is more important than what it does with the 6th pick.

Some draft picks bust.  All the game film, workouts, and interviewing, oftentimes don't reveal the flaws that lie beneath the surface. Some prospects either have trouble leveraging their physical tools to become productive NFL players, or they get caught with 55 pounds of the sticky-icky in the back of their trunk.  Either way, it's an acceptable part of the numbers game known as the NFL draft.  You win some.  You lose some.  It's something I can live with; however, there needs to be a distinction made between the value of a pick, and the success of a pick.

Barring the advent of an NFL draft crystal ball, it doesn't make sense to discuss how successful a draft is until years after the fact.  You don't need to be an ESPN analyst  to figure out that Lofa Tatupu was a successful selection in the second round. After all, the going rate for a pro-bowl caliber MLB you'd think would justify a top-10 selection.  There must be a way to evaluate the relative strength of projecting a particular player at a particular spot in a draft.  I believe that measure is a "slippery" word called value.

"Value" is one of the more annoying terms that I have read in making the internet rounds. It's annoying in that value cannot be, yet so often is, looked at in a vacuum. It's slippery in that, more often than not, it's used as a catch-all for "I like this pick", and rarely backed up with inductive evidence to support where the value is.  We read about a player's value as it relates to a subjectively ranked prospect pool, rather than the players worth relative to a teams needs, financial situation, and ability to finding the same impact through alternative means. 

Value certainly isn't universal.  What may be a good value for one team, might be a horrible for another.  St. Louis drafting Jimmy Clasuen at #1, is a far better value than Detroit doing so at #2.  It boils down to a combination of risk assessment, projected return on investment, and the replaceability of the pick through other means.  

Every draft is uniquely "organic" in nature.  Each has it's own life.  This year, in what's been called a deep draft in many critical areas of need for Seattle, there presents itself, an opportunity to leverage more talent for Seattle, by understanding what truly constitutes a value for the team.  

The Value of the 6th Pick ultimately hinges upon where you believe the talent threshold lies.  I'm hardly a draft expert, so I  can only base my opinion on the collective scouting that has been done around the internet; however, if you subscribe to the notion that one of: Berry, Clausen, Bradford, or Morgan will be available to Seattle at #6, then it's not a stretch to assume that Seattle is positioned very near the bottom threshold of the top tier talent (with pick number 6). Additionally, each of these prospects would fill a glaring need for the team and, with the exception of possibly Berry, would carry contract numbers very much in line with the expected return on investment for their respective positions. 

Remember, this isn't about how successful the pick turns out.  Again, you win some and you lose some.  This is about the value of the pick as it relates to risk, ROI, and the ability to replace the pick through alternate means. What this all means, is that Seattle is sitting in a very good value position at #6.  The pick represents for Seattle, the lowest investment within the top tier of talent.  They almost can't go wrong with the pick from a value standpoint. 

The 14th pick represents both a value concern, and an opportunity for Seattle.  Relative to the Seahawks needs, and the likely pool of prospects that may be available at #14, this may be the weakest value position of all Seattle selections.

The value of the likely list of players that may still be available at #14, are almost indistinguishable from those that may be available to the Seahawks at #21.  Their expected ROI's are nearly the same.  At or about the 14th pick, the names begin to vary wildly from source to source, suggesting that the talent level form 14 to about the mid 20's is fairly interchangeable depending on how one assesses the needs of the teams picking in this range.  

A quick eyeball test, shows distinct tiers of talent as it relates to Seattle's team needs.  

Tier 1 (#1): Ndamukong Suh.  Untouchable.  Clearly in a league of his own.

Tier 2 (#2-7): Gerald McCoy, Eric Berry, Jimmy Clausen, Sam Bradford, Derrick Morgan. The names could change based on personal opinion, but the concept should hold up (that relative to Seattle's needs, there are about 4-5 elite talents available in this draft).  The Seahawks sit at the back end of this grouping which maximizes the value of the pick.

Tier 3 (up to #14): Russell Okung, Joe Hayden, Bruce Campbell, Anthony Davis.  Again, the names may vary depending on how you scout and who you trust, but the theory is that this is likely to be a group selected before Seattle is on the clock.

Take a guy like CJ Spiller at 14. John very convincingly described what type of impact Spiller could have for the Seahawks.  That impact, although different in nature, is no more or less dynamic (in theory) than the impact of what a prospect like Brian Price could bring (also profiled in the way that only John can).  I would expect the same type of Return On Investment from a guy like Price, as I would from Spiller. The "value deficit" is in that Seattle sits at the leading edge of this band of talent, whereas the value is in being on the trailing edge. 

A final consideration is an additional pick that could be acquired by going from #14 to (for lack of a better number) #21.  Those 300 points represent a late 2nd, early third selection, and in a draft loaded with talent in the 2nd - 4th, getting back our 3rd form last year would be a nice coup. 

The Seahawks need to add impactful youth to it's roster. The exchange of #14 pick, for a mid 20's pick (of comparable impact and better value), plus an additional 2nd or 3rd, could give Seattle the chance to pull off a draft for the ages.  Much like Dallas' huge drafts of the early 90's, the Seahawks handling of the 14th overall pick could turn the franchise around.

This is what I believe.

Postscript:  It would also be a nice "flipping-the-bird-at-Denver" bonus having traded "Alphonso Smith" for a mid 20's pick and a late 2nd/early 3rd rounder.