Managing Expectations: What can Seahawks expect from their third round pick?

Obviously, the big news for the Seattle Seahawks today is the fact that franchise quarterback Russell Wilson is now under contract through his age 35 season, but the start of the 2019 NFL Draft is just nine days away. Thus, I’ll be continuing to dig into each of the draft picks the team holds and looking at what they can reasonably expect from a player selected at that draft position.

I started digging into these particulars on Monday when we took a peak at what kind of return can be anticipated from a player taken at 1.21, and today we continue looking at the team’s picks by looking at the second pick that the team holds. As of this moment, the Hawks currently hold four picks in this year’s draft, and those four picks are.

• Pick 21 in the first round,
• Pick 84 in the third round,
• Pick 124 in the fourth round and
• Pick 159 in the fifth round.

Continuing right down the line, we’ll look at the same data for pick 3.84 today that we looked at for 1.21 yesterday. Specifically, that data is the career AV for overall pick 84, as well as three picks before and three picks after.

Now, of note for this data is that not all of the data in the sample for today is going to be from players selected in the third round. Yes, the pick the Seahawks hold at 84 is in the third round, but the 84th pick has moved around due to the fluctuation in the number of teams in the league during the sampling period. Specifically, when the Seahawks and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers joined the league in 1976, there were 28 NFL franchises. That number expanded to 30 in the mid-90s with the addition of the Carolina Panthers and Jacksonville Jaguars, and then to 32 when the Cleveland Browns re-expanded and the Houston Texans came around to replace the departed Houston Oilers.

In any case, that all means that pick 84 and the three picks immediately succeeding it have been in the third round since the mid-90s. However, for much of the sample, the 84th overall pick was the final pick in the third round of the draft, meaning the three selections following it were the first three picks in the fourth round. Thus, the data in today’s piece looks at the players taken at and around pick 84, rather than focusing on third round picks.

Without further beating around the bush, here is the data in raw form.

And then for those who prefer things in a more visual format, here is that data in chart form. First with the data put into buckets showing the distribution.

That shows just how likely a player taken at 84th overall is to not amount to much during their NFL career, and the exceedingly low probability of finding an impact player like Joe Montana at that point in the draft. Then, when looking at this from a mortality table perspective, here is the second style of chart we’ll be using this week.

In short, it’s very, very difficult to find an impact player, even in the third round of the draft.

So, we’ve now looked at the expected outcomes for the first two picks the Hawks currently hold in the 2019 draft, and Wednesday and Thursday we’ll dig into the picks the team currently holds in the fourth and fifth rounds.