Managing Expectations: What kind of career is the Seahawks fourth round selection likely to have?

The 2019 NFL Draft starts in just eight days, and while the Seattle Seahawks are certain to end up with more than the four picks they currently hold in the 2019 NFL Draft, until the picks they hold change, I will continue digging into the picks they are schedeuled to have for 2019.

For readers who recall the Managing Expectations from 2018, last year I dove into the expectations for draft picks based solely on draft round before taking a high level look at how the current management team has fared in comparison to league-wide trends earlier this offseason. Currently, we are in the middle of taking a more detailed look into the expectations for each of the four picks the team holds in the upcoming draft. The four picks the team currently holds as of writing 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.

Monday I looked at the expectations for the 21st overall pick, and then Tuesday dug into what can reasonably be expected from the 84th overall selection in the draft. Obviously, that means that the time has come to look at the expected outcomes for pick 124 overall.

As a reminder for the methodology of this process, the data is pulled from more than three decades of drafting for a time period for which the overwhelming majority of players have completed their careers. Then, to expand the sample size beyond just the 31 years of data, I’ve taken a look at three selections prior and three selections after the specific pick in order to end up with a sample of 217 drafted players for each pick.

The 124th overall is, just like was seen with the 84th pick, a pick that has fallen in different rounds of the draft. In the earlier years of the data from the study it fell in the fifth round, however, as the league expanded, more teams were added and comp picks were created and added to the end of the rounds three and later starting in the mid-90s, the pick has moved up from the fifth to the fourth. Thus, some of the picks in this data are from the fourth round, while others come from the fifth round.

in any case, to get right into the data, here is what the expected outcomes are for players taken with pick 121 through 127 overall for the draft.

And then just as we have looked at for each of the two prior selections, here is the same data in table format. First, obviously, grouped into buckets in terms of distributions.

And then moving to take a look at the distribution of this data in terms of a mortality style table, it looks like this.

This data simply goes to show how difficult it is to find players who will make significant contributions during their careers on Day 3 of the NFL Draft, and why quantity of picks becomes so important later in the draft. Obviously the current management team has had success in the fourth round, with linebacker K.J. Wright having an opportunity over the coming years to put himself alone in first place in terms of career AV for all Seahawks fourth round draft choices, but he’ll need to stay healthy in order to do so. Whether he will be able to do that as he moves into his thirties remains to be seen, but if he is able to remain healthy he should pass Chris Warren as the top Seattle fourth round draft choice by weighted career AV in 2019.