JGMcD2

It’s not the best draft! It’s the most value... most bang for your buck. If you can separate the two it’ll change your perception. They’re not necessarily the same thing. The Bears didn’t necessarily have the 11th best draft (there are complex factors I’d have to add to figure that out) but they were the 11th best team at finding value with their picks. Penalized for Trubisky in RD1, rewarded for Eddie Jackson and Tarik Cohen In RD4. Njoku objectively has not been good for Cleveland. Peppers only played 2 seasons for them. Garrett is less valuable than guys drafted after him like Mahomes. If you don’t mind me asking, out of curiosity, what’s your profession? You’re really bright.

These are the overall results from 2017 to 2020. 8 out of 10 teams that were in the top in my analysis were also in the top 10 in this analysis. 8 out of 10 teams that were in the bottom 10 in my analysis were also in the bottom 10 of this analysis. The biggest riser was Dallas up 12 spots from 25 to 13 and the biggest faller was San Francisco down from 8 to 18. The average change in position between my analysis and this analysis was +/- 3 spots.

Alternate Surplus Value Method as suggested by @Billl I took every draft from 2017 to 2020 and matched up each player picked with the assigned draft points for that slot. This is what I called OLD_VAL. I used the draft points from Meers' Harvard Draft Value Chart. My rationale for that can be found in the then italicized section below. The Draft Value Chart (DVC) gained prominence in the 90’s after the Cowboys overhauled their roster through the draft, winning three Super Bowls that decade with a modest payroll. The actual usefulness of the chart for pre-draft trades has been debated for years afterwards, and in 2011 Harvard economics student Kevin Meers sought to improve the chart, explaining how the point values from the original basically were created arbitrarily and not based on any analysis or statistics. I used AV to objectively "re-draft" each draft class from 2017 to 2020. Each player in the re-draft was then matched up with corresponding points Meers' Harvard Draft Value Chart based on their new draft spot. This is what I called NEW_VAL. AV tie-breakers were awarded by giving the team who took a player at a lower draft slot in the real draft the higher draft slot in the re-draft. For example, Elijah McGuire and Trent Taylor both have the same DrAV with the Jets and 49ers respectively. Elijah McGuire is awarded the value for pick 117 in the redraft while Taylor is awarded the value for pick 118 in the redraft. This is because McGuire was selected in the 6th round (188) in 2017, while Taylor was selected in the 5th round (177). After finding both OLD_VAL and NEW_VAL I divided the NEW_VAL by OLD_VAL in order to find SURPLUS_VAL for each draft class. NEW_VAL/OLD_VAL = SURPLUS_VAL Here are the results for each draft class since 2017.

I’ve got a real sneaky feeling we will be playing KC week 1 and to open the season if they win the Super Bowl.

@Billl I replicated your method as you laid it out. It's not perfect either, but it's a different method conducted as objectively as possible based on your recommendation. I took every draft from 2017 to 2020 and matched up each player picked with the assigned draft points for that slot. This is what I called OLD_VAL. I used the draft points from Meers' Harvard Draft Value Chart. My rationale for that can be found in the then italicized section below. The Draft Value Chart (DVC) gained prominence in the 90’s after the Cowboys overhauled their roster through the draft, winning three Super Bowls that decade with a modest payroll. The actual usefulness of the chart for pre-draft trades has been debated for years afterwards, and in 2011 Harvard economics student Kevin Meers sought to improve the chart, explaining how the point values from the original basically were created arbitrarily and not based on any analysis or statistics. I used AV to objectively "re-draft" each draft class from 2017 to 2020. Each player in the re-draft was then matched up with corresponding points Meers' Harvard Draft Value Chart based on their new draft spot. This is what I called NEW_VAL. After finding both OLD_VAL and NEW_VAL I divided the NEW_VAL by OLD_VAL in order to find SURPLUS_VAL for each draft class. NEW_VAL/OLD_VAL = SURPLUS_VAL Any idea what you think happened before I share the results? DISCLAIMER: I have not included UDFA because the workload requires significantly more manual work. I also don't believe the UDFA process can be likened to the draft process because the process in acquiring players is drastically different than the draft. If I were to conduct an analysis on team's performance in identifying and gaining value from UDFA, it would likely need to be it's own separate analysis. UDFA is an open market bidding war, whereas the draft is simply that, a draft. Player's have very little leverage in the draft and teams have more leverage when it comes to acquiring the players they want but they're at the mercy of other teams taking the players that they want or to move around and acquire the players they covet.

Well I am not trying to get you to accept that Jaire Alexander and Kevin King are within 2.5 points of each other in terms of success as pros - they're not. That's where there is a disconnect with what I am doing and what you are saying. It's not in terms of success, it's in terms of value added based on their draft position. The way you're verbalizing your interpretation of what this is, is wrong. I am telling you that Green Bay, by drafting Jaire Alexander in the first round got extra value as compared to their peers in RD1 of 2018. I am telling you that Green Bay, by drafting Kevin King in the second round got less value as compared to their peers in RD2 of 2017. It's not an apples to apples comparison between Alexander and King because they were in two separate drafts in two separate rounds. The whole premise here is that each draft is its own event and teams can only succeed or fail in drafting in comparison to what their peers do in a given draft. Just for fun, if GB were to have taken a player who's performed like Kevin King in RD1 of 2018, say Donte Jackson (CB, CAR) and then in RD2 of 2017 they were to have taken a player who's performed like Jaire Alexander, say Marcus Williams (S, NO). They would be penalized for their RD1 pick in 2018 (bad value) and rewarded for their RD2 pick in 2017 (good value). It's grading GMs success based on value added compared to their peers, it's not grading player success.

It includes everything you want. It’s publicly available, you can read about it. Probably would’ve helped to understand what was in it before you blasted me and then ended up telling me your criteria is pretty much the exact same thing. The difference is that they were in two separate drafts. It’s all about GMs extracting value based on what is available to them in the player pool that year. It’s not saying Kevin King isn’t a bad pick, he’s a bad pick. He was rewarded a bit for having a decent season in 2019, albeit it’s probably a career year. It’s just that other GMs as a whole didn’t do a very good job of extracting value in that round, so Green Bay isn’t going to be punished severely when other teams missed as well. So yeah, you have half the round that are better pros than King, but half the round are just as bad, if not a little worse in terms of their return on value. All it’s doing is rewarding teams for getting value or punishing them for not. In this case they’re punished. It was a easier to miss in 2017 in RD2, so the Packers are punished, but not severely, based on how King has performed compared to his peers in that round thus far. It was harder to miss in 2018 in RD1, so the Packers are rewarded, but not significantly, based on how Alexander has performed compared to his peers in that round thus far. If they continue to go on the paths they’re going, Green Bay is only going to continue to be rewarded by Jaire Alexander and penalized by Kevin King. Again, it’s a snapshot. This is living and breathing as the players continue to play. You’re focusing too much on the 2020 version of Jaire Alexander and 2020 version of Kevin King. I’ve said it a million times, this isn’t perfect. Not even close... it’s my first crack at something that nobody else has attempted.

Well let’s look at Jaire Alexander over his first 3 years in the league by PFF grade 2018: 72.4 2019: 72.3 2020: 90.5 Here’s his AV over those 3 years 2018: 5 2019: 6 2020: 10 While he may be a shutdown corner now, he wasn’t playing like one all 3 years in the league. He’s been better than the average player in the first round of his draft class... you have to remember this is also just a snapshot in time as well. Things will change. If he continues to be a shutdown corner, they will continue to gain more value. At this point, he hasn’t provided that much more value than the average player drafted next to him in the first round. I am really glad that you listed your three criteria! Approximate Value incorporates both All-Pro selections and Pro Bowl selections when grading each player. It also weights All-Pro selections greater than it does Pro-Bowl selections. And while it doesn’t have the capability to include playoff games won (personally that’s an unstable number to throw in) it does reward players for playing/starting on better teams. Sounds like AV is pretty darn close to your criteria!

I really enjoy when people don’t read and make assumptions as to what they’re looking at. THIS ISN’T RATING HOW GOOD A PLAYER IS. It’s rating them in comparison to the value in the round they were drafted. It’s a tool to grade GMs extracting value. Look at it this way... the 2018 first round was very talented. Jaire Alexander was a great pick, nobody is debating that, he netted them positive value. At this point he’s just not THAT much more valuable than the average player from the 1st round in 2018... because there was that much talent. Kevin King was a bad pick, he netted the Packers negative value in the round. The talent in the 2nd round in 2017 was a mixed bag, all it’s showing you is that Packers drafting King there didn’t really do all that much worse than any other team in finding value in the 2017 2nd round. Yeah, it’s flawed. Trying to quantify this isn’t easy and will never be perfect. It’s an attempt at something I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone try and do publicly. If you actually read what it was doing before commenting, it would be helpful. As I’ve been saying to everyone who says it’s flawed, help me out and provide some feedback as to how to make it better.

Again, that wasn’t your initial issue with the process. You claimed it wasn’t even meant to compare draft classes in the first place. Again, I never said it was stable over a short time period. I initially only looked at 2017. Which has 4 years worth of information on players, the Bills did well. You picked two players from the most recent draft to prove your point, I’ve already said and agreed it’s not as stable with lack of volume. But again, Gabe is rewarded for producing on a competitive team. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s important, you don’t think if they swapped places their statistic would look similar? In scouting it’s very common for these discussions to happen. I’ll use baseball as a better example. John Means is the ace of the Baltimore Orioles. He’s the ace on the Baltimore Orioles because they’re bad. If you take John Means and stick him on a playoff caliber team, is John Means still the ace? No, he’s a #5 starter on a contending team. Is he more valuable just because he’s an ace on a bad team? No, he’s more valuable as a 5th starter on a contending team. I think a player gaining SOME value because they’re starting and/or contributing on a successful team is more than valid. Gabe Davis is contributing to a better football team and there’s a difficulty in cracking that lineup when there’s talent on the roster. Generally better teams have better players at every position. Don’t get me wrong, Higgins is a great player, but is he contributing more than Davis on this Bills team? Maybe or maybe he looks about the same because he’s fighting for targets with a bunch of players on the Bills roster. I’m looking now. The Bengals had 566 passing targets. Higgins, Green and Boyd were all targeted over 100 times. After that 59 targets for Bernard and 53 for Sample. Then a bunch of guys getting anywhere from 1-20. The there’s Buffalo. 572 targets. Diggs has 166 and Beasley has 107. Davis at 62. Brown at 52. Singletary at 50. Knox at 44. McKenzie 34. More mouths to feed. Is Higgins really going to come in and have Davis’ 62 targets and then steal 40 more targets from somewhere else? On the flip side, is Davis going to walk into Cincinnati and still only get 62 targets with their lack of options? It’s likely going to be around 100 like Higgins. Which in that case he blows Higgins numbers out of the water. Give Davis the same volume of targets as Higgins and he’s 61/1,034/12. Give Higgins the same volume as Davis and you get 38/521/4. For every extreme example you find, I can find one too. That happens, that doesn’t mean the process is broken. Flawed, sure, I’m not debating that. As I’ve asked others, I invite you to find a better way to do this objectively.

@KzooMike In comparison to Buffalo, this is New England (2017-2019 as I just grabbed it quick). The worst drafting team over the last 4 years (#32). They've made the playoffs as often as Buffalo has, extremely competitive team. They actually have a better record over the last 4 years than we do, they're actually the 4th most winning team over that time span. Belichick has done an absolutely horrible job of finding any sort of value consistently. He pretty much gets 1 contributor each year, but a lot of his early picks are just horrible values. He's done better with guys like Wise (4th), Bentley (5th), Winovich (3rd) than he has with anything in earlier rounds. I'll throw in GB (#23) seeing that they've been in the conference championship the last two seasons. That's a lot success... out of the team's listed starters on Sunday, they had 8 drafted between 2017-2019. Houston (#13). Generally do a pretty good job finding some value, but really propped up by Watson. Rightfully so, he's the most important draft pick they have made and most important player on the field for them each week.

Ironically the Packers have been one of the worst drafting teams over the past 4 years... That AFC Championship numbers is skewed and you know it too. Beane and McDermott traded, cut or let every player walk that was drafted by previous regimes. They have legitimately have 4 draft classes to go off of... and I count 9 players that were listed as starters in the AFC Championship game on Sunday. It's nearly impossible for them to have trotted out a championship roster after purging the roster of past regimes picks and only having 4 drafts to bring in their own guys. You may very well be underestimating how BAD some teams are at actually drafting players. It wasn't intended to be a mic drop, and I've been perfectly candid about it not being completely perfect or even THE BEST, although I argue it's better than any completely subjective argument someone presents. I've been candid about newer drafts not necessarily being stable because of the small sample size, but the other thing you're not taking into account is each draft is compared to the performance of itself. It's how much more value White provided than drafting the average value of a player in the 1st round of his draft class. So it's not completely unstable either in recent years because you're comparing players with equal time in the league to each other... I would argue that recent drafts actually may favor weaker teams because there is more opportunity for drafted players to come in and play right away... Yeah, but why wouldn't a rookie/younger player on a good team be rewarded for playing a significant amount of snaps? It's harder to gain the ability to contribute on a competitive team. A rookie/younger guy on a bad team in the short term is likely going to have more opportunities to play right away than not.

This is just a fundamental misunderstanding of value then, he lays it out. Players who start on good teams are much more valuable than players if they start on a bad team. It’s not that difficult.

I’m defending against your obviously wrong point that says AV wasn’t designed to be used to evaluate draft classes. I don’t even need to continue after that, because you’re off base. You can look at the individual years as well if you’d like... in 2017 4 of the top 10 teams missed the playoffs this year (Chargers, Texans, Vikings, Panthers). LAC: Playoffs 1/4 times since 2017 HOU: Playoffs 2/4 MIN: 2/4 Panthers 1/4 Combined 6/16 In 2018 4 of the top 10 teams missed the playoffs this year (Falcons, 49ers, Eagles, Lions). ATL: Playoffs 0/3 years since 2018 49ers: Playoffs 1/3 years since 2018 Eagles: Playoffs 2/3 years Lions: Playoffs 0/3 Combined 3/12 In 2019 4 of the top 10 teams missed the playoffs this year (Dolphins, 49ers, Raiders, Cardinals). Dolphins: 0/2 Raiders: 0/2 Cardinals: 0/2 Combined 0/6 In 2020 4/10 teams again didn’t make the playoffs (LAC, CAR, CIN, NYG) 0/4 this year You’ve got 16 top 10 drafts and they’ve made the playoffs 9 times out of 36 possible chances? 25% of the time they’re making the playoffs and this is favoring good teams? You really don’t think I sat down and read all of that BEFORE I put all of this together? That’s how I knew exactly where to find everything that eradicated your statement that “It’s not supposed to be used like this.”

He talks about using it in the exact context you’re saying it’s not supposed to be used. “Essentially, AV is a substitute for --- and a significant improvement upon, in my opinion --- metrics like 'number of seasons as a starter' or 'number of times making the pro bowl' or the like. You should think of it as being essentially like those two metrics, but with interpolation in between. That is, 'number of seasons as a starter' is a reasonable starting point if you're trying to measure, say, how good a particular draft class is, or what kind of player you can expect to get with the #13 pick in the draft. But obviously some starters are better than others. Starters on good teams are, as a group, better than starters on bad teams. Starting WRs who had lots of receiving yards are, as a group, better than starting WRs who did not have many receiving yards. Starters who made the pro bowl are, as a group, better than starters who didn't, and so on. And non-starters aren't worthless, so they get some points too." I am also pretty confident you didn’t actually read what I wrote. I’m not doing anything based on a team’s AV average. It’s based on how much better a player has been graded via AV than the average player drafted in the same round as them nor does it say they’re good at drafting based on drafting one player. I think you’re really missing the point, sure they only have 3-4 impact guys since 2017... how many teams have drafted more than that? I’m going to go out an a limb and say not many, and if they have it’s only 1-2 more. And why wouldn’t a team be rewarded for getting value out of the draft? They’re not role players if they’re starting on a Playoff Caliber team... look at excerpt above. Starters on good teams, as a group are better than starters on bad teams. You’re dismissing the concept of finding role players, but other teams simply don’t do that well. You can’t take for granted the value of finding contributors. While I concede you need impact players, you cannot expect to get them with every pick. The better you do finding contributors in the draft, the more options you have as an organization. Accumulating a lot productive talent with no non-productive talent is better than accumulating some productive talent and some non-productive talent. That’s unbelievably common in professional scouting... just because a player is getting playing time on a bad team and putting up numbers doesn’t mean he should be rewarded greater than a player on a good team who is facing challenges for touches but is still producing at a high level. The player producing moderately on a great team is more valuable than the player producing well as the only option on a bad team. There are only so many touches to go around. The final point is that a gave a point of caution to the small sample size and how drafts that the 2017 draft is a much more accurate reflection of the value than 2020, as the 2020 draft is really just a snapshot in time at this moment. EDIT: More Excerpts Which teams have done the best jobs of drafting? To answer this, we'd need a tool that measures value across positions. Likewise, this post about how teams are built could be made more accurate. Instead of simply counting a starter as a starter, we could weight the more important starters more heavily, and we could include the non-starters as well. In other words, instead of saying things like "Team X got 4 of its 22 starters in the first round", we could say more meaningful things like, "Team X got 31% of its contributions from first round picks." The value approximation method is a tool that is used to make judgements not about individual seasons, but about groups of seasons. The key word is approximation, as this is the one tool in our assortment which makes no attempt to measure anything precisely. The purpose of the value approximation method is to render things large and obvious in a mathemtatical statement, and thus capapble of being put to use so as to reach other conclusions. Win shares is a top-down approach which starts with the number of games a team won, and then attempts to assign credit to players, proportionally based on their statistics. It’s not identical to win shares, but it uses the same methodology.

Thanks, this is very well thought out. Related to your second step, I did find a measure of determining a player's contribution irrespective of draft position. I did use Pro Football Reference's Approximate Value metric in order to create this. I don't mean to be rude, but you told me you fully understood everything that was laid out in this analysis, but you didn't know that I used AV? What I did was found the average value of a player drafted in each round (I'm toying with switching to median for several reasons). The average value won't be the same each draft, because teams are only selecting from a limited pool of players. What I am trying to do is to see how GMs perform against other GMs in extracting value from the round compared to their peers. After I found the average value of 1st round pick, 2nd round pick, 3rd round pick, etc. I subtracted the player's AV from the average value of a player picked in that round to determine the TOT_NETAV. This is how much better that player was than the average player picked in the same round as them in their draft class. The Chiefs netted positive value from all their picks, outside of their 3rd rounder who opted out, because he was drafted high and didn't contribute, it penalized the Chiefs pretty significantly. Had he just been Net 0 the Chiefs draft class would have graded out better than Buffalo. It's likely over time, with more data (which makes things more stable) things will lean towards the Chiefs. I do like the idea of using the draft trade points, but if I am not mistaking those points are based on all-time draft value. I don't necessarily think that fits what I am trying to do, because I believe each draft is its own world. I may try and find a way to incorporate it, and it's something that crossed my mind but I couldn't determine the best way. My issue is the talent level varies, so GMs shouldn't be penalized for drafting an average player in a weak draft, when compared to their peers selections in that same draft, they actually found more value with their picks. Basically each year, GMs can only work with and select the talent made available to them in the draft, historical value of those picks isn't necessarily predictive of what players in a given draft class will do. I can definitely do something with UDFA the more I think about it, it's just harder for me to accumulate the information that I need to. I will have to do most of it by hand.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree. You’re sharp man, it was good going back and forth with you and I did pick some things up. I think it’s unfair you’re throwing this out because it does a good job with more data. I said this year wasn’t very stable because the sample size is small. I would still love some suggestions on how to fix this so it’s not stupid.

I used touches for a reason. It’s ok man, you don’t understand how numbers work. If you decided to try and learn rather than push back, it would likely benefit you. Takes names out of it. You’re telling me every GM in the league would rather have 217 touches 1,100 yards and 5 TDs over 162 touches 1,175 yards and 12 TDs? I’m taking SUBJECTIVE concepts out of this here and looking at things OBJECTIVELY. It has nothing to do with how Bass compares to a kicker... it has to do with how he compares to the value in the board when the team picks in that round. It’s how well the GM does given the value available at that pick. You’re rewarded or penalized. Now you’re using draft pick points? Come on man. Pick 86 and 128 cost 204 points and pick 32 cost 590. Who got more value for their production?

Yes, Epenesa was clearly out performed by Danna and the Chiefs were rewarded for that. I don’t understand why you keep bringing up postseason stats, it’s a limited sample size. It’s important in the entire scope of things, but in predicting things you can’t just go off of one game. Nobody in sports analytics incorporates playoff data into anything because it’s so limited. Saying that because CEH’s team has gone further in the playoffs, therefore that makes him a better player is... flawed. It’s like saying Tremaine Edmunds is a better linebacker than Darius Leonard because Tremaine’s team went further and he was a starter. Once again, I’m not valuing rookie classes in valuing draft classes. If you would like to present a way to evaluate UDFA or a better way to evaluate draft classes, be my guest. You’re still failing to do so, while yelling about yards, sacks, touchdowns and whatever else. The ironic part, is that those numbers are used to calculate Approximate Value. If you give Zack Moss the same amount of touches as CEH, he produces nearly the same. If Moss touches the ball 217 times he puts up 1000 yards and 9 touchdowns to CEH touching the ball 217 times with 1100 yards and 5 touchdowns. It’s as much about opportunity as it is performance. Buffalo got more yards and touchdowns on less touches for a 3rd and 4th round round pick than KC got for their 1st round pick. It’s not a nebulous concept. It’s a concept used in finance, it’s used in baseball (See MoneyBall) as well as various other places. Just answer this question... You can spend a 1st round pick and you receive the following... 217 touches, 1,100 yards and 5 TDs or You can spend a 3rd round pick and a 4th round pick and receive the following... 162 touches, 1,175 yards and 12 TDs Which would you rather have? What’s a better bang for your buck? It’s the exact same concept Billy Beane used when replacing Jason Giambi.

@MAJBobbyI hate that the season is over, but this series you do is outstanding. I genuinely look forward to reading your breakdown. It’s very well thought out and insightful. Amazing contribution.

Yeah, maybe I can phrase what I’m looking at here better. I totally agree with you, but I’m more concerned with how they’re evaluating and selecting college talent and getting value from it than I am with what they’re getting from trades for professional talent. In my mind they’re kind of two different processes with different kinds of information available to you.

It does not. It only includes the value extracted with the picks you use to draft a player.

I’m differentiating between draft class and UDFA because this is strictly looking at draft classes, so UDFA are irrelevant. I’m just looking at the draft class, that’s why I differentiated between the two. You’re talking about Townsend holding kicks and Wharton, I’m telling you they’re not included in this. I haven't spent the time to put it together and figure out the best way to lay everything out for UDFA. It’s not saying he’s a more productive pick, it’s saying they got surplus value from Milano in RD5 as compared to White in RD1. It’s not showing you production, it’s showing you value extracted from each round. I’m not sure what’s hard for you to understand about that. We’ve been going back and forth all day and you still haven’t taken the time to understand what you’re looking at, you continuously misquote what it’s showing you. I find it hard to believe you’re a dumb person, at this point I’m starting to believe your ignorance is intentional to rile me up. I’ve asked you politely multiple times to show me a better way to do it, or even provide feedback on how to improve. I’ve said many times it’s not perfect, but you’re behaving as if it’s wildly off base because you’re a Chiefs fan. I’m here trying to be productive and respectful, but you’re just being rude. Let me try and explain a different way one more time. Clyde Edwards-Helaire had a great season, everything you stated is absolutely true. The reason his surplus value isn't very high, is because of the draft pick that the Chiefs spent on him. It doesn't mean that he was less valuable than anybody, it just means that there was only a certain amount of value extracted from him because his production was only slightly above average for a 1st round pick. I'm not saying he's not a better player or didn't produce more than Gabe Davis. I'm saying the Bills got a better bang for their buck drafting Davis in RD4 and getting the production they did out of him than the Chiefs got drafting CEH in RD1. While production is factored in, so is the expectation that comes with where the player is drafted. Moss was drafted about a round and a half later than CEH. No, he didn't produce like CEH did. He had less yards and the same amount of TD in the same number of games his Y/A was about the same and his Y/R was about 1 yard less. Nobody would argue that Moss was more valuable than CEH this year. All this is saying is the Bills got more value getting the type of production they did out of Moss by taking him in RD3 than the Chiefs did by taking CEH in RD1. They're almost equal in terms of surplus value, it's basically negligible. If the Chiefs were to have taken Moss in RD1 and gotten the production out of him that the Bills did this year, they would have extracted negative value because he didn't live up to 1st round value. Heck, if they took Gabe Davis there and got the same production from him that Buffalo did they would have been penalized as well. It's not trying to tell you that it would have been better for KC to take Moss or Davis in RD1, it's just saying the Bills got a better value taking Moss in RD3 or Davis in RD4. It incorporates production AND where they player is drafted. Davis and Moss aren't more valuable if they're drafted earlier, CEH is EVEN MORE valuable if he some how slips and gets drafted later. Say the Bills take Epenesa in RD3 as opposed to RD2, they would still have gotten penalized for the selection because he wasn't very productive. But the penalization would be less severe because he performed closer to the level expected from a 3rd round pick than the level of a 2nd round pick. The last thing I want to point out is it's not really fair to compare Buffalo's draft class to KC's draft class just using yards, sacks, INTs and what not. You're using rookie class as your line of demarcation which is fine if that's how you're going to break it down for your purposes, but KC had 5 defensive rookies compared to Buffalo's 2 defensive rookies. So yes they had 8.5 sacks and 3 Ints to Buffalo's 1 sack and 1 Int, but you have more players to out there playing and producing than Buffalo does. It would be better to look at that all on a per snap basis or per game basis. Just like comparing CEH total yards to Buffalo's rookie class is tough to do. KC had 1 offensive rookie and BUF had 2. Yes, he had 1,100 yards of total offense on 217 touches and 5 TDs compared to Davis and Moss who had 1,175 on 162 touches and 12 TDs. That's more value out of one player, he also out touched them by 55 touches. Volume and opportunity matters, so again it would probably be better to look at these numbers on a per snap basis or per game basis. Again, as it's laid out above, all I am showing you is the value extracted. Nobody is saying Moss is more valuable than CEH, he would have been a bad pick at 32. His production was just good value for Buffalo in RD3.

My gut tells me the guy who stood on the field crying while talking to his QB and then was on the field watching the other team celebrate and didn't leave until his HC came out to console him and bring him into the locker is more concerned about being a great teammate and winning, rather than the biggest pay day. Instead of realizing that, we have people claiming he was grandstanding and making it about himself... now on top of that he's going to hold out for a new deal after we already gave him more money up front?

So instead of a metric that takes into account an entire season’s worth of performance, you’re going to focus on the performance from one game to make a determination? The metric isn’t stagnant either, as time goes on it will change as player perform, but as of right now it shows that Buffalo got more contribution from their draft class in 2020 than KC over the 16 game regular season. I made it clear early on that 2020 was pretty unstable and shouldn’t be looked at too heavily, I only included it because someone asked for it. The drafts with multiple years are much more reliable, you’re hyper focused on this year and throwing out that it does a pretty good job with previous years drafts. You’re also listing two players for the Chiefs that they didn’t draft this year... Wharton and Townsend were UDFA. I’m not debating that CEH, Gay, Sneed and Danna were contributors, but I can probably tell you why at the moment it liked the Bills draft class just slightly more. In just raw AV for the season the Chiefs class came in at 18 and the Bills draft class came in at 15, but when I did this initial analysis a month ago it became very apparent it wasn’t the most accurate way to see how much value you extracted from a player, I felt the best way was to compare AV to the value of a pick in the round the player was drafted. Admittedly it’s not perfect, and I want to continue to improve things when I have the time. CEH has a very good season. He finished with 8 AV and netted the Chiefs positive value in the round at 2.1 It looks like Gay was a rotational piece/hurt for a majority of the year. He needed the Chiefs positive value at 0.2 but because he rarely played more than 20% of the snaps he wasn’t able to do enough to be valued as a major contributor. Niang was net -2.4 net value because he didn’t contribute this year at all. Not getting any value from a 3rd round pick hurts. This obviously changes long term. Sneed was netted then positive value at 1.6... it looks like he REALLY started coming in at the end of the season after coming back from an injury in the second half of the season. AV can only account for the games he played, so the longer he plays and makes an impact, the more likely it is that he’s accurately reflected here. Danna netted them positive value at 0.8 it seems like he was just a rotational piece but did make some plays so he gets them positive value because it’s more than a 5th round pick was expected to do. Last pick was Keyes and he netted them 0.3 in positive value. Seems like he was up and down off the PS all year and got a nod for playing fairly well against the Chargers in week 17. That’s have you arrive at the +2.6 TOT_NETAV for the Chiefs in 2020. Like I said, it’s not perfect and will undoubtedly change the more this draft class changes. That’s why this year is pretty unstable, but right now it reflects what the team gained over the course of 16 games. The Bills draft class breaks down like this... Epenesa was negative value for the Bills in round 2 at -1.8 He didn't do enough this year as a rotational piece and his performance at this point wasn't worthy of a RD2 pick. Moss was positive value for the Bills in RD3 at 2.6 He was a solid contributor and have 5 AV on the season, his production wasn't quite that of CEH but in 13 games he put up decent numbers with 576 total yards and 5 TDs for the Bills. Although CEH had the better season and that was reflected, this takes into account draft position and the Bills get decent value here for taking a RB with half the production 2 rounds later than CEH. Gabe Davis was pretty big in RD4 with 4.6 net value. 35/600/7 from a 4th round pick is pretty good value here, so the Bills are rewarded for that. Jake Fromm in RD5 dings the Bills -1.2 for obvious reasons Tyler Bass gets them 1.6 in positive value in RD6 4th highest scorer in the league, gives them modest value here. Isaiah Hodgins in RD6 dings them -1.4 in RD6 because he didn't play Dane Jackson in RD7 gets them 0.3... very similar situation as Keyes. Up and down but got a little reward for slight contributions. That is how you arrive at the Bills 4.8 TOT_NETAV. The further you can go back it does a good job of reflecting value in 2017 and 2018. It’s not stagnant.