Bill Walsh's Draftisms

[BobChalmers]

My point about a player being a bust (the part of my text you put in bold)

 

I believe I highlighted where you said NFL front offices don't think about a pick being a "reach". There was nothing there about being a "bust". That's an entirely different matter.

 

It's just not a term that's used like all the draftniks use it.

 

They wouldn't have 'reached' for Stallworth if they took him instead of Swann in the first round, either, as it turned out. "As it turned out." Past tense and hindsight. Nobody has that luxury BEFORE a selection is made. It also helps to get lucky. Seriously, how many times has one team's rookie class produced four HOFers? Those Steelers are the exception that never proves the rule.

 

"Reaching" is taking someone earlier than they should be taken - for whatever reason. Picking for need instead of BPA is not reaching, and not always a mistake - you only want so many guys at a position, and if you can't get them playing time, you can't even get good trade value for your BPA stockpiling.

 

 

I'll summarize the point I was getting at more precisely (I hope) this time:

 

- The 74' Steelers thought Stallworth was better than Swann

- and yet they took Swann first

+++ because they believed (correctly) noone else knew about Stallworth and he would still be there much later

+++ therefore it would have been a reach (and a waste of their first round pick) if they had taken him three rounds before they had to

- IE, the Steelers brilliantly took their 2nd favorite player first, entirely because they were playing the draft metagame

- and therefore they were able to get them both!!

- they would NOT have gotten both if they took Stallworth first

+++ because Swann played for USC and was a widely known talent - he was going to be gone in the first

- Their draft would have been significantly worse if they had taken Stallworth (the guy they thought was the better player) in the first round

 

This is the perfect example of the "game within the game" that is the draft.

 

Disputing that this metagame exists doesn't make it so - it just means one is burying your head in the sand and is essentially admitting one doesn't want to win.

 

 

Walsh's argument Lombardi was quoting mocked this method of doing business.

 

I say Steelers f/o >>> Bill Walsh.

 

The Steelers didn't just get lucky - they were smart and played the odds on what inside info they had.

 

 

"Those Steelers are the exception that never proves the rule."

 

No, those Steelers were an extreme (and therefore easy to see) example that illustrates a reality that is often more subtle, but still there nonetheless.

 

 

Bill Walsh (if we are to believe Lombardi) apparently relied solely on luck for the right players to be there when it was his turn. You can get lucky enough for that to happen too - just like you can get lucky and win the lottery - but please don't confuse that with being smart - it's not.

 

(as an aside, Bill Walsh was also the WORST color commentator ever allowed on a network broadcast.)

Edited April 22, 2012 by BobChalmers

[K-9]

I believe I highlighted where you said NFL front offices don't think about a pick being a "reach". There was nothing there about being a "bust". That's an entirely different matter.

 

This is what you highligted and why I thought you were referring to my comment about busts:

 

Players will rise and fall, make it or bust. And NONE of that will have depended on his 'value', position, or round selected.

 

 

"Reaching" is taking someone earlier than they should be taken - for whatever reason.

 

Not in the parlance of NFL front offices. Definitely in the views of draftniks and laymen leading up to the draft and in the hindsight analysis of draft picks after they've been in the league long enough to determine their ability. Again, in my experience I've only heard the term 'reach' used by NFL personnel people in terms of picking a lower rated player to fill a need vs. a higher rated player on the board. I've never heard it used like Kiper, etc. use it.

 

Picking for need instead of BPA is not reaching, and not always a mistake - you only want so many guys at a position, and if you can't get them playing time, you can't even get good trade value for your BPA stockpiling.

 

Picking for need is often reaching, especially when there are better players available at other positions. Also, contrary to the thoughts of many, picking for need is rarely done early in the first round. Specific needs used to be addressed after the first but, with the advent of FAgency, teams can often fill need positions before the draft, so we are seeing more teams stick to BPA even after the first round. Of course picking for need is not ALWAYS a mistake, just like picking BPA isn't ALWAYS the best thing, either. It's just that better football players are found earlier in the draft and most of the time for most teams those best players don't equate to need positions when it's time to make their pick. Taking better football players is just a higher percentage play. I often use the term, "playmaker is always a position of need" but I didn't make it up. I first heard that in 1978 from Ray Prochaska. It made a lot of sense then and it makes sense now.

 

I agree that picking for need isn't always a mistake. Just most of the time. BPA assures a quality football player. Again, most of the time.

 

As for the argument of "only wanting so many guys at a position" I would only say you want as many good football players at as many positions as possible. Roster turnover and attrition has a way of taking care of the numbers game on it's own. It's a problem any GM would love to have. I'm not sure projecting future trade value of BPsA has any bearing on anything in this discussion. Trade value is predicated on many factors. I'll just leave it at that.

 

So you basically read almost nothing I wrote. I'll summarize with bullets this time:

 

- The 74' Steelers thought Stallworth was better than Swann

- and yet they took Swann first

+++ because they believed (correctly) noone else knew about Stallworth and he would still be there much later

+++ therefore it would have been a reach (and a waste of their first round pick) if they had taken him three rounds before they had to

- IE, the Steelers brilliantly took their 2nd favorite player first, entirely because they were playing the draft metagame

- and therefore they were able to get them both!!

- they would NOT have gotten both if they took Stallworth first

+++ because Swann played for USC and was a widely known talent - he was going to be gone in the first

- Their draft would have been significantly worse if they had taken Stallworth in the first round

 

No, I got it the first time. I've got a call in to a friend and former colleague and I'm interested to get his take on this. In the meantime I'll say that yeah, their draft would have been significantly worse if it only yielded 3 HOFers instead of four. I say that tongue in cheek because I feel there's a chance that neither Swann or Stallworth would have reached their heights without the other. Let me refrain from further comment until I get some feedback from my friend about that NFL Network show about the '74 Steelers draft. The more I thought about that, the more it didn't smell right.

 

This is the perfect example of the "game within the game" that is the draft.

 

Disputing that this metagame exists doesn't make it so - it just means you're burying your head in the sandd and is essentially admitting you don't want to win.

 

I don't dispute that gamesmanship is part of the draft. Not at all. The weeks leading up to the draft are the epitome of gamesmanship. The only thing I've disputed in this thread is the idea that:

 

1.) Teams rank players according to positions played. They don't.

2.) Teams don't value BPA more than meeting specific positional need in the first round. They do.

3.) Teams use the term "reach" the same way that draftniks and other laymen do. They don't.

 

Walsh's argument Lombardi was quoting mocked this method of doing business.

 

I say Steelers f/o >>> Bill Walsh.

 

The Steelers didn't just get lucky - they were smart and played the odds on what inside info they had.

 

Bill Walsh relied solely on luck for the right players to be there. You can get lucky enough for that to happen too - just like you can get lucky and win the lottery - but please don't confuse that with being smart - it's not.

 

Bill Walsh was also the WORST color commentator ever allowed on a network broadcast, btw.

 

I didn't bother reading the linked article but I'll take your word for it. I think Walsh was a great tactician and a schematic genius. I'm not sure his personnel decisions were entirely luck. Some are. Some aren't. For all teams. The 49ers were certainly fortunate to have HOF QBing for over twenty years, that's for sure. I don't think he was a great GM but he made his fair share of wise personnel moves. And he never should have become a game analyst.

 

GO BILLS

[JinWPB]

To much of something. After multiple years of scouting,prodding and measuring it come down to one question every round of the draft; of the remaining players which one the GM thinks( knowing team needs and using the talent evaluation he has) will improve the overall team the most. And yes it is somewhat arbitrary because they are dealing with people not commodities.

 

Now that might be a RB like CJ or a Kicker like Sebastian Janikowski , or it could be a WR like Andre Reed or a QB like Tom Brady.

[Ramius]

I believe I highlighted where you said NFL front offices don't think about a pick being a "reach". There was nothing there about being a "bust". That's an entirely different matter.

 

 

 

"Reaching" is taking someone earlier than they should be taken - for whatever reason. Picking for need instead of BPA is not reaching, and not always a mistake - you only want so many guys at a position, and if you can't get them playing time, you can't even get good trade value for your BPA stockpiling.

 

Reach has absolutely no meaning in the real context of the NFL draft. "Reach" implies a player had a lower value then where drafted. But who determined that value? Kiper? Draftniks? Mock drafters? They're all wrong. NFL teams are correct. The only assessment that matters is what the NFL decides. If a player is drafted at #8, and kiper says the player should have been drafted at 20, then the team did not "reach." It means Kiper was wrong in his assessment.

[BobChalmers]

Reach has absolutely no meaning in the real context of the NFL draft. "Reach" implies a player had a lower value then where drafted. But who determined that value? Kiper? Draftniks? Mock drafters? They're all wrong. NFL teams are correct. The only assessment that matters is what the NFL decides. If a player is drafted at #8, and kiper says the player should have been drafted at 20, then the team did not "reach." It means Kiper was wrong in his assessment.

 

Sigh. Who said anything about Kiper, etc.?

 

The OTHER 31 teams decide what a reach is, and yes, it has a perfectly logical meaning in that context.

 

If one team goes nuts and takes someone none of the other teams was targeting yet, THEY SCREWED UP!

 

It doesn't matter if the guy goes to 20 straight pro bowls on both offense and defense - the draft isn't about getting the best one guy in the first round, so you can't be grabbing a guy 3 rounds too early and wasting the opportunity to get the other guys your competitors were going to take.

 

If the 2000 Bears take Tom Brady in the 1st round instead of Urlacher, that would have been a mistake. We KNOW they should have waited until the 5th round - yes, we only know that in hindsight, but on the other hand, in hindsight, WE DO KNOW IT. Taking Brady anywhere before the 5th (or 6th if you go before the Pats) would have been a waste of a high draft pick. That's not a question anymore - WE KNOW IT CONCLUSIVELY.

 

Yes, of course it's very hard to know in advance, and impossible to know for sure, but the smart teams do the best they can to play the odds and use their best scouting of the other teams' plans.

 

The dumb teams pretend it doesn't matter and just take who they think the best guy is.

 

 

Since you raised the "draftniks" such as Kiper, etc. I'll point out that they are merely doing independently the same intelligence gathering and research that the 32 teams are, and offering their best guess to the public on how picks are lining up with where the majority of the teams expect they will go.

Edited April 23, 2012 by BobChalmers

[Wayne Cubed]

Sigh. Who said anything about Kiper, etc.?

 

The OTHER 31 teams decide what a reach is, and yes, it has a perfectly logical meaning in that context.

 

If one team goes nuts and takes someone none of the other teams was targeting yet, THEY SCREWED UP!

 

It doesn't matter if the guy goes to 20 straight pro bowls on both offense and defense - the draft isn't about getting the best one guy in the first round, so you can't be grabbing a guy 3 rounds too early and wasting the opportunity to get the other guys your competitors were going to take.

 

If the 2000 Bears take Tom Brady in the 1st round instead of Urlacher, that would have been a mistake. We KNOW they should have waited until the 5th round - yes, we only know that in hindsight, but on the other hand, in hindsight, WE DO KNOW IT. Taking Brady anywhere before the 5th (or 6th if you go before the Pats) would have been a waste of a high draft pick. That's not a question anymore - WE KNOW IT CONCLUSIVELY.

 

Yes, of course it's very hard to know in advance, and impossible to know for sure, but the smart teams do the best they can to play the odds and use their best scouting of the other teams' plans.

 

The dumb teams pretend it doesn't matter and just take who they think the best guy is.

 

 

Since you raised the "draftniks" such as Kiper, etc. I'll point out that they are merely doing independently the same intelligence gathering and research that the 32 teams are, and offering their best guess to the public on how picks are lining up with where the majority of the teams expect they will go.

 

Seeing as you are using the Bears as an example, why is it we know that they shouldn't have taken him higher than round 5? I know you keep using Urlacher as an example and thats all well and good but why couldnt the Bears have taken Brady in Round 3 instead of Dez White? It may have looked like a reach to draft pundits at the time, but in hindsight they would have looked like genius's drafting a hall of fame lock QB in round 3. Instead they drafted a WR who was off their team in 3 years and out of the league in 5. Thats the thing about hindsight...

 

In the end, I agree with you when you say it comes down to the other 31 teams and where they have players rated. The problem I have is the teams never release where they have a player ranked on their boards, and for good reason. So in the end, we as fans, have no idea and can only speculate about the true "value" of a player in terms of where they were drafted.

[Orton's Arm]

I've always felt that where a player is taken in the draft should roughly correspond with his achievements in college, his performance at the combine, how well his physical and mental attributes project to the NFL, and other factors. For someone using this definition, "reaching" consists of taking a player at a much earlier point in the draft than his college play and other factors would warrant.

 

Obviously, there are different methods by which players can be evaluated. For example, the Bills thought of Trent Edwards as a first round talent, whereas the other teams in the league were content to let him "fall" to round 3.

 

How do you know whose player evaluation techniques are the best? Judge by results, because nothing else matters. By analyzing results, one can compare draft analysts both against each other and against NFL GMs. The GMs and draft analysts with the best past track records will generally produce the most accurate future predictions. A "more accurate than average" player evaluation technique will still result in some misses, just as a "less accurate than average" technique will still result in some successes.

 

When someone diverges from the conventional wisdom--be that the conventional wisdom of draft pundits or the conventional wisdom of the majority of NFL GMs--one should not automatically conclude that the person diverging is wrong. It's possible that the analyst or GM in question has developed a new player evaluation technique, and that this technique is at least as good as the techniques being used by those who create conventional wisdom. Then again, it's also possible that the person who drifted away from the pack had no idea what he was doing. This form of uncertainty can be resolved with the benefit of hindsight.

 

The best draft analysts have better track records than the worst NFL GMs. What's the good of a sophisticated player evaluation technique if the results it produces consist of Whitner, McCargo, and Lynch? Marv did not have a single success story not named Kyle Williams. All his free agent signings were bad, including Peerless Price, Melvin Fowler, Tuten Reyes, Robert Royal, the backup DT we signed from the Colts for starter money, Greg Jerman, Derrick Dockery, etc. His head coaching hire was a mistake. His first, second, and third round picks were all busts. He didn't get anything from the later rounds either, except of course for Kyle Williams. I'm confident that if you were to give a reasonably good draft analyst two years' worth of draft picks, including two picks in the top-12, that this analyst would probably achieve more in those two years than just Kyle Williams.

[BobChalmers]

Seeing as you are using the Bears as an example, why is it we know that they shouldn't have taken him higher than round 5? I know you keep using Urlacher as an example and thats all well and good but why couldnt the Bears have taken Brady in Round 3 instead of Dez White? It may have looked like a reach to draft pundits at the time, but in hindsight they would have looked like genius's drafting a hall of fame lock QB in round 3. Instead they drafted a WR who was off their team in 3 years and out of the league in 5. Thats the thing about hindsight...

 

Because we know for a fact (now) that no other team was going to take Brady before the Patriots actually did in round 6. It's really that simple - in hindsight. It means until they had to take Brady in te 5th, they would have been wise (again, it takes omniscience to do it that well) to take anyone else they wanted first while they still could.

 

If Dez White was a wasted pick in round 3, that's an entirely unrelated matter that just means they needed better scouting, understanding that it's an imperfect science. The point is, you can get a damned good player in round three - if you knew someone was going to be around until 6, it would be stupid to take them in round 3 instead of someone else you liked who won't last.

 

I'm not saying anyone (except the '74 Steelers, possibly) can have that kind of foresight - I'm just saying it's an illustration of how you can benefit your team by applying what foreknowledge you have to waiting until the right moment (as late as you possibly can) to get your guys.

 

(I keep using the Bears because Brady is a famous late round future HoF player, and Urlacher is the most obvious probably HoF player from the first round that same draft.)

Edited April 23, 2012 by BobChalmers

[Cash]

Claiming JPP was the BPA is nothing more than disingenuous hindsight at its finest. Spiller was one of the top talents in the 2010 draft. JPP on the other hand, was a one-year wonder from a low class (football wise) school in a bad conference. He was far from the clear cut BPA, even when the Giants picked him. Yes, he has worked out greatly for them, but that doesn't change how he was viewed coming out of college.

Well, yeah, of course it's hindsight. BPA stands for "Best Player Available." As it turns out, the best player available was Jason Pierre-Paul. They don't give out trophies for most pre-season Super Bowl predictions, they give out a trophy for actually winning the Super Bowl. After the fact. Similarly, drafts should not be judged on "good idea at the time" criteria, but by how those players actually turned out. Using hindsight. Hindsight is how we tell what actually happened, who won and who lost, and whose draft board was good and whose was bad. Two years after the fact, you don't get to say a guy was the best available if a guy was picked soon after him and turned out better. And by the way, it's not like there was a clear consensus at the time that Spiller was the best player available at #9. The Bills said so after they picked him, because duh, of course that's what they're going to say. But nobody had Spiller going earlier than #9, and plenty of people said it was a bad pick at the time, for very specific reasons that were proven completely correct. That's an example of foresight and hindsight agreeing.

 

Central in the dynamic of that amazing draft that netted the Steelers 4 HoF's in a single rookie group, was the scouts talking Art Rooney out of taking John Stallworth in the first round. Incredibly, they took a different player at the same position - WR Lynn Swann over Stallworth - NOT because they thought Swann was better, but because they knew they had better intel on Stallworth than any other team in the league, and they knew he wouldn't go early.

Very cool example! I've bolded the key aspect of it: The Steelers were confident enough to "know" that they had better intel on Stallworth than anyone else. Reminds me of the Bills with Jasper last year. They knew no one else had scouted him, so they could wait for their last pick to pick him. In fact, they were so confident in their intel advantage, they would've signed him as an UDFA instead of drafting him, but with the impending lockout, they couldn't sign him until it was over, and someone else could find out about him in the meantime. More on this below.

 

If the 2000 Bears take Tom Brady in the 1st round instead of Urlacher, that would have been a mistake. We KNOW they should have waited until the 5th round - yes, we only know that in hindsight, but on the other hand, in hindsight, WE DO KNOW IT. Taking Brady anywhere before the 5th (or 6th if you go before the Pats) would have been a waste of a high draft pick. That's not a question anymore - WE KNOW IT CONCLUSIVELY.

 

Yes, of course it's very hard to know in advance, and impossible to know for sure, but the smart teams do the best they can to play the odds and use their best scouting of the other teams' plans.

 

Because we know for a fact (now) that no other team was going to take Brady before the Patriots actually did in round 6. It's really that simple - in hindsight. It means until they had to take Brady in te 5th, they would have been wise (again, it takes omniscience to do it that well) to take anyone else they wanted first while they still could.

Yes, this is technically true, and I kind of agree with your broader point to an extent, but here's the rub: Brady wasn't actually a good prospect. By all accounts, he got so PO'ed at being drafted so late that he took it personally and worked extremely hard to get way better, and improved greatly after he was drafted. Also by all accounts, the Patriots had no idea how good he could be when they drafted him. (I recently read a really good article on the Patriots' side of things, but couldn't find the link. Sorry.) Now, once they got him into camp, they liked him a lot, so good job by the Patriots there. But the point is that unlike the Stallworth situation, the Pats didn't have superior intel to anyone else. And in fact, couldn't have had superior intel, because the Tom Brady that was available on draft day wasn't that good of a prospect compared to the Tom Brady that came into training camp after being drafted 199th overall.

 

But let's say for the sake of argument that the Pats had known at the time how good Brady would be. I submit that there's no way they still would've waited until the 6th round to take him. Why? Because it's not the 70's anymore. You can't be sure you've got better intel than everyone else. During the draft, you can't "KNOW IT CONCLUSIVELY." You have to balance your confidence level that no one else has your intel against the risk of missing out on this prospect. If just one other team has even half the information you have, they'll probably take him by the 4th or 5th round. (Not to mention that, since Brady went to Michigan, every team had a pretty extensive scouting report on him anyway. But for the sake of the debate, let's pretend it was Eastern Michigan.) In the case of a future HOF QB like Brady, the risk is so high that you'll probably take him by the 3rd or 4th round even if you're 99% confident that you're the only one who knows how good he'll be.

 

In the case of Jasper, the Bills were very confident, because he went to Bethel, and they probably heard from the coaches that no other NFL scouts had visited them. That's not a guarantee, but it makes it pretty likely that you're the only one whose scouted him. And their risk was very low, because even with a full scouting report, Jasper still wasn't that great a prospect. Needed to lose a ton of weight, learn how to play football at an NFL level, etc. It's no surprise that he spent most of last year on the practice squad and hasn't been mentioned at all in offseason interviews with Gailey and Nix. He could still develop into a real nice player, but we knew when he was drafted that any impact he made would be a long ways off, and not in any way guaranteed. But if Jasper had been a guy who could come in and start right away, I doubt the Bills would've waited till the end of the 7th round to draft him.

 

If Stallworth was available in this year's draft, he would probably go in the first or second round. Okay, that's pure conjecture on my part, and kind of BS, but hear me out. I say that either 1.) enough teams would have a solid scouting report on him that he gets into the zeitgeist as a premiere prospect, shows up in all the mock drafts, and winds up being drafted high based on his ability, or 2.) the Steelers still managed to have the best intel on him, but with the prevalence of modern scouting, they would be worried that someone else has found out about him, and wouldn't be able to last beyond the 2nd round before pulling the trigger. NFL coaches tend to be extremely risk-averse with their on-field decisions, and I suppose that they're pretty risk-averse when it comes to losing out on a great prospect as well. I don't know this for a fact, but I think it's probably true.

Edited April 23, 2012 by Cash

[Ramius]

Well, yeah, of course it's hindsight. BPA stands for "Best Player Available." As it turns out, the best player available was Jason Pierre-Paul. They don't give out trophies for most pre-season Super Bowl predictions, they give out a trophy for actually winning the Super Bowl. After the fact. Similarly, drafts should not be judged on "good idea at the time" criteria, but by how those players actually turned out. Using hindsight. Hindsight is how we tell what actually happened, who won and who lost, and whose draft board was good and whose was bad. Two years after the fact, you don't get to say a guy was the best available if a guy was picked soon after him and turned out better. And by the way, it's not like there was a clear consensus at the time that Spiller was the best player available at #9. The Bills said so after they picked him, because duh, of course that's what they're going to say. But nobody had Spiller going earlier than #9, and plenty of people said it was a bad pick at the time, for very specific reasons that were proven completely correct. That's an example of foresight and hindsight agreeing.

 

 

Yawn. Please let me know when NFL teams get the benefit of 2 years of hindsight when making their current draft selections.

 

plain and simple, in the spring of 2010, JPP was not the best player available, for the exact reasons i stated. Spiller was mentioned at that time as one of the most explosive playmakers available.

[Sisyphean Bills]

Because we know for a fact (now) that no other team was going to take Brady before the Patriots actually did in round 6. It's really that simple - in hindsight. It means until they had to take Brady in te 5th, they would have been wise (again, it takes omniscience to do it that well) to take anyone else they wanted first while they still could.

 

If Dez White was a wasted pick in round 3, that's an entirely unrelated matter that just means they needed better scouting, understanding that it's an imperfect science. The point is, you can get a damned good player in round three - if you knew someone was going to be around until 6, it would be stupid to take them in round 3 instead of someone else you liked who won't last.

 

I'm not saying anyone (except the '74 Steelers, possibly) can have that kind of foresight - I'm just saying it's an illustration of how you can benefit your team by applying what foreknowledge you have to waiting until the right moment (as late as you possibly can) to get your guys.

 

(I keep using the Bears because Brady is a famous late round future HoF player, and Urlacher is the most obvious probably HoF player from the first round that same draft.)

Another way of looking at it is that the draft can have more than 1 great player, not to mention that teams need more than 1 great player. A team should really want to collect as many great players as possible with the picks that they have. So passing on a great player that is (nearly) unanimously rated to be a great player to take a player that no one expects to be any good at all but turns out to be great would be a poor decision. (Obviously, no one knows ultimately what the outcomes will be, so you have to play with the incomplete information you have at the time. BTW, who says that Tom Brady would've been nearly as successful ultimately if he was drafted out of Michigan as a top 5 pick? A huge part of his self-proclaimed drive and motivation to succeed was directly the result of him being a 6th round pick and it being implied that no NFL team really expected him to be anything more than a clipboard carrier and scout team QB for a few seasons. As he admits, it really pissed him off.) To use a card analogy, the game isn't over after a single hand; the better card players know that and want to win more than the first hand. To be fair, some NFL teams don't really get this either (Hi, Matt Millen!) and choose to chase after "A Franchise Savior" as their annual draft strategy.

[K-9]

... Since you raised the "draftniks" such as Kiper, etc. I'll point out that they are merely doing independently the same intelligence gathering and research that the 32 teams are, and offering their best guess to the public on how picks are lining up with where the majority of the teams expect they will go.

 

Kiper, McShay, et al are not gathering information about prospects in the same way. Much of the intelligence gathering done by teams isn't very independent either for that matter. From the combine to national scouting, much of what the league does is on a collaborative basis. I think there are five teams that still don't belong to one, but the the rest of the league is affiliated with either the BLESTO or National scouting services. Each team assigns ONE scout to whichever scouting service they belong to. The information is freely shared, by agreement. The goal each year is to narrow it down from literally thousands of prospects to the top 300 or so. Teams save a TON of money as a result (that's why scouting cooperatives have been around since the 60s when Dallas, San Fran and one or two other teams I can't recall first got together). Saving money was and is the goal. Kiper and the rest of them simply don't have the time and resources required to scout thousands of prospects across the country every year. But that list of the top prospects is intentionally 'leaked' and becomes fodder for the draftnik community. The league loves it because it hypes the interest in an event that is nothing like it used to be, the draft. We all know it's been a muli-million dollar industry in it's own right for a long time now.

 

But it wasn't always that way and that gets me back to that '74 Steelers draft you mentioned. I heard back from my friend (he was a BLESTO scout in '74). He hadn't seen the show but he literally laughed at the idea that anyone thought Stallworth was as good as, let alone a better WR prospect, than Swann at the time. He also said there were scouts ready to cut their wrists when they saw how good he became. But what triggered in my memory was that at the time, some thought that the Steelers were pissed that Nat Moore was taken a few picks earlier. He remembered that too, but we both agree they may have been hoping for Stallworth all along and floating the Moore idea is what convinced Miami to take him first. We'll never know the real truth. And it doesn't matter. But I'm willing to say their staff was plain smarter than any other that year. He tips his hat to the Steelers' front office for selecting him whenever they did. He emphatically agreed, as do I, that the 1974 Steelers class is and always will be the best of all time. For ANY class to produce 5 HOFers is amazing in itself. But when one team gets 4 of them, it's like winning PowerBall. On a side note, he said that Mike Webster was the more remarkable steal in that draft and that the Steelers should get more credit for that than knowing Stallworth was going to be available.

 

He spoke fondly of Art Rooney but he also knew that Rooney had to be talked out of many players over the years. The Steelers were so bad for so long during his ownership, it's no wonder. It reminded me of Ralph Wilson being talked out of Doug Flutie in '85.

 

He also mentioned that many of the same people responsible for that amazing 1974 Steeler draft, had more than a few mediocre and poor drafts afterward. I told him that was his professional jealousy coming through. He agreed...kind of.

 

Anyway, this horse has been beaten to pulp.

 

Just remember, playmaker is ALWAYS a position of need.

 

GO BILLS!!!

[Orton's Arm]

A number of good points have been made in this thread. I agree with Cash that you don't want to draft a player in the first or second round if you know no one else will take him before the third. Cash has made some other good points as well.

 

But Ramius has a good point too: a team has to evaluate best player available on the basis of information available at the time. Based on that information, a number of analysts--not everyone, but a large number--felt that Spiller was the best player available when the Bills picked.

 

I'm not a big fan of using first round picks on RBs, as anyone who's read my posts may notice! But I wrote that if Spiller became the next Thurman Thomas, he'd justify ninth overall. By that I meant that Spiller isn't going to justify ninth overall by rushing alone: he also needs to make a Thurman-like contribution to the passing game. I'm encouraged by the flashes Spiller showed late last season, as well as by the fact that the Bills had sometimes lined him up at WR!

 

The fact that I've set the success threshold for a RB higher than I would have for, say, a LT, is deliberate. If a RB and LT are roughly equal as football players, a team should take the LT. Most teams "get" the concept of position value, which is why it is literally inconceivable that the Colts will choose DeCastro over Andrew Luck. And yet, there are those who would have us believe that all 32 NFL teams would choose DeCastro over Luck if they felt DeCastro will be slightly better at OG than Luck will be at QB. As a Bills fan, I would love it if the first nine teams in the draft were that stupid!

[K-9]

... The fact that I've set the success threshold for a RB higher than I would have for, say, a LT, is deliberate. If a RB and LT are roughly equal as football players, a team should take the LT. Most teams "get" the concept of position value, which is why it is literally inconceivable that the Colts will choose DeCastro over Andrew Luck. And yet, there are those who would have us believe that all 32 NFL teams would choose DeCastro over Luck if they felt DeCastro will be slightly better at OG than Luck will be at QB. As a Bills fan, I would love it if the first nine teams in the draft were that stupid!

 

Yeah, I'm sure I've been saying that teams should take DeCastro before Luck.

 

Nice try, Lenin.

 

Luck is the highest rated player in this draft. DeCastro, not so much.

 

You, on the other hand, would have us believe that the lowest rated QB is always better than the highest rated G.

 

As a Bills fan, I would love it if you were GM of the Patriots. You know, speaking of stupid and all.

 

But seeing as you admit to not watching any college football and yet can assign a made up formula on the spot to determine the expected career paths of four highly rated prospects you never even watched play in a game, let alone throughout their careers, why am I not surprised at this post, too?

 

GO BILLS!!!

Edited April 23, 2012 by K-9

[Cash]

And yet, there are those who would have us believe that all 32 NFL teams would choose DeCastro over Luck if they felt DeCastro will be slightly better at OG than Luck will be at QB.

 

You, on the other hand, would have us believe that the lowest rated QB is always better than the highest rated G.

And just when this thread got good again, this happens. No one believes either of these statements. These are strawmen. K-9 does not think that a really good QB should be passed over for a slightly better OG. Edwards' Arm does not think that the lowest rated QB is always better than the highest rated OG. Please stop this madness.

[Orton's Arm]

And just when this thread got good again, this happens. No one believes either of these statements. These are strawmen. K-9 does not think that a really good QB should be passed over for a slightly better OG. Edwards' Arm does not think that the lowest rated QB is always better than the highest rated OG. Please stop this madness.

If K-9 does not believe that position value should be taken into account when comparing DeCastro to Luck, he needs to be much clearer on that point. Suppose a team believes that DeCastro will become the best OG in the game, and that Luck will be a top-6 QB, but not a top-3 QB. What should a team do under those circumstances? Let's look at what K-9 has written about this point.

 

K-9

> But you won't see a tiered ranking system because player grades are assigned according to ABILITY, regardless of position.

 

Edward's Arm

> As I stated earlier, a top-15 LT is worth more than a Pro Bowl guard.

 

K-9

> What part about that hypothetical G being a hypothetically better FOOTBALL player than that hypothetical LT don't you understand?

 

K-9

> I've tried to explain that player ratings are not based on position. . . . Nobody

> gets bonus points because they play a more premium position.

 

If one accepts K-9's words at face value, the logical conclusion would be to take DeCastro ahead of Luck, if it was felt DeCastro would be the better football player.

 

I have no idea what might have been going through K-9's head when he wrote his posts. I based my responses on what he actually wrote, not on what he may or may not have intended to write. What he's actually written is that player grades alone should be the basis for deciding who to draft; and that "nobody gets bonus points because they play a more premium position." With these premises as his basis, the conclusion that one should take DeCastro over Luck is inescapable--at least assuming that Luck will be a top-6 QB and DeCastro the best OG in the league.

 

If K-9 does in fact feel a top-6 QB should be taken ahead of a league-best OG, then he needs to retract the above-quoted statements, and he needs to clarify the fact that he is taking position value into account. He also needs to state that NFL GMs also take position value into account, unless he would have us believe that most GMs would take a league-best OG over Andrew Luck. Unless or until he makes these clarifications and corrections, I will continue to base my posts on what he's actually written, not on whatever on earth he may have meant to write.

[K-9]

If K-9 does not believe that position value should be taken into account when comparing DeCastro to Luck, he needs to be much clearer on that point. Suppose a team believes that DeCastro will become the best OG in the game, and that Luck will be a top-6 QB, but not a top-3 QB. What should a team do under those circumstances? Let's look at what K-9 has written about this point.

 

K-9

> But you won't see a tiered ranking system because player grades are assigned according to ABILITY, regardless of position.

 

Edward's Arm

> As I stated earlier, a top-15 LT is worth more than a Pro Bowl guard.

 

K-9

> What part about that hypothetical G being a hypothetically better FOOTBALL player than that hypothetical LT don't you understand?

 

K-9

> I've tried to explain that player ratings are not based on position. . . . Nobody

> gets bonus points because they play a more premium position.

 

If one accepts K-9's words at face value, the logical conclusion would be to take DeCastro ahead of Luck, if it was felt DeCastro would be the better football player.

I have no idea what might have been going through K-9's head when he wrote his posts. I based my responses on what he actually wrote, not on what he may or may not have intended to write. What he's actually written is that player grades alone should be the basis for deciding who to draft; and that "nobody gets bonus points because they play a more premium position." With these premises as his basis, the conclusion that one should take DeCastro over Luck is inescapable--at least assuming that Luck will be a top-6 QB and DeCastro the best OG in the league.

 

If K-9 does in fact feel a top-6 QB should be taken ahead of a league-best OG, then he needs to retract the above-quoted statements, and he needs to clarify the fact that he is taking position value into account. He also needs to state that NFL GMs also take position value into account, unless he would have us believe that most GMs would take a league-best OG over Andrew Luck. Unless or until he makes these clarifications and corrections, I will continue to base my posts on what he's actually written, not on whatever on earth he may have meant to write.

 

Laughable. I need to retract nothing. This latest post is proof positive that you are one of the most dishonest people I've come across in my 16 years in this community. I'm not surprised though. Given the years of your posts in several threads across multiple forums under various user names, your reputation is well established and once again confirmed. I simply should have known better. It was inevitable that you'd start in with the insults like "obnoxious, arrogant, annoying" and I should have been the grown-up and not called you arrogant in kind.

 

Anyway, a few final points and then the discussion really is over (again, feel free to have the last word. I know from experience that is very important to you).

 

Luck is the HIGHEST RATED PLAYER in the draft. DeCastro isn't. Ergo, Luck is the BETTER FOOTBALL PLAYER. Your dishonest attempts to muddle my point is childish. The Colts will indeed be selecting the BPA.

 

For the last time, no team has a tiered positional ranking like you and your formula would like to believe. Period.

 

For (at least) the third time now:

 

Each player is rated according to the criteria for his position. By a scout. With a pad and paper. A report on that player is compiled and an initial PLAYER rating is assigned. Some QBs might end up at 5.6. Some Gs may end up at 6. ERGO (again) some Gs may indeed be rated better FOOTBALL PLAYERS THAN SOME QBs.

 

After these reports are compiled and sent and received by teams, usually in mid-January (although reports come in earlier as well), teams then start to refine the rankings through further evaluation. Some grades are raised, others lowered as the process proceeds.

 

That's as far as my end of this the discussion goes. I don't care if you accept this is the way things are done or not. I know, from direct personal experience, that players are ranked according to their ability to play their respective positions. We got so tired of threading film into projectors, we thought Betamax was cool. So don't insult my intelligence.

 

There are no extra points awarded if a guy is a QB, DE, LT, WR, or CB. Conversely, points aren't deducted if he's a S, LB, or G. There is only the separate criteria for each position.

 

By your own admission you didn't watch any college football, let alone the players you attempted to rank. Let alone attempted to project their success in the NFL. The entire crux of my issue with you in this thread can be boiled down to that simple fact.

 

Again, I should have known better.

 

GO BILLS!!!

Edited April 24, 2012 by K-9

[DC Tom]

Yours is a reasonable request.

 

There are two ways of creating a reasonable best case estimate for a player's value. One is to watch the player yourself. The other is to base your opinion on draft experts. If there are ten experts whose opinions you trust, and if at least one of those experts thinks a player has Pro Bowl potential, then Pro Bowl becomes a reasonable best case scenario for that player.

 

I haven't watched college football this year, which leaves me to rely on the scouting reports I've seen. To be honest, I haven't gone through that many scouting reports either. If someone with more pre-draft knowledge wants to amend my player predictions, I certainly won't stand in that person's way!

 

That being said, below are best case scenarios for the players in question:

 

Kuechley. Reasonable best case quality of play = 85. Position value = 3. Best case years with team = 11. Reasonable best case = 85 x 3 x 11 = 2805.

 

Gilmore. Reasonable best case quality of play = 80. Position value = 7. Best case years with team = 11. Reasonable best case = 6160.

 

Barron. Reasonable best case quality of play = 60. Position value = 3.5. Best case years with team = 11. Reasonable best case = 2110.

 

Floyd. Reasonable best case quality of play = 80. Position value = 6. Best case years with team = 11. Reasonable best case = 5280.

 

The worst case scenario for the four players is that they're all busts.

 

In other words, your "draft value" calculation, by which you determine your actions in the present, requires you to tell the future.

 

Congratulations. You've out-dumbed yourself. Do the ones with East German parents have more or less value?

[Cynical]

If K-9 does not believe that position value should be taken into account when comparing DeCastro to Luck, he needs to be much clearer on that point. Suppose a team believes that DeCastro will become the best OG in the game, and that Luck will be a top-6 QB, but not a top-3 QB. What should a team do under those circumstances? Let's look at what K-9 has written about this point.

 

K-9

> But you won't see a tiered ranking system because player grades are assigned according to ABILITY, regardless of position.

 

Edward's Arm

> As I stated earlier, a top-15 LT is worth more than a Pro Bowl guard.

 

K-9

> What part about that hypothetical G being a hypothetically better FOOTBALL player than that hypothetical LT don't you understand?

 

K-9

> I've tried to explain that player ratings are not based on position. . . . Nobody

> gets bonus points because they play a more premium position.

 

If one accepts K-9's words at face value, the logical conclusion would be to take DeCastro ahead of Luck, if it was felt DeCastro would be the better football player.

 

In a hypothetical world, and assuming DeCastro was rated higher than Luck, than yes.

In the real world, Luck is rated higher, so Luck will taken before DeCastro

 

I have no idea what might have been going through K-9's head when he wrote his posts. I based my responses on what he actually wrote, not on what he may or may not have intended to write. What he's actually written is that player grades alone should be the basis for deciding who to draft; and that "nobody gets bonus points because they play a more premium position." With these premises as his basis, the conclusion that one should take DeCastro over Luck is inescapable--at least assuming that Luck will be a top-6 QB and DeCastro the best OG in the league.

 

You need to clarify what you mean by "top-6" QB. Top-6 of what?

[Orton's Arm]

Laughable. I need to retract nothing. This latest post is proof positive that you are one of the most dishonest people I've come across in my 16 years in this community. I'm not surprised though. Given the years of your posts in several threads across multiple forums under various user names, your reputation is well established and once again confirmed. I simply should have known better. It was inevitable that you'd start in with the insults like "obnoxious, arrogant, annoying" and I should have been the grown-up and not called you arrogant in kind.

 

Anyway, a few final points and then the discussion really is over (again, feel free to have the last word. I know from experience that is very important to you).

 

Luck is the HIGHEST RATED PLAYER in the draft. DeCastro isn't. Ergo, Luck is the BETTER FOOTBALL PLAYER. Your dishonest attempts to muddle my point is childish. The Colts will indeed be selecting the BPA.

 

For the last time, no team has a tiered positional ranking like you and your formula would like to believe. Period.

 

For (at least) the third time now:

 

Each player is rated according to the criteria for his position. By a scout. With a pad and paper. A report on that player is compiled and an initial PLAYER rating is assigned. Some QBs might end up at 5.6. Some Gs may end up at 6. ERGO (again) some Gs may indeed be rated better FOOTBALL PLAYERS THAN SOME QBs.

 

After these reports are compiled and sent and received by teams, usually in mid-January (although reports come in earlier as well), teams then start to refine the rankings through further evaluation. Some grades are raised, others lowered as the process proceeds.

 

That's as far as my end of this the discussion goes. I don't care if you accept this is the way things are done or not. I know, from direct personal experience, that players are ranked according to their ability to play their respective positions. We got so tired of threading film into projectors, we thought Betamax was cool. So don't insult my intelligence.

 

There are no extra points awarded if a guy is a QB, DE, LT, WR, or CB. Conversely, points aren't deducted if he's a S, LB, or G. There is only the separate criteria for each position.

 

By your own admission you didn't watch any college football, let alone the players you attempted to rank. Let alone attempted to project their success in the NFL. The entire crux of my issue with you in this thread can be boiled down to that simple fact.

 

Again, I should have known better.

 

GO BILLS!!!

As I suspected, you refused to retract or clarify statements which were clearly erroneous, and which dumbed down the level of the discussion. The key issue, as far as your main point is concerned, is whether an NFL team would rather draft a player projected to be the sixth-best QB in the league (Luck) or the best OG in the league (hypothetically DeCastro). You're trying to weasel out of that question by claiming that DeCastro has a lower player rating than Luck. I assume this means DeCastro isn't projected to be the best OG in the league. And you're ignoring the hypothetical question what if he was projected to be the best OG in the NFL? The reason you're ignoring it is because you don't want to admit that your statements about how position value is ignored are simply wrong. But neither do you want to look like an idiot by claiming that a typical NFL team would take an elite OG over Luck. (Which is exactly how you would look if you made that claim.) You've accused me of dishonesty, which as best I can tell means you're being dishonest by refusing to retract statements you know are wrong. You're dodging the heart of the issue, and you're using inflammatory accusations to stop people from noticing how absurd your rhetoric becomes when taken to its logical conclusion.

 

As far as the decades of experience you supposedly have: I suggest you stop bragging about that alleged experience until you've shown yourself capable of having a civil, rational discussion about football. Nothing you've written in this thread even remotely suggests that possibility.

 

This is the second time you've claimed you'd let me have the last word. Let's see if you'll do a better job of doing what you said you'd do than you had the first time around.

 

Finally, I'll release you from your promise to let me have the last word if you want to address the question I've raised in my opening paragraph, if you would like to clarify your earlier statements about player value, or if you would otherwise like to (finally!) contribute something of value to the conversation. But if your plan is to write yet another inflammatory post, with further attacks against me, I will consider you to have broken your commitment to let me have the last word.

 

Edit: I wanted to write a separate post to Cynical's question. Unfortunately, due to an annoying feature-bug, the discussion board software insists on lumping my response to him in with this post. Briefly, by "top-6 QB," I meant, "one of the six best QBs in the NFL, but not one of the three best QBs in the NFL."

Edited April 24, 2012 by Edwards' Arm