Grade Past Years drafts 2005-2009

[JPS]

Bad. No plan. Bad players. Just bad

[Cugalabanza]

Nice work putting this together.

 

The only conclusion I can reach from this is that the Bills need to trade their 1st, 2nd and third round picks for about 40 picks in the 5th, 6th and 7th rounds. That's the only place they're able to find talent.

[silvermike]

I'd say this is my scale:

 

A "B" represents an acceptable draft. Nobody's singing in the streets, nobody's really crying. It's the expected result. For each pick, you get a B for:

 

First round: Solid starter—a player who starts shortly after being drafted, and solidly holds down the position with minimal complaint. Terrence McGee has been a solid starter for most of his career. Add a (+) for picks 17-32 and a (-) for 1-16.

 

Second round: Regular starter—a player who starts consistently after being drafted, though doesn't necessarily excel. Scott Chandler would be the fit here.

 

Third round: Reliable depth—not necessarily a starter, but a regular substitute, and often a player in various packages. Your Chad Rineharts or David Nelsons.

 

4-7: One regular starter, two depth players, total. I don't grade each pick individually.

 

Again, those are B-graded drafts. To grade a whole thing, I'd double-weight the first round, so two shares for the first round pick, one for the 2nd, one for the 3rd, one for the balance. If you exceed the scale, you get an A, if you fall short, you start dropping. +s and -s to round it out.

 

Now to put it into practice:

 

Round Pick # Player Position College

2 5 Roscoe Parrish C

3 86 Kevin Everett Incomplete

 

4 122 Duke Preston Center Illinois

5 156 Eric King Cornerback Wake Forest

6 197 Justin Geisinger Offensive Guard Vanterbilt

7 236 Lionel Gates Running Back Louisville

Late picks: D

 

GPA: 1.5. I'm not grading Everett, and I'm not going to go investigate traded picks. Just what you do on the day.

 

1 8 Donte Whitner Safety Ohio State: C+ (The pick alone didn't quite rise to the B range; alone I'd give it a B-. Top half of the round costs it the additional mark.

1 26 (from Chicago Bears) John McCargo Defensive Tackle North Carolina State: F

3 70 Ashton Youboty Cornerback Ohio State: D

 

4 105 Ko Simpson Safety South Carolina

5 134 Kyle Williams[3] Defensive Tackle LSU

5 143 Brad Butler Offensive Tackle Virginia

6 178 Keith Ellison Linebacker Oregon State

7 216 Terrance Pennington Offensive Tackle New Mexico

7 248 Aaron Merz Guard California

Late Rounds: A+. One star, one reliable starter who mysteriously retired, depth from Ellison and Simpson. Pennington briefly started.

 

GPA: 1.67 (C-)

 

1 12 Marshawn Lynch[4] Running Back California: B-

2 34 Paul Posluzny Linebacker Penn State: B+

3 92 Trent Edwards Quarterback Stanford: B (Imagine Edwards never started. A reasonably reliable backup for several years who won't blow games for you is pretty average for a third round QB)

 

4 111 Dwayne Wright Running Back Fresno State

6 184 John Wendling Safety Wyoming

7 222 Derek Schouman Tight End Boise State

7 239 C. J. Ah You Defensive End Oklahoma

Late Rounds: F.

GPA: 2.33 (C+)

 

1 11 Leodis McKelvin Safety Troy D-

2 41 James Hardy Wide Receiver Indiana F

3 72 Chris Ellis Defensive End Virginia Tech F

 

4 114 Reggie Corner Cornerback Akron

4 132Supplemental Derek Fine Tight End Kansas

5 147 Alvin Bowen Linebacker Iowa State

6 179 Xavier Omon Running Back NW Missouri State

7 219 Demetrius Bell Offensive Tackle Northwestern State

7 224 Stevie Johnson Wide Receiver Kentucky

7 251Supplemental Kennard Cox Cornerback Pittsburgh

Late Round Picks: A+

GPA: 1.13

 

1 11 Aaron Maybin Defensive End Penn State: F

1 28 Eric Wood Center Louisville: A

2 42 Jairus Byrd[2] Safety Oregon: A+

2 51 Andy Levitre Guard Oregon State: A+

 

4 121 Shawn Nelson Tight End Southern Miss

5 147 Nic Harris Safety Oklahoma

6 183 Cary Harris Cornerback USC

7 220 Ellis Lankster Cornerback West Virginia

Late round picks: F

GPA: 2.38

 

Thoughts?

[JÂy RÛßeÒ]

IMHO, I think you only need to look at the 1st and 2nd rounds to judge any draft. What happens in rounds 3-7 is meaningful to a football team, but not nearly as much as those 1st two rounds.

 

The bottom line is either you drafted excellent to elite NFL talent in the 1st two rounds or you failed. The Bills have been a team of average starters and backups for a decade because they failed to draft elite talent in the 1st two rounds. Kyle Williams and Stevie Johnson are not substitutes either. They should be bonuses.

 

2005: F

2006: F

2007: D

2008: F

2009: C (only because those 3 starters may still be on the rise)

 

And that explains the Bills situation right there. The lack of elite NFL talent and the Bills failure to recognize it and acquire it.

 

[/thread] SDS, you nailed it.

[Nitro]

Bills either miss or miss badly in these drafts. You can tell that they are drafting to need and not the best player available. Maybin hurts because Orakpo, taken 2 spots later has 28 sacks and is a beast. 2005 - d, 2006 - c (weak overall draft), 2007 - c, 2008 - d, 2009 - c.

Hope this year's group pans out.

[eball]

IMHO, I think you only need to look at the 1st and 2nd rounds to judge any draft. What happens in rounds 3-7 is meaningful to a football team, but not nearly as much as those 1st two rounds.

 

The bottom line is either you drafted excellent to elite NFL talent in the 1st two rounds or you failed. The Bills have been a team of average starters and backups for a decade because they failed to draft elite talent in the 1st two rounds. Kyle Williams and Stevie Johnson are not substitutes either. They should be bonuses.

 

2005: F

2006: F

2007: D

2008: F

2009: C (only because those 3 starters may still be on the rise)

 

And that explains the Bills situation right there. The lack of elite NFL talent and the Bills failure to recognize it and acquire it.

Good comments, Scott. Teams simply can't afford to fail consistently in these rounds, and even if they strike gold in later rounds it's no consolation. I'd probably say the 3rd round belongs in the conversation as well, because you're still talking about a top 100 draft pick.

 

Overall, there's no question it was the Decade of Fail.

[bartshan-83]

IMHO, I think you only need to look at the 1st and 2nd rounds to judge any draft. What happens in rounds 3-7 is meaningful to a football team, but not nearly as much as those 1st two rounds.

 

The bottom line is either you drafted excellent to elite NFL talent in the 1st two rounds or you failed. The Bills have been a team of average starters and backups for a decade because they failed to draft elite talent in the 1st two rounds. Kyle Williams and Stevie Johnson are not substitutes either. They should be bonuses.

 

2005: F

2006: F

2007: D

2008: F

2009: C (only because those 3 starters may still be on the rise)

 

And that explains the Bills situation right there. The lack of elite NFL talent and the Bills failure to recognize it and acquire it.

Yup. This is it.

 

And it is especially more disconcerting when you consider WHERE in the 1st and 2nd rounds we've picked over this span. We've had 11 picks inside the top 55. We've had a first pick no lower than 12 four times. We have had several shots at elite talent and come away with almost nothing.

 

You can't swing and miss at that many good pitches and expect to get on base...

[hondo in seattle]

Good assessment of the draft, but horrible grades. Lynch made the Pro Bowl and Poz was never worse than average, and yet you grade them at an "F"? Just because we failed to retain the talent we drafted that year, doesn't mean the draft itself was a failure. Meanwhile, a draft in which everyone was a bust except for Kyle Williams, deserves a "B"? I agree "A" for Williams and "D" for everyone else. But that will average out to more of a C draft than a B draft.

 

Yeah, I agree. I have to say Lynch was a good pick, even though I'm happy he's in Seattle now. The folks in Seattle are happy he's in Seattle, too. They're still watching highlights of that playoff run. This guy has NFL talent and has made the Pro Bowl twice.

 

Pos is having a productive, though not stellar, NFL career.

 

TE, while not the franchise QB we hoped for, was good enough to start for a couple years. Bill Walsh saw a lot of good in him. I think even Jimbo was somewhat confident in Edwards for a while. One year TE posted a 85.4 passer rating. He was not a complete bust.

 

2007 wasn't a great draft but surely wasn't a "F." Any draft that gives you just one Pro Bowl player is not a F.

[mannc]

I'd say this is my scale:

 

A "B" represents an acceptable draft. Nobody's singing in the streets, nobody's really crying. It's the expected result. For each pick, you get a B for:

 

First round: Solid starter—a player who starts shortly after being drafted, and solidly holds down the position with minimal complaint. Terrence McGee has been a solid starter for most of his career. Add a (+) for picks 17-32 and a (-) for 1-16.

 

Second round: Regular starter—a player who starts consistently after being drafted, though doesn't necessarily excel. Scott Chandler would be the fit here.

 

Third round: Reliable depth—not necessarily a starter, but a regular substitute, and often a player in various packages. Your Chad Rineharts or David Nelsons.

 

4-7: One regular starter, two depth players, total. I don't grade each pick individually.

 

Again, those are B-graded drafts. To grade a whole thing, I'd double-weight the first round, so two shares for the first round pick, one for the 2nd, one for the 3rd, one for the balance. If you exceed the scale, you get an A, if you fall short, you start dropping. +s and -s to round it out.

 

Now to put it into practice:

 

Round Pick # Player Position College

2 5 Roscoe Parrish C

3 86 Kevin Everett Incomplete

 

4 122 Duke Preston Center Illinois

5 156 Eric King Cornerback Wake Forest

6 197 Justin Geisinger Offensive Guard Vanterbilt

7 236 Lionel Gates Running Back Louisville

Late picks: D

 

GPA: 1.5. I'm not grading Everett, and I'm not going to go investigate traded picks. Just what you do on the day.

 

1 8 Donte Whitner Safety Ohio State: C+ (The pick alone didn't quite rise to the B range; alone I'd give it a B-. Top half of the round costs it the additional mark.

1 26 (from Chicago Bears) John McCargo Defensive Tackle North Carolina State: F

3 70 Ashton Youboty Cornerback Ohio State: D

 

4 105 Ko Simpson Safety South Carolina

5 134 Kyle Williams[3] Defensive Tackle LSU

5 143 Brad Butler Offensive Tackle Virginia

6 178 Keith Ellison Linebacker Oregon State

7 216 Terrance Pennington Offensive Tackle New Mexico

7 248 Aaron Merz Guard California

Late Rounds: A+. One star, one reliable starter who mysteriously retired, depth from Ellison and Simpson. Pennington briefly started.

 

GPA: 1.67 (C-)

 

1 12 Marshawn Lynch[4] Running Back California: B-

2 34 Paul Posluzny Linebacker Penn State: B+

3 92 Trent Edwards Quarterback Stanford: B (Imagine Edwards never started. A reasonably reliable backup for several years who won't blow games for you is pretty average for a third round QB)

 

4 111 Dwayne Wright Running Back Fresno State

6 184 John Wendling Safety Wyoming

7 222 Derek Schouman Tight End Boise State

7 239 C. J. Ah You Defensive End Oklahoma

Late Rounds: F.

GPA: 2.33 (C+)

 

1 11 Leodis McKelvin Safety Troy D-

2 41 James Hardy Wide Receiver Indiana F

3 72 Chris Ellis Defensive End Virginia Tech F

 

4 114 Reggie Corner Cornerback Akron

4 132Supplemental Derek Fine Tight End Kansas

5 147 Alvin Bowen Linebacker Iowa State

6 179 Xavier Omon Running Back NW Missouri State

7 219 Demetrius Bell Offensive Tackle Northwestern State

7 224 Stevie Johnson Wide Receiver Kentucky

7 251Supplemental Kennard Cox Cornerback Pittsburgh

Late Round Picks: A+

GPA: 1.13

 

1 11 Aaron Maybin Defensive End Penn State: F

1 28 Eric Wood Center Louisville: A

2 42 Jairus Byrd[2] Safety Oregon: A+

2 51 Andy Levitre Guard Oregon State: A+

 

4 121 Shawn Nelson Tight End Southern Miss

5 147 Nic Harris Safety Oklahoma

6 183 Cary Harris Cornerback USC

7 220 Ellis Lankster Cornerback West Virginia

Late round picks: F

GPA: 2.38

 

Thoughts?

My thought is that this is about as solid an analysis as one is ever likely to find on this subject. Sincere thanks.

 

Now what I would like to see is context. I think it's safe to say that OBD's draft performance during these five years was poor, but it's hard to say how poor without knowing how the Bills' competition did, using the same methodology. If such an analysis were to show similarly poor performances by the Jets, Phins, and/or NE, then perhaps the Bills' failure should be attributed to other factors, such as coaching, bad free agent signings, or just bad luck. We all assume, probably with some justification, that the Bills' front office has been a bumbling mess over the past decade when it comes to the draft, but off the top of my head, I can think of a lot of major busts taken by NYJ, MIA, and NE during the same period. The problem is, I'm not sure on this board we could ever get the level of knowledgable analysis of those teams' draft performance that SilverMike has given us here.

[Booger]

7 players out of 40 picked are still on the team. Less than a 25% success rate to where your "talent" was not retained. I don't know what the percentage is that is considered "good" but I am guessing it is greater than 25%. Now, a few players are still in the league who were drafted just no longer with the Bills. Most of those players were high picks (Maybin, Whitner, Poz) that were expected to produce and never really hit their projected level. I think that you could look at it in three overall categories:

 

1. Players on the team

2. Players in the league

3. Players no longer in the NFL

[Miyagi-Do Karate]

IMHO, I think you only need to look at the 1st and 2nd rounds to judge any draft. What happens in rounds 3-7 is meaningful to a football team, but not nearly as much as those 1st two rounds.

 

I would agree with that. I'd also say that beyond rounds 1 and 2, it's a crap shoot.

 

So, any success that the Bills have with later round guys should be taken with a grain of salt. A lot of that is luck, since the talent thins, everyone has flaws, and there's not much of a difference between players. For the same reason I think the Pats "lucked out" on Brady, I think the Bills "lucked out" on guys like Steve Johhnson and Kyle Williams.

[PromoTheRobot]

2005 - D- (dud draft)

2006 - C (for Kyle Williams, would be an F otherwise)

2007 - C (at least Poz, Lynch and Edwards were starters)

2008 - C+ (for SJ13 and Leodis)

2009 - B (for Wood, Levitre and Byrd)

 

PTR

Edited April 30, 2012 by PromoTheRobot

[QCity]

Just 3 years ago we had the 11th overall pick and 4 picks in the top 51. My God, can you imagine what our draft this year would look like with those selections? We might have went Gilmore, Glenn, Stephen Hill and Lavonte David in the first 2 rounds.

[loserlovers]

TE, while not the franchise QB we hoped for, was good enough to start for a couple years. Bill Walsh saw a lot of good in him. I think even Jimbo was somewhat confident in Edwards for a while. One year TE posted a 85.4 passer rating. He was not a complete bust.

 

Walsh and kelly were wrong, who cares what they "saw" before TE proved what he really was...an absolute fraud. He learned that if he just kept dumping to our great RB's...he would have a chance and continue starting.

 

people talk about fitz' arm strength, edwards was all wrist with zero arm strenght, no anticipation and zero pocket presence, he simply counted to 3 and dumped it, nearly everytime, once in a while hed throw a gay looking sideline go route that evans would run underneath but that was something my mother could have done.

 

edwards fooled this team and its coaches for 3 years, if he was "ok" like you say, why is he not playing anymore? hes gonna be a third string qb...if he doesnt get cut in camp

Edited April 30, 2012 by loserlovers