Ignore the Dolphins, Eagles won day 1 of FA

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Brent

Now that’s more like it…as I suspected, none of the pre-free agency rumor bullshit had anything to do with what actually happened (at least as far as the Eagles are concerned).

For those living under a rock, the Eagles signed 5 players:

James Casey (TE, FB, WR, HB, etc…)

Patrick Chung (S)

Bradley Fletcher (CB)

Isaac Sopoaga (NT)

Jason Phillips (LB)

If you read my post yesterday, you can probably guess that I absolutely love what the team did on day one. Let me bring back what I said yesterday (in italics) and use it to frame today’s post:

In general though, my FA plan would be:

– Add depth (everywhere) with low-priced veterans on 1-2 year deals.

Not sure the team could have done better on this goal in one day. The Eagles need new blood, and given the defensive holes and ST weaknesses, they need a lot of bodies to compete for those spots.

Patrick Chung is a promising player who has struggled with injury. If healthy, he’s likely a starting safety for us. Not sure if it’s at FS or SS yet, but the fact that he can play a little of both helps. He’s also just 26 years old. Not much guaranteed money in his deal, so it’s very much a low-risk-moderate reward opportunity. If he can stay healthy, we may have just found a starter, if not, he’s gone after this year and we move on. BTW, he played at Oregon with Kelly.

Bradley Fletcher is, in my opinion, the best signing any team made yesterday. He’s young, has a lot of potential, plays a premium position, and didn’t take a ton of money. At 6’0″ 200 lbs, he also has rare size for a corner. He fell out of favor in St. Louis and has a history of injury (2 ACL tears). However, he has the ability to be a good starting CB, and the Eagles got him with very little risk. Also, according to Tommy Lawlor, he has the best cover skills of any CB in free agency.

James Casey is getting a lot of love in the press, but I’m not sure what to make of him. Versatile player who apparently is highly regarded by Chip, but until we know the type of offense Kelly will run it’s really impossible to get a good read on how much Casey will contribute. In any case, the Eagles gave him 3 yrs $14.5 million, so you’d think they plan to use him a fair amount (though I have no idea how that money is structured).

– Add a NT. Doesn’t have to be a great one (not many of those in the NFL), but a huge need if the team is moving to a 3-4. This wouldn’t preclude taking one in the draft, but even then you need a back-up and it would be nice to not be overly reliant on Dixon.

Ask and ye shall receive….Sopoaga. Not a guy to get excited about, but the fact is the Eagles needed a body at NT; they literally did not have a single one on the roster, which is problematic for a team thinking 3-4 (or some variation of it). Sopoaga did not play well last year, so fans shouldn’t expect much from him. At the very least, though, he’ll compete with Antonio Dixon for the starting job or be a quality backup to a NT not currently on the roster.

– MAYBE add one marquee guy, as long as he is relatively young (<26-27). Plenty of cap space, so if the team loves a guy like Smith or Long then take a shot. Key is to pick the one they really like and let the others go.

No marquee guy yesterday, but that’s fine. Marquee guys are where teams screw up. Still rumors out there that the Eagles like Jake Long, but no way to tell if they’re true (I’m skeptical). I think the team will kick the tires on a few OTs, but only bring one in if the money is reasonable (i.e. not paying starting LT money).

– Don’t tie up cap space beyond this year. This is a massive transition for the Eagles, and the fact is that Howie/Chip themselves don’t know how it’s going to shake out. They key is to bolster the roster while maintaining cap flexibility for the next couple years. With so many moving parts, it’s impossible to say who fits and who doesn’t, so throwing big money around is very risky.

Team gets an A+ on this aspect. None of the deals are big-money or will have any significant effect on the cap situation after this year. Signing a guy like Goldson would make news, but I don’t think it’s the right strategy for the team right now.

I expect a few more signings, hopefully get Ricky Jean-Francois wrapped up this morning (he’s visiting) to provide more DL depth/versatility. If the team comes away with a big name OT, great. If not, I’ll be quite happy with another handful of guys like the ones they signed yesterday.

The key to FA is to find low-risk/moderate-reward players. The draft is where you find your stars. Once the rest of the team is built out and the roster is strong, then overpaying for an impact FA makes sense. For now, though, be patient.

P.S. I didn’t talk about Jason Phillips because he’s likely just a depth LB and special-teamer, but if the guy let’s us plant Jamar “The Invisible Man” Chaney on the bench (or on the street), he becomes a personal favorite.

FA thoughts and the 2010 2nd Round

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Brent

Was asked to post the 2010 2nd round table, so here it is. Still waiting for FA news. I think it’s best to ignore the “rumors”, hence no speculation here. In general though, my FA plan would be:

– Add depth (everywhere) with low-priced veterans on 1-2 year deals.

Conversely, if you preserve space until the rest of the foundation is together, you have a much clearer picture of where your needs are and which impact FAs fit the team best.

Patience is the key, though it remains to be seen if the Eagles new front office has any.

Oh, and I wouldn’t consider, even for a moment, giving up the #4 pick for Revis.

Now the 2010 draft table:

As noted by a commenter yesterday, TJ Ward has had a pretty good start to his career and was drafted 1 spot after Nate Allen. This system has Ward as one of the biggest reaches; he had one of the lowest included prospect ratings.

– Taylor Mays presents an interesting case. His aggregate scouting rating was pretty good, hence the high rating here. However, I remember a LOT of commentators downgrading him. He may be a good case of why the system needs more sets of ratings. My guess is there were a lot or scouts who did not score him as highly as ESPN or NFL.com.

– Torell Troup looks like a big mistake by the Bills, though injuries have wrecked his career, so its hard to judge him. It’s worth noting that Terrance Cody and Linval Joseph were both ranked significantly higher and available at the Bills pick.

– Regarding Cody (since he came up yesterday as well), he’s been pretty inconsistent, and was supplanted by Kemoeatu in the starting line-up, but PFF actually graded him better last year than Kemoeatu.

Also, I realized I didn’t do a good job of showing the big picture. No individual player’s ranking will be perfect in any system. The goal is to create a system that, overall, does a better job of valuing players. Here is a table showing the actual first round of 2010 with the PVM top 32. We’ll delve deeper into this type of comparison some other time, for now you can analyze/compare them and make up your own mind.

One last note: This system is by no means a finished product. To that end, if you have an idea for improving it, please let me know. No pride of ownership here, I just want to create the best system possible.

Revisiting the 2010 NFL Draft with PVM Multiplier

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Brent

As of this writing, the Eagles haven’t made any FA news, so I’ll continue with our draft talk. Today we will look at the 2010 NFL Draft (B-Graham year). For those of you who noticed, I’ve skipped 2011 for two reasons: 2010 is more interesting, and I can only find 1 set of prospect ratings for 2011.

I haven’t really emphasized this yet, but a MAJOR part of the PVM ranking system is the consensus prospect ratings. The average rating is far more important than the PVM adjustment. As a result, if I have only one set of ratings the rankings will not be nearly as valuable. To that end, if any of you know where I can find 2011 prospect grades/ratings (numerical), please either email me, tweet me, or respond via comments. I still hope to find another set to work with (right now I only have ESPN’s).

In the meantime, here are the top 32 prospects for 2010 via the PVM system. For these, I used ESPN and NFL.com ratings, though the NFL.com ratings had to be adjusted to a 100 points scale. Remember, the right-most column is the player’s actual draft pick minus his PVM Rank. So players with a negative number were drafted HIGHER than their PVM Ranking. Only players chosen in the top 2 rounds are included in the analysis.

I’ll break this down so it’s easier to see in a second, but a couple of big notes first:

– Jimmy Clausen shoots WAY up the board. While the PVM adjustment helped, this is mainly due to the fact that his average rating was 92.27.

– CJ Spiller jumps into the top 5.

– Brandon Graham, regardless of the trade involved, appears to have been taken right where he should have. However, both JPP and Derrick Morgan rank higher and were on the board when the Eagles picked.

To be fair, all three players were taken by the 16th pick (Eagles originally has the 24th), so had the team not traded up there was a strong chance they would not have been able to choose any of them.

– The biggest “overdraft” in the top ten belongs to Rolando McClain, narrowly beating Trent Williams. Needless to say I feel pretty good about the PVM system here…

Now let’s take a narrower look. Here are the most OVERDRAFTED:

Really like this one for obvious reasons.

– Tyson Alualu and Tim Tebow stand out as the worst “value” picks in the first round. Tebow, even with the positional impact bump, rated as the 44th prospect (he was taken 25th). The Jaguars, picking Aluala, were derided (correctly) at the time. If I remember correctly, the Jags justified it by saying he was the best guy on their board. However, it was pretty clear at the time that they could have traded down and still got him.

It’s a valuable reminder that there is a lot more to “winning the draft” than just setting your board more accurately than other teams (better scouting). As I’ve explained, the “skill” portion of the draft involves moving around so you get the guys you like at draft spots where they offer maximum value.

– Nate Allen’s here as well, drafted 12 spots ahead of where the PVM ranking has him. This was a 100% “need pick” and clearly hasn’t worked out the way the Eagles hoped.

– Conversely, Anthony Davis has worked out for the 49ers, despite being taken 12 spots ahead of where he was ranked.

One big note here that, although obvious, I feel compelled to explain: Every team will have their own individual position values, which means each team’s PVM Board (if they made one) will look different from the one above. For that reason, it’s tough to grade teams on individual picks because we don’t know what their internal positional ratings are. It’s possible that the 49ers place a higher premium on OT than the rest of the league (likely in fact). In that scenario, their PVM board (with no regard for scouting), may have had Anthony Davis (and Iupati) ranked higher, which might justify taking both OL well ahead of their rankings above.

Prior to this year’s draft, I hope to compile individual PVM ratings for each team. It will probably be very “noisy” due to various contract issues, but it also might help us infer what teams might do. Perhaps I’ll even put an “ideal” mock draft up, showing what each team should do with their picks under this system.

Now back to 2010. Here are the most UNDERDRAFTED players:

Some BIG hits here as well as some BIG misses.

– Clausen I mentioned above. Though he appears to be a miss, the idea here is that at the time of the draft, his potential upside warranted a much higher draft choice than 48 overall. That said, it’s conceivable that he has just been lost behind Cam Newton and can still be a productive player on the right team (though I’m not holding my breath).

– Sean Lee and Dez Bryant both fly up the board here. Bryant ranked #10 overall by PVM.

– At the bottom of that chart we can see JPP and Derrick Morgan, who both ranked as top 10 prospects by PVM.

– Charles Brown jumps a full round by PVM, though it’s still unclear how his career will pan out (injured his knee this year).

– Terrence Cody and Sergio Kindle both rank high, and coincidentally or not, were both selected by the Ravens. Though neither player has played up to their projections, it’s interesting to note the Ravens’ multiple selections. I’ll be keeping my eye on which teams show up more/less on the over/under-draft lists. In theory, teams that are applying a system of this type should find their way onto the under list with some frequency.

That’s all for today. Hopefully we’ll have some Eagles FA news to discuss soon. Again, if anyone knows anywhere to get past prospect rankings, please let me know.

Applying PVM to 2012 Draft

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Brent

Yesterday I unveiled the Positional Draft Multiplier (“PVM”), an attempt to adjust prospect rankings by relative positional importance. If you haven’t yet read that post, I encourage you to do that before continuing here.

While I won’t re-explain the entire process here, I will say that, in essence, the PVM uses the consensus prospect rankings and adds an “impact bonus”, the size of which varies by position. For example, QBs have a much bigger impact on games than Centers do, so the bonus for QBs is bigger.

Today, I’ll apply the system to last year’s draft. Please note that this will not be a direct comparison to this year’s rankings, due to the fact that I can’t find NFP’s ratings for last year. For today’s post, I’ve only used ESPN and NFL.com’s ratings to arrive at the “consensus rating”. Also, it’s obviously too early to judge any of these players, so while I think the below tables will be interesting, their full value won’t be apparent until at least next year. I hope to go back a few more years with the same analysis next week.

First, here are last year’s prospect rankings re-ordered according to PVM Rating (only players drafted in the top 2 rounds were included). The right-most column is the difference between the player’s PVM ranking and actual draft spot. I’ve calculated it so that a positive number means the player was UNDERDRAFTED according to the system (so positive means a “steal”). A negative number means the player was a reach.

To reiterate, this isn’t meant to be a ranking according to which players are best or most likely to pan out, just a better measure of potential Risk vs. Reward.

Take some time to look through those tables, there’s plenty of info there. Actually very little change in the top ten, with the only big shifts resulting from Mark Barron and Stephen Gilmore falling. Fletcher Cox appears to have been a good value pick by the Eagles, taken 3 spots later than his PVM Rank suggested.

To make things a bit clearer, below are two tables illustrating which players were most under/over drafted.

Let’s start with the good:

No surprise to see a QB at the top of the list. Due to the structure of the system, QBs receive, by far, the most benefit. However, note that on an absolute basis, the scout’s ratings still count for much more.

Notables-

– Lavonte David jumps out immediately. According to PVM, he should have been the 38th overall prospect, but fell to the 58th pick and ended up having a superb rookie year.

– Vinny Curry makes an appearance high on the list, falling 19 spots from his PVM Ranking. Let’s hope Chip Kelly finds a way to realize the potential most scouts think he has.

– Cordy Glenn, though not widely known, had a good rookie year as well, ranking as the #31 overall OT for 2012 by Pro Football Focus. #31 might not sound great, but remember there are 64 starting OTs in the league. To be better than half of them in your first year is a good sign.

– Kelechi Osemele was ranked #36 overall by PFF, ahead of more famous players like Jake Long, Michael Oher, and Jermon Bushrod.

Now for the bad:

Bruce Irvin leads the pack by a longshot, drafted 39 spots ahead of his PVM Ranking. While he did record 8 sacks (ESPN), impressive for a rookie, he was weak against the run and received a negative grade overall by PFF.

– Derek Wolfe had a similar rookie year, though he was strong against the run and weak against the pass (according to PFF). Overall, PFF has him as the 54th overall 4-3 DE.

– A.J. Jenkins might be the most anonymous first rounder in last year’s class. Be honest, did you know anything about him prior to seeing him in the table? Yes, he played for a great team, but he couldn’t even get on the field and registered ZERO catches. Obviously, he’s got plenty of time to turn his career around, but it’s safe to say if the 49ers had a do-over, they wouldn’t repeat that pick.

– Mychal Kendricks shows up here, though a 10 pick difference that late in the draft isn’t that surprising. However, if you look closely you’ll see Dont’a Hightower, while also over drafted, was ranked significantly higher than Kendricks by PVM. For what it’s worth, PFF had Hightower as the 8th overall 4-3 OLB….Kendricks ranked 42nd. (Lavonte David was #5)

As I said in the beginning, it’s way to early to judge last year’s draft class. I hope to do this same post with several other draft classes (provided I can find pre-draft ratings to use). While the PVM Ranking is interesting, and I believe is has a lot of value, the overarching theory I want to advance is:

When teams go against the prevailing wisdom in the draft (consensus ratings), they are wrong much more often than they are right.

So the big question is, can we, without any particular scouting insight, use only consensus ratings and logical adjustments (like positional value) to come up with a rankings system that is as good or better than average team’s proprietary board? I think we can (though it obviously won’t be easy).

Prospect Rankings via Positional Value Multiplier

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Brent

Today, with the help of a collaborator, I’ll give you prospect rankings for the NFL Draft that you won’t find anywhere else. As I’ve explained before, I am not a scout and have not watched film on every top prospect in this year’s draft. However, I believe what I’ll show you today is more useful than any individual scout’s ranking.

First things first, big thanks to George Laevsky (JD from Georgetown) for the help. He came up with the idea and name for the Positional Value Multiplier and worked with me on compiling/computing the necessary data.

To keep this clean, I’ll explain it in 3 sections. First I’ll tell you what we did, then I’ll tell you how we did it, then I’ll show you the results. That way, if you want to skip the middle section you can.

What We Did:

The overall aim of this project was to apply a positional value modifier to the consensus prospect rankings, with the hopes of generating a more accurate system of ranking value. We compiled a composite prospect rating for each player (through the first couple rounds) and then adjusted for positional importance according to last seasons’ league-wide positional salary distribution.

Before we go into the How details, here is the consensus prospect ranking using ratings from Scouts Inc (ESPN), the National Football Post, and NFL.com. Note: NFP uses a different grading scale, so those scores were adjusted to give us an apples-to-apples rating.

That graphic alone is pretty interesting, particularly when the ratings diverge (see Ryan Nassib at the bottom), but we’ll look at that some other time.

For today’s post, we have to adjust.

How We Did It:

I mentioned last week that no BPA ranking is complete without an adjustment for relative positional value. For example (an extreme one), if a QB and K both carry a 95 rating, you’d obviously choose the QB first. The question is, how do we measure relative importance by position?

While there is no bullet-proof method of doing so, the salary distribution in the NFL is as good a place as any to divine information from. In theory, since the NFL has a salary cap, the distribution of limited funds between positions will give us an idea of how the league, on average, values different positions in relation to each other.

We pulled salary cap information from this awesome graphic featured in the Guardian at the end of January. It’s not perfect (reflects cap hits from last season and misses some IR guys), but in general I believe it’s as good a breakdown as any for our purposes today. After adjusting for the number of players by position, we calculated a Positional Value Multiplier (“PVM”) for each major position (FB, K, P not included). We then applied that multiplier to the above consensus rankings.

Here are the multiplier values we arrived at, in order from largest to smallest:

For the most part these make a lot of sense, based on what’s “common knowledge”. QBs are, by far, the most important position. However, the relative rankings of WRs and RBs certainly surprised me, though due to the noise in the data, it’s best not to get hung up on the minute differences in values above. Instead, we can see there are some clear “tiers” (I feel like I am using that term a lot).

Tier 1 – QBs

Tier 2 – WR, CB, DE, RB, DT

Tier 3 – OT, LB, TE, S

Tier 4 – C, G

The only thing in those rankings that immediately draws my attention is the OT position in the 3rd tier. But that data is what it is, we can debate the reasons later.

Now that we have the PVM values, we can apply it to the prospect rankings.

The Results:

Some very interesting movement. The right-most column shows the effects of the positional modifier. The AG Rank column is the pre-adjustment consensus ranking.

Notes:

– Dee Milliner jumps two places to become the top overall prospect.

– Chance Warmack, though he drops 3 spots, remains a top 5 prospect, damaging my belief that a G in the top 15 picks is a very poor decision.

– QBs, as expected, benefit the most. Geno Smith jumps 11 spots to become a top ten prospect, while Nassib and Barkley move into the middle of the first round.

– The biggest jump overall comes from Tyler Wilson (20 spots), who moves from the middle of the second round to the end of the first.

– Zach Ertz (TE) and Jonathan Cyprien (S) are hurt the most, falling out of the first round, and therefore off the chart above.

One last thing: I want to be perfectly clear about the value of this analysis. The idea here is that BPA is an overly simplistic and flawed method of drafting by its current definition. For example, while Geno Smith (19th consensus) may be a worse prospect than Kenny Vaccaro (9th consensus), with lower odds of success, the potential payoff is so much greater for Smith that he becomes a better choice (at least as shown here). Hitting on a QB offers a MUCH greater reward than hitting on a S (or really any other position), so it makes complete sense that QBs are perennially “over-drafted”.

In essence, what we are showing here is that they are not, in fact, “over-drafted”. Yes, they might have greater odds of failure, but that does not make them bad picks. Remember, you have to look at both Risk AND Reward, balancing the two. The above rankings is an effort to do that in a method as simple and transparent as possible.

Over the past few months, I’ve tried to advance the idea that the “consensus” forecast should carry a large degree of inertia within NFL front offices. Imagine the above rankings as equivalent to a total market stock index. For anyone going against the total market index, they must believe VERY STRONGLY that they have better information or better analysis than the rest of the market. It should function in much the same way in the NFL (and all professional sports leagues). The idea is NOT that teams should blindly follow the “market”, just that they should hold their own evaluations up to very high scrutiny before acting on them, especially when they largely conflict with available data.

I’ll be examining this in a lot more detail, which may or may not lead to more posts on the subject. In any case, this should give everyone something to think about come draft day.

For what it’s worth, my subjective pick for the Eagles would still be Lotulelei/Joeckel. However, unless I adjust the PVM formula (or if the consensus ratings change), it looks like Dee Millner is now, objectively, in the lead.

UPDATED: Also, below is the same analysis for the rest of the players we looked at:

How often do “Can’t Miss” prospects miss?

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Brent

I previously stated that “no prospect is risk-free”. Today we’ll look into just what that means.

The Data:

I went back through every draft from 2005-2011 and compiled the Scouts Inc. grades on each player taken in the first round. According to the Scouts Inc. grading scale, any prospect with a 90+ grade projects as a potential “elite player”. Recognizing that 10 points on a 100 point scale is a pretty big range, I will only look at prospects rated 95 or better. Theoretically, these players should be the absolute best of the “elite” prospects and should carry a very low miss rate. We’ll look at each rating and assign players to 1 of 3 categories: Hit (Those who can be considered elite players), Bust (completely non-productive players), and everyone else. Forewarning, I’m going to err on the positive side but feel free to assign your own if you disagree. At the end, we’ll total up the categories and see what happens.

Note: These types of breakdowns typically devolve into parsing Hits/Busts, as everyone will have their own opinions on which players belong in which categories. This is not my goal. My hope is that while there will be disagreements over a few of the ratings, the overall numbers will provide useful insight. Remember, this is not an individual player analysis, it’s an attempt to draw insight into the broader “elite prospect” pool. One or two ratings changes won’t matter that much.

Also, we are much more interested in the “Busts”, so moving players from “Hits” to “Everyone Else” or vice-versa doesn’t really effect what we are looking at.

The 99s:

We’ll begin with the absolute best, those players receiving a 99 pre-draft grade. Here they are:

Hits: Aaron Rodgers, Calvin Johnson, Andrew Luck (a bit early but remember we’re being generous).

Busts: None

The 98s:

Hits: Ferguson, Thomas, Peterson, Jake Long (on the edge due to last year), Matt Ryan, Gerald McCoy

Busts: Adam Jones, JaMarcus Russell, Matt Leinart

The 97s:

Hits: Suh, Von Miller, A.J. Green, Patrick Peterson, RG3, Marcell Dareus

Busts: Mike Williams, Brady Quinn, Jason Smith, Curry

The 96s:

Hits: Ngata, Keuckly

Busts: Sims, Quinn, Rivers, Gabbert, Maybin

The 95s:

Hits: Merriman (was elite while on roids, so i guess that counts), Willis, Revis, Earl Thomas (ugh)

Busts: Travis Johnson, David Pollack, Alex Barron, Jamaal Anderson, Amobi Okoye, Derrick Harvey

The Totals:

The 99s: Hits – 3/5, Busts – 0

The 98s: Hits – 6/14, Busts – 3/14

The 97s: Hits – 6/21. Busts – 3 4/23

The 96s: Hits – 2/21. Busts – 4 5/21

The 95s: Hits – 4/30, Busts – 6/30

In looking at those totals, it’s clear that there is actually a difference in success odds for each discrete rating, which really surprises me (though it’s hardly enough data to confirm). In general, there is a clear decrease in Hit odds and corresponding increase in Bust odds as you move from 99 to 95.

However, it also clearly shows what I was originally hoping to illustrate: There is no such thing as a risk-free prospect. I realize that none of the 99s rated as busts, but since there are only 5 of them, and given the Edwards and Bush careers, I think its safe to say we will see a 99 bust at some point.

In total there were 93 prospects included that rated 95 or better. Of these, I rated 16 18 as Busts, or 19.35%.

So examining the absolute best of the best prospects, almost 20% of them end up busting. I realize this is a very subjective breakdown, but even with a few changes either way, the overarching point remains, even the best prospects have a significant chance of complete failure.

BPA absent Positional Value adjustments

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Brent

Last post I attempted to explain, in no uncertain terms, why taking a Guard in the first round makes little sense (especially in the top half of the first round). However, I get the sense that many people remain unconvinced. Today, I’ll take a slightly different look at it to see if I can sway the remaining holdouts. I apologize for the repetition in subject-matter, but this is an EXTREMELY important topic, as it goes to the heart of Optimal Draft Strategy.

First, I want you to ask yourselves if you agree with the following statement:

GMs should, in general, take the Best Player Available (“BPA”) with every draft pick.

I’m guessing most readers here would back that strategy, and I certainly do. HOWEVER, it is not enough to just endorse that statement and use it as the basis for a draft strategy. First, you must definite exactly what BPA means.

Here is where I am seeing some confusion and where I believe there is a big disagreement. The people calling for taking Warmack high in the draft (forget about the Eagles for a moment, I’m speaking in broader terms), are using BPA as support. The problem is that, in their BPA definition, they do not seem to be adjusting for positional value, which is a MASSIVE mistake.

Rather than attempting to explain why with a rational argument (for that see my last post), I’ll try to illustrate it. Here are the top ten OTs and Gs from this past season, according to Pro Football Focus. They are listed in order, with their original draft pick included.

There are two big takeaways from this chart. First, look at the draft picks.

I know I’ve said this repeatedly, but if you want an “elite” OT, you have to take him in the first round. The same clearly does not hold for the Guard position. This provides a clearer illustration of the opportunity cost argument I made last week. There are really only two ways to get an elite OT in the NFL, draft him or sign him in FA. (I know we traded for Peters, but that’s a RARE exception). Additionally, signing an elite OT in FA requires a huge contract. Therefore, the BEST way to add a top OT to your team is to draft him in the first round. Choosing a G means you are forgoing that opportunity.

The second point I want to highlight from the chart above gets at positional value. Again, I want you to answer a question:

All other things being equal, would you rather trade Anthony Davis for Evan Mathis (or any other top Guard) or vice-versa?

I’m a big Mathis fan, but that’s a no-brainer. Clearly most of the league agrees as well, hence the salary differences between OTs and Gs.

Assuming you agree, that means the #10 OT is worth more than the #1 G.

How about Brandon Albert versus Evan Mathis?

This one probably creates a bit more disagreement, but my guess is, on the whole, people would take Albert, who ranked as the 25th best OT according to Pro Football Focus.

Regardless, clearly there is a discrepancy in value between OTs and Gs. Also, while I’ve focused on Gs and OTs, the same analysis can (and must be) done with all positions, and then incorporated into each team’s prospect rankings. To not account for this is a huge mistake and one that appears is made by a lot of the writers who support taking a G high in the draft under a flawed concept of BPA.

To make sure I’m being clear: This should be incorporated into the “tiered” rankings I advocated previously. So it is theoretically possible for a G to be the best choice with a top 15 pick, but it would require an amazing G prospect that can overcome the positional value difference to make it to the top 1 or 2 tiers, as well as every other player (from positions of greater value) within the same prospect tier being taken before said top 15 pick.

Hopefully this has convinced a few more of you, or at least provided a clearer explanation of what I was getting at last week. This isn’t exactly Eagles-specific, because I don’t think there’s any way they take Warmack at #4, but it applies to any team with a top 15 pick.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with an analogy. A frequent defense of G picks (and OL picks in general) in the first round has been that they are “safer”. In general, that is true, as our strategy chart showed. However, this is only one half of the equation. As anyone in finance knows, evaluation is always a question of risk vs. REWARD. To look at one side and ignore the other is a recipe for sub-optimal decision-making.

For example, given the choice between to raffles, and ignoring an external factors, which would you rather enter:

A) 60% chance of winning $100.

B) 75% chance of winning $75.

While the odds of success for raffle B are significantly higher, the correct answer (in a vacuum) is A, since the expected payout is greater. It’s impossible to apply such specific values to players, but it’s a useful exercise nonetheless. Here, imagine a DE as raffle A and an OL as raffle B. To take the OL just because he offers less risk (25% chance of miss versus 40%) would clearly be a poor decision.

Dispelling the Chance Warmack Nonsense

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Brent

I’ve been asked by a few people about my thoughts on Chance Warmack, so today I’ll attempt to provide a definitive explanation for why taking him with the 4th pick (or any high pick for that matter) is almost definitely a terrible idea (I’ll explain the one scenario that makes sense as well).

Although I have been clear about the Eagles not taking him, I haven’t fully explained, and judging by this article (Don Banks mock draft), there needs to be a reasoned analysis.

The first big point to consider is that Warmack is NOT risk-free. No draft pick is, regardless of what scouts believe. While some picks/positions are clearly LESS RISKY than others, every selection carries a chance (I really wish that wasn’t his name) that the player won’t pan out.

Let me provide a few quick examples. Here are some pre-draft scouting reports, followed by the corresponding player:

One of the more versatile offensive tackles to enter the draft in a long while, [He] is a terrific prospect that will offer immediate returns as well as long-term potential. Should quickly come in and start as a left tackle for a franchise, yet could also grow into a dominant strong-side blocker. Will only get better as he physically matures and improves his skills as a run blocker. SI.com

The Player? Robert Gallery, selected #2 overall.

“I can’t remember being in such awe of a quarterback in my decade of attending combines and pro days. [His] passing session was the most impressive of all the pro days I’ve been to. His footwork for such a big quarterback was surprising. He was nimble in his dropbacks, rolling out and throwing on the run. The ball just explodes out of his hands.” – Todd McShay

The subject? The immortal JaMarcus Russell.

Athleticism at the…position is unmatched by any player drafted in the last decade. Incredible vision…Surprising power and is not afraid to run people over. Absolutely chiseled physique…good character guy…Threat to score every time he touches the ball, and he should do that a lot in the NFL…Rarely does an athlete of this caliber enter the NFL. -draftclass.com

Player? Reggie Bush

Obviously there are a lot of players that we can look back and poke holes in, but the fact is each of the above players was considered very low risk at the time they were drafted. I’m not saying Warmack will be a bust, odds are he’s gonna be very good, but let’s just remember that scouting reports don’t always pan out.

The second and more significant reason for not taking Warmack (or any guard) is Opportunity Cost. When you use a draft pick, you are not just selecting a player, you are also deciding NOT to use that pick on a different prospect(s). You can’t evaluate each choice in a vacuum, you must look at what else is available, otherwise the whole idea of “value” gets thrown out the window.

Remember our rule of thumb regarding the draft: Elite players come from the first round, and mostly from the top half of the first round, REGARDLESS OF POSITION (with a few exceptions like K, P, FB, etc…)

Before we fully consider that, let’s also bring our draft strategy card into the picture:

Sorry for the small font, but there’s a lot of info in there. To refresh, the chart shows the odds of success by position and round for prospects taken in the draft from 1999-2011.

By combining our elite prospect guideline with this chart, it’s pretty easy to see why taking a guard is a bad idea in the top of the first round. If we gauge the relative impact by position, Guards come out near the bottom (which is why so few are drafted highly). The fact is, a dominant DE or T will have a greater effect on the game than a dominant G. Also, there are very few opportunities to add elite players at high-value positions, with the Draft being, by far, the best route for all teams (as a result of the contract value).

Therefore, choosing Warmack means you are forgoing the RARE opportunity to add an elite player at a more valuable position. If it was easy to find top OTs or DEs or DBs, then taking a G wouldn’t be such a big deal. Unfortunately, if you don’t use the draft for the high value positions, it becomes VERY difficult and almost ALWAYS expensive to fill them through other avenues (FA, Trades).

I should note at this point that this does depend on the draft board. I am a firm advocate of BPA strategy. However, there are enough positions of higher value than G that I’m extremely confident there are better options than Warmack at #4. Remember that we shouldn’t be ranking players individually, but rather slotting them by tiers to account for the large margin of error in player evaluations. So looking at the tier that includes Warmack (varies according to team board), there is a very high likelihood that, at #4, there is another player within that tier that plays a more impactful position.

Lastly, if we look at the chart, we can see that Guards are among the easiest to find late in the draft (highest probability). In the 6th round, for example, 21% of guards selected from 1999-2011 became starters (started for at least 5 seasons or half of their time in the league if they were drafted less than 5 seasons ago). Conversely, just 5% of DEs and 4% of DBs taken in the 6th became starters. While players selected that late are very unlikely to be “elite” players, you’d clearly take an Elite DE/average G combo over the reverse.

To sum up before I get to the one exception scenario, the goal in the 1st round of the draft for EVERY team needs to be MAXIMIZING IMPACT. Each year 15 teams (top 15 picks) get a reasonable shot at adding an “elite” player. Outside of that draft choice, the opportunities to add elite players are few and far between. Most often, the only other option is for teams to overpay in free agency, especially for premier positions. Therefore, teams cannot squander their best opportunities to add elite players on lower-impact positions, regardless of how strong the prospect is.

I mentioned at the top that there was one (extremely unlikely) scenario where it made sense to draft Warmack:

BOTH:

– Warmack would have to be in his own tier, and CLEARLY a far better prospect than anyone else on the board. From what I’ve seen, that is not the case.

– There would have to be NO interest in trading for the Eagles pick, eliminating that as an option. Even a trade involving relatively less compensation than normal would be enough to move, so I really do mean that a trade would have to be nearly impossible. Again, the odds of there being ZERO interest in anything approaching a reasonable offer for the #4 pick are very low.

OR – the subject Guard (not Warmack) would have to be so amazing as to completely redefine the Guard position. I’m not even sure what that would look like. Safe to say it’s not happening anytime soon.

So for the time being, ignore Don Banks and anyone else suggesting the Eagles should/will take Warmack.

Alex Smith Thoughts and ramifications for the Eagles

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Brent

I already liked the Chiefs to be a drastically better team next year, and now I like them even more. The reported trade has KC giving up this years 2nd round pick and a conditional 2014 pick. No word on the conditions, but it’s likely going to be as high as another 2nd round pick.

Why I like the trade:

– Andy Reid is very good at identifying QBs he can win with. That’s not the same as identifying good QBs, but from Reid’s perspective, that really doesn’t matter. Smith is a perfect fit for the offense Reid claims to run (west-coast). I say “claims” because there were times with the Eagles when he clearly strayed from the short-passes concept, relying on deep throws and quick strikes.

– Kansas City already had a top 5 rushing offense. Now they add an accurate, low-risk QB, and the #1 overall pick (Joeckel has to be odds on favorite now).

– Alex Smith went 19-5-1 as a starter over the last two seasons, and this past year completed 70% of his passes.

I could go on for a thousand words, but I’ll just go on record now as having the Chiefs as my pick for a surprise team next year. With that roster (better than record suggests) and Reid/Smith, no reason the team can’t contend for the playoffs just one year after a 2-win season.

How does it effect the Eagles?

– Nick Foles’ value obviously drops. KC was, by far, the most likely destination for Foles. That is the clear negative for the Eagles. Additionally, KC will almost certainly take Joeckel (or whoever the top OT is at draft-time), meaning the Eagles will miss out. However, it’s doubtful the top OT in the draft was going to fall to #4 regardless, so I don’t feel so bad about that.

Also, I’ve been pretty clear that I think Foles has a legitimate chance to be a good starting QB, so keeping him isn’t exactly the worst thing IMO.

– One less team looking for a QB in the draft. As I explained in the Vick-Insurance post, it would make a lot of sense if the Eagles had their eye on a particular QB in this year’s class. Nassib would seem to be a good bet, but at this point we have no idea who the team really likes. The Smith trade makes it more likely that the subject QB will be available at the Eagles pick in round 2.

– Several outlets are now reporting that San Fran is an obvious candidate to move up in the draft. As I’ve demonstrated before, elite players come almost entirely from the 1st round of the draft, and within the first round, they are predominantly found in the top 15. The toughest aspect of being perennial contender (like San Fran hopes to be) is the inability to continue adding elite players in the draft (because to don’t get top 15 picks). With San Fran’s ammo, they can rectify that this year.

I mention that because the Eagles, at #4, would seem to be an obvious trade partner. At #4, the 49ers could get a top DT (Floyd or Star, depending on the heart condition). If the Eagles don’t see any prospects that absolutely love at #4, the team should absolutely trade down, and the top pick in the 2nd round would be a pretty attractive trade chip. In fact, this would allow them to take a QB prospect at the right spot in the draft (value-wise), while allowing them to use the other 2nd round pick on the best available defensive player.

Pure speculation at this point, but the Chiefs, Jaguars, and Raiders all seem unlikely to trade down, given their respective needs. That would leave the Eagles with the top “gettable” pick for any team looking to move up for a top prospect.

Judging by the current prospect evaluations (and what we learned from our previous draft analyses), that trade outlook might be the best possible scenario for the Eagles.

Turns out Andy Reid may not be quite finished helping the Eagles out…

Round 2: Luck vs. Skill in the NFL Draft

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Brent

Round 1 looked at historical draft performance and persistence based purely on total production as defined by CarAv. Today we’ll make an adjustment to the model and rerun the analysis to see if anything changes.

For reference, Round 1 found absolutely no correlation in team performance from one year to the next.

The adjustment for round 2 is accounting for draft position. Using the default NFL Draft Chart, I assigned a draft points value to every player selected from 1999-2009. I then summed up the total draft points used by each team each year, and divided that number by the total CarAv to arrive at a Points per CarAv value, which I then used to rank teams each year.

This should sound very familiar, as it is similar to the method I used in our first draft performance ranking. However, while that analysis looked at best performance over the whole length of time, this is only concerned with performance each individual year. As such, we don’t have to adjust for the cumulative nature of CarAv, so the rankings are a bit different.

Before we start parsing the results, here is the new ranking:

This one definitely passes the eye test. At the top of the board are Indy, Baltimore, Green Bay, Pittsburgh, and the Giants. Notice anything in common?

Meanwhile, at the bottom of the board are Detroit, Oakland, Cleveland, and Arizona.

So before digging in, it appears to be a reasonable ranking according to what we know of each team’s performance.

The Caveat – Using this system accounts for teams that perennially pick at the end of the draft (or the beginning), that way a team like the Patriots doesn’t get penalized for not finding similar quality players as a team like Cleveland, which, on average, picks much higher in the draft. However, using the NFL Draft Value Chart does have a drawback. The chart is HEAVILY skewed towards the top of the first round. For instance, the #1 pick is worth 3,000 points while the last pick in the draft is worth just 2. The upshot is that using it to adjust for team draft position skews the results in favor of teams who do not have a lot of Draft Points (i.e. good teams that don’t pick high in the draft or teams that don’t have 1st round picks). This is an area that I will try to adjust for in a future analysis.

Luck vs. Skill – Remember that if the draft is mostly skill, there should be positive correlation between team performance one year and the next. How much correlation? That’s up for serious debate. Regardless, here is the chart followed by the correlation value:

Doesn’t look like much, so I added a trendline to make it clearer. The value is .167. Not huge, but significant, and certainly a different story from the last look, which showed no connection.

If we take a step back, this comes out where I imagined the luck vs. skill argument to be when I started the original analysis. I believe that there is obviously skill involved in the draft, but that luck is far more determinant of team success in this area of the NFL. In general, my theory is that GM skill is illustrated by moving around the draft to maximize value/odds, and not necessarily in selecting players. A lot more to do to support that, but I think this analysis is a step in the right direction.

Other notes from the analysis:

– It should come as no surprise that, according to this analysis, the Eagles 2002 draft remains its best. Overall, the team’s average ranking over the subject time period was 15th.

– The Eagles were one of the most schizophrenic teams when it comes to draft performance, with a more volatile ranking than all but 3 teams (Jets, Miami, and Denver). The Broncos were least consistent.

– By this measure, the Eagles worst draft during the Andy Reid Era was 2003, when the team spent 26.71 draft points per CarAv. For comparison, in 2002 (best draft), the team spent just 6.15 draft points per CarAv. For those who don’t remember, 2003 was the Jerome McDougle, L.J. Smith draft.

– Over the subject timeframe, the Eagles have spent 3.74 draft points LESS than the league average per CarAV, which ranks 9th best in the league. (Chart below)

– The Colts spent 8.70 LESS draft points per CarAV than league average, while the Lions spent 13.05 points MORE than league average…

– The Detroit Lions have been shockingly inept when it comes to the draft. The teams average ranking is 26th, but for a clearer illustration, here are the Lions 1st round picks from 1999-2009:

Remember the post on how important it is to hit in the first round? Needless to say, the Lions blew it…repeatedly. To be fair, the team’s most recent #1s look OK (Suh, Fairley)…if you forget about Jahvid Best.

– The Patriots have fallen off dramatically. From 1999-2003 the team’s average ranking was 10.6. From 2004-2009 its average ranking jumped to 19.

– While the above analysis looked at average ranking, here is a chart showing performance over the whole time period, as defined by average draft points per CarAV minus league average. (So average team performance versus league average). Negative numbers = better performance.

There’s a lot more I can do now that I’ve put the information together (which took much longer than I expected). So expect to see a few more points from this analysis.

Overall, the evidence still stands heavily in luck’s corner in its fight with skill for the soul of the NFL Draft, though it’s fair to say skill has landed a couple jabs.

Eagles Rewind

Objective and Analytical Analysis of The Philadelphia Eagles and the NFL

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