Draftmetrics - Part I

A Historical Study of the NFL Draft Spring 2022

This study by Anthony J Villiotti will:

• Put the draft into the proper perspective

• Examine the outcome of drafts from 2012 through 2019

• Evaluate the draft performance of NFL teams and selected colleges

• Review difference among draft years

• Comment on constructing a competitive NFL roster

Draftmetric2022

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INTRODUCTION My fascination (my word)/obsession (my wife’s word) with the NFL draft began in 1969 when my beloved Steelers drafted Joe Greene. I had always been a big NFL fan. Fresh out of college, the draft became a huge interest of mine. At that time, the draft was a weekday event with no live television coverage. The draft was not televised until 1980.

In order to keep track of the draft selections, my mother, armed with a list of names I gave her, was tasked with the job of tuning in to periodic draft day updates on local radio and calling me with the updates. What a mother will do for her son! I continued to be a fan of draft. Mock drafts projections were hard to come by back in those days. How times have changed! My primary source of information was articles written for Pro Football Weekly by Carl and Pete Marasco.

Coincidentally, they started writing those articles in 1969. I also devoured the pro football annuals like Street & Smith and began developing lists from which I would make first-round predictions for the amusement of my friends. The Marasco brothers eventually moved on to jobs in the NFL and they were replaced in my universe by Joel Buchsbaum who started his draft writings around 1974.

Buchsbaum was a recluse whose life revolved around the draft. Mel Kiper joined the draft party in the late 70s, starting out by sending his own draft rankings to NFL front offices. Mel is, of course, now a household name in the draft community. My draft interest took a drastic turn in 1987, sparked by a conversation I heard on a local sports talk show. I am also highly interested in college football recruiting. This conversation centered around the talk show host’s disinterest in college football recruiting. His rationale was that it was difficult to predict how successful a recruit will be, so why follow it?

This set off a light bulb in my head. Just how predictable was the NFL draft? This drew my interest away from following prospective draftees toward analyzing career outcomes. Being a numbers nerd whose idea of a good time is to enter numbers into spreadsheets, this was right up my alley.

My interest resulted in publishing two studies that were purchased by a number of NFL teams:

• “The NFL Draft: A Historical Perspective” published in the fall of 1987 and updated in January 1989

• “Draftmetrics: A Study of the NFL Draft from 1990-2009” published in the Spring of 2010.

I also wrote columns regarding this aspect of the draft for the “National Football Post” from 2013 to 2015 The studies were largely based on a database I developed based on information from a variety of sources from which I captured the number of games started by drafted players.

As the prevalence of situational substitutions grew, it became increasingly apparent to me that the number of starts was not really an effective evaluation metric. For example, a team may start a game in a three-tight end set and the third tight end never sees another snap in that game.

Scrimmage play participation can be a much better, though still imperfect, metric. I had set aside my analysis after 2010 as snap count information was not readily available. In 2012, though, the NFL began publishing weekly “Gamebooks” that contained snap count information. I began using those weekly sheets to extract the snap counts, but for this study, all snap counts are as reported by pro-footballreference.com. This provided verifiable information for the construction of a database for all players drafted between 2012 and 2021.

This study uses the database to examine various aspects of the draft. This allows me to satisfy my neverending thirst for information about draft outcomes and provide that information to others with a similar interest in the draft. This study will: • Put the draft into proper perspective

• Examine the outcome of drafts from 2012 through 2019

• Evaluate the draft performance of NFL teams and selected colleges

• Review difference among draft years

• Comment on constructing a competitive NFL roster Feedback and constructive criticisms are always welcomed. I am always interested in improving this analysis. If you have any suggestions, please email them to me at draftmetrics@gmail.com.

PUTTING THE DRAFT IN CONTEXT

There are only two ways to enter the National Football League. Either a player is drafted (through the regular draft, or the seldom-used supplemental draft) or he is signed as an undrafted free agent It goes without saying that the draft is the most important player source for the NFL.

The following table uses scrimmage snap counts from the 2021 regular season to quantify that importance. For each NFL team, the table shows the percentage of snaps from 1) self-drafted players, 2) players drafted by other teams acquired through trade, waiver or free agency, 3) a subtotal for all drafted players, and 4) undrafted free agents (UDFAs). Team SelfDrafted Players Other Drafted Players All Drafted Players UDFAs Team SelfDrafted Players Other Drafted Players All Drafted Players UD

• 83% of the snap counts are attributable to players who have been drafted