Draftmetrics

NFL TEAM EVALUATIONS

The ultimate report card for an NFL team takes place on the field and is reflected in their won-lost record. But are some teams better than others on draft days? In this section, we will explore that notion. For the purposes of this analysis, a team’s success is measured based on the players they drafted, regardless of whether he moves on to another team or not. For example, Minkah Fitzpatrick was drafted by the Dolphins but played only one season and two games in his second season for them before being traded to the Steelers. He remains on the Dolphins “scorecard”, though, as they selected him. This keeps the analysis focused solely on drafting success.

Similar to the earlier analysis, we will be reviewing drafting patterns and success for the drafts from 2012 to 2019 or eight years. Three different metrics are used in this analysis, with the heaviest weight given to SCs and MCs. As a reminder, here is a description of those terms:

• Contributors: Players who played at least three seasons and participated in 20% to 39% of the team’s snaps in three seasons, abbreviated as C

• Significant Contributors: Players who played at least three seasons and played between 40% and 59% of the team’s snaps in at least three seasons, abbreviated as SC

• Major Contributors: Players who played at least three seasons and

Please note that when the number of players achieving Contributor status is listed, Significant and Major Contributors are included because they also achieved Contributor status. Similarly, when discussing Significant Contributor Status, Major Contributor status is also included. When referring to Major Contributors, that category stands alone.

The Approach

The evaluation will be done from two perspectives. The first will be based solely on the total number of players in each category. This gives an advantage to those teams with more and/or higher selections than other teams. This a valid metric but does not address how efficiently a team used their selections. It is truly a bottom-line approach; the more players in each category that are successful, the better it should be for that team. After all, that is the purpose of acquiring the additional draft choices. The second perspective measures how well a team drafts considering the number and location of their selections. Using the historical averages in the DRAFT OUTCOMES section, the number of players in each category that SHOULD HAVE resulted from their draft selections can be calculated. Then, the success percentage is calculated, which indicates how efficiently draft choices were utilized. Confusing? The following is an example of the calculation using the Browns selections in the first half of the second round, where they had six selections and better than expected performance.

Regardless of which approach is used, the appropriate metric must be selected. Our preference is to focus on the Significant Contributors, given the number of situational substitutions that are made in today’s game. We give the least amount of weight to the Contributors category.

Before getting into that analysis, it is interesting to review the number of players selected by each team by playing position. The following table shows, for each playing position, the number of Significant Contributors (column labeled SC), and number of players drafted (labeled D) for each playing position. For example, the 49ers drafted three QBs, none of which were Significant Contributors.

Selections are, of course, influenced by a team’s needs. Teams with an established QB, for example, will not usually select a QB early in the draft.

• Most teams split their selections relatively evenly among offensive and defensive players

• The Cardinals went heavy on offense with 37 of their 59 selections on that side of the ball; Texans had a 34/27 split favoring the offense

• Three teams went heavily on defense led by the Cowboys (26/40), followed by the Raiders (27/41) and Falcons (23/32)