NFL Draft Criteria

[adios]

Anquan Boldin is a rookie wide receiver for the Arizona Cardinals. In his first game as a pro he caught 10 passes for 217 yards and 2 touchdowns including a 71 yard reception for a TD. I believe it broke some sort of rookie record for that performance. So far this season he's caught 30 passes in 4 games for 464 yards. He's also playing on an at best mediocre team. Amazingly he was drafted in the 2nd round. The rap against Boldin was that his 4.6 40 yd dash time at the combine wasn't that good. I think that's what Jerry Rice had as a rookie. I started thinking about the top echelon receivers and IMO you don't find that many with great speed relative to someone like Rice or Boldin. Perhaps Randy Moss as I'm not sure what kind of time he does in the 40 (who cares now). Yet the IMO clowns of the NFL use this type of criteria to determine where to draft someone all the time. I wonder what statistics would show about the effectiveness of drafting players in the NFL is.

[Boris]

I had a discussion with tAFKAN about this. The idea was that in baseball the traditional offensive stats such as BA, RBI, hits, were not as good as OPS in determining a player's offensive ability.

I wondered if maybe in the NFL there weren't more effective metrics by which to judge a player. We came to the conclusion that baseball has alot more repeated trials so that you can actually get meaningful statistical analysis.

In the NFL, most teams have maybe 10 hours of game film by which to judge a draft prospect. As a result you have things like the combine where they seem obsessed with speed. I think they obsess about the 40 times simply because there aren't many other objective metrics.

[HDPM]

Interesting thought. I finally read Moneyball after it was recommended, and I think the application of rationality to sports could go a long way. If somebody in the NFL who really knew personnel issues figured out how to evaluate players, his team would be way ahead. I suppose some guys do and my guess is the guys to look for are the ones who are successful with late round draft picks. My guess is that a lot of guys look to measurable things from the combines and overlook who can actually play to some degree. Given the value of first round draft picks, you would think some of the GM's would do studies to find out what separated successes from busts. This must go on to some degree with the psychological testing and so forth; like the guys who claim they can differentiate Payton Manning from Ryan Leaf by the way they walk or whatever. I don't know exactly what they do though. But a bad first round pick can have negative effects for years. You miss a good player, sign a bad one for big money, then need to scramble to fill the need of both the bust pick and the missed pick with expensive free agents or yet more draft picks. Particularly when the players are at different positions. As a Bronco fan I will never forget the completely stupid Dan Reeves draft when they picked Tommy Maddox in the first round when Elway had 5 or so good years left and left Pickens on the board. Elway never had a receiver like Pickens and Pickens was doomed to Cincinnati. then the Broncos had to pick up free agent wide receivers. It was an unforgiveable blunder by Reeves. Worse than when he drafted a 5'4" 225 pound Division VIIIAAA nose guard that one time. The combines help avoid that by their weighing and measuring at least.

[TimTimSalabim]

The draft is pretty much a crapshoot. If that wasn't true, then surely the Bengals would be the best team in football by now.

[adios]

Probably true. It's hard to quantify certain things in football as well IMO. On defense and the offensive line come to mind.

[adios]

Which brings up an interesting point about QB's in the NFL as well. Maddox was a total bust until he served an apprenticeship in the "minor leagues" in Europe. He had a decent season last year. Warner did the same thing more or less. I think there have been others as well but can't think of any names now. I remember Maddox thing being part of the Reeves-Elway rift.

Years ago I attended a Texas Tech vs. UNM game in Lubbock,Tx. Texas Tech had this senior linebacker named Zack Thomas who intercepted 2 passes and ran one back for a TD. He seemed to be in on every running play. Later I told a friend that I thought Thomas was a real good football player but may not even be drafted by the pros. He wouldn't fit their criteria for linebackers since he was probably too short for them and too slow. Well he was drafted in the 5th round by Miami and has started ever since. Hey maybe I can start a new career /images/graemlins/smile.gif.

[adios]

Yeah good point but a lot of good players want to get out of Dodge so to speak as soon as they can like Takeo Spikes. I'm getting the sense that Marvin Lewis is turning things around for the Bengals.

[HDPM]

Yeah, my scouting of Kordell Stewart at CU could have predicted his misery as a pro. And I picked out the potential NFLers watching some pickup basketball there too. It's sick seeing linemen run the floor and dunk over people. /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

But nobody will be hiring me in any capacity as a football guy anytime in this lifetime.

[TimTimSalabim]

Okay, the Bengals may eventually turn things around, perhaps I should have made my point like this:

Ryan Leaf -- 1st round
Joe Montana -- 3rd round

Not to mention all the superstars (Priest Holmes and Kurt Warner among many others) who started as undrafted free agents.