Team Without A Power RB got to SB? - A RB Discussion

[Guest]

Exactly how many NFL team draft boards have you seen in your life or participated in creating?

Do you eat? Do you use the restroom? Do you breathe? But I have not seen those things! How could I really know that they happen?

As for my experience with draft boards, I do not think it matters at all that I have not been employed by an NFL team. My hands on experience in creating extensive draft boards in different sports allows me to understand draft board formulation and draft strategies very well. And that is really mainly what I have discussed and how I know that teams cannot do well if they disqualify half of the draft class from their boards. By doing so, they will reach lower talent levels far sooner than other teams, which will spell disaster for them. Simply put, that can't happen. It is illogical.

I claim zero expertise in college player analysis. I can see when a QB's arm is not the best. I can see when a DB is struggling to flip his hips. I can see plus and minus physical traits. I can see explosiveness in players and its absence. I can see route running skills and their absence. OL and DL technical issues are harder for me to assess, especially when the issue is very subtle. I am sure there are many technical aspects of all positions that I do not know.

But draft strategy. That is something with which I am comfortable.

[Panamamike]

Jobu awaits!

I'm laughing my ass off ...

My brother that passed away here in my apartment a few years ago was a huge Cleveland Indians fan and a big baseball fan. We used to watch a few, to us, classics leading up to every baseball season. Ken Burns baseball, the natural, Field of dreams, and of course Major League. I can picture the old man pitcher taking the shot of rum... "Up your butt Jobu" .... And then taking that bat in the back of his noggin' ... hahahaha. Opening day was homemade skyline chili dogs and cold ones. Great memories!

[powderblueboy]

They are doing a terrible job of trying to figure out when players might go. Absolutely stupid trade ups for Te'O (trading with an ILB needy team willing to trade out to take an ILB might have been a clue with 4 similarly rated ILBs all on the board 8 picks away) and Gordon (serious error in analysis to conclude there was any real risk of a team trading up to get Gordon) and not infrequently going after players too early that nobody is coming to get (Pipkins, Palmer, McKitty) are far too common.

Yes, NFL teams should at least be aware of the consensus of published opinion regarding a player's likely draft slot. Nobody is saying that it should be considered as gospel, just as a suggestion possible avenues for the gaining of extra value with its draft picks.

It is always better for a team to take a player that it values higher than the consensus range in the consensus range than it is to select a player way before the consensus range and for the team to hope that it had the only true genius so that the team could realize only fair, but not high value for the pick if, and only if, the pick exceeds the expectations of most.

With hundreds of players on the draft board, suppose that half a dozen are rated similarly at most points on the board. The team might have a player like Palmer, a consensus round 4-5 guy who plays the team's deepest position, as its highest rated player fractionally over other players who are consensus round 3 guys.

When drafting over many rounds, that is a "green light" situation. The team should consider taking the player that is likely to be gone and gone soon that carries nearly the same value so that the team can then use its next pick to get extra value on the player they have rated fractionally higher, but that public opinion suggests might fall a little lower in the draft. That is just simple basic draft strategy, especially where we are not talking about a PON.

How teams win the draft is by gaining value over all of the draft levels as a whole. Sometimes round combinations can be used to generate more value than by simply selecting the BPA at a given moment and teams should at least be aware of that when their rating appears to be our of whack with others reputable ratings.

The team reached for both Palmer and McKitty because that is what the consensus of opinions says happened. If they overperform, then the gets fair value for the pick. If they perform as most expect, then they are poor value choices. They are examples of poor draft strategy even if they yield fair value.

Teo was generally prognosticated to go where he went: why are you using this as an example?

Teams are aware of published opinion, it just doesn't drive unconditionally their decisions when drafting. Published opinion is often wrong: players drop like a stone....the very notion of a 'steal' is often 32 GMs not abiding by published opinion. Whose wrong: published opinion or the 32 GMs? Instead of saying they were wrong, and that they misdiagnosed the comparative talents of a particular player, media figures will call it a steal. Hilarious! Consensus is an arbitrary grouping of pundits with sketchy credentials who lack the training to properly evaluate a broad range of position groups, and who lack the resources, time or connections to know everything they need to know. I would much rather know what Nick Hardwick or Matt Slauson think about an offensive line prospect than the consensus of guys who never played or coached the position; and i would much rather know what Charlie Joiner or Jerry Rice think about Josh Palmer. I remember Rich Orton saying that Ronnie Stanley was as good as Laremy Tunsil: there were zero people in the media saying that. A few pundits are very good despite lacking this experience; most are unremarkable and their opinions are useless. Using them as a measuring stick in determining a successful draft is inappropriate.

[Guest]

Teams are aware of published opinion, it just doesn't drive unconditionally their decisions when drafting. Published opinion is often wrong: players drop like a stone....the very notion of a 'steal' is often 32 GMs not abiding by published opinion. Whose wrong: published opinion or the 32 GMs? Instead of saying they were wrong, and that they misdiagnosed the comparative talents of a particular player, media figures will call it a steal. Hilarious! Consensus is an arbitrary grouping of pundits with sketchy credentials who lack the training to properly evaluate a broad range of position groups, and who lack the resources, time or connections to know everything they need to know. I would much rather know what Nick Hardwick or Matt Slauson think about an offensive lineman prospect than the consensus of guys who never played or coached the position. A few are very good despite lacking this experience; most are bums and their opinion is useless.

Teo was generally prognosticated to go where he went: why do you use this as an example in your favor?

The comment was made that the team tries to understand what other teams are going to do. My response was that they have done a terrible job of that at times. The Te'o trade was one example of that.

In 2013, there were 4 ILBs (Te'o, Minter, Bostic, and Alonzo) that were all closely rated. The team seemed to take the approach that because they valued Te'o a certain way, other teams did also. They traded up to take Te'o when they probably could have just drafted him at #45. One clue for them that was there to be read was that Arizona, a team also in need of an ILB, was willing to trade back with us and not take Te'o when he was sitting there for them. So, there was clear knowledge that one ILB needy team did not value Te'o very highly. That, and the fact that all 4 similarly rated ILBs were still on the board, should have told Telesco something. 7 picks to go and 4 similarly rated ILBs and we traded up. That was an awful decision and represented a complete failure to read the situation.

The Gordon trade was another example of that. Telesco heard phantom trade up footsteps from other teams and just wasted a bunch of draft picks for no reason at all.

Telesco is not as guilty when it comes to trading up for no reason as he once was, but he still does not appreciate at times that other teams may have a player rated lower, sometimes much lower. I get that McKitty was a need based pick, but does anyone think he would not have been there for us to take in round 5? Again, that was just a gross failure to read the situation.

And do you know what all of the Telesco picks called reaches when they were drafted have in common? None of them have turned out to be good players for us.

[equivocation]

Do you eat? Do you use the restroom? Do you breathe? But I have not seen those things! How could I really know that they happen?

As for my experience with draft boards, I do not think it matters at all that I have not been employed by an NFL team. My hands on experience in creating extensive draft boards in different sports allows me to understand draft board formulation and draft strategies very well. And that is really mainly what I have discussed and how I know that teams cannot do well if they disqualify half of the draft class from their boards. By doing so, they will reach lower talent levels far sooner than other teams, which will spell disaster for them. Simply put, that can't happen. It is illogical.

I claim zero expertise in college player analysis. I can see when a QB's arm is not the best. I can see when a DB is struggling to flip his hips. I can see plus and minus physical traits. I can see explosiveness in players and its absence. I can see route running skills and their absence. OL and DL technical issues are harder for me to assess, especially when the issue is very subtle. I am sure there are many technical aspects of all positions that I do not know.

But draft strategy. That is something with which I am comfortable.

So you're just making stuff up. Of course, knowledge of super secretive NFL draft boards is not as common as breathing. NFL teams could commonly take 10% of the top 300 off their boards and we would have no way of knowing outside of direct experience. The draft wouldn't play out any different. Hell, 25% and it wouldn't be noticeable to outside observers.

You realize if this was court your whole testimony would be thrown out?

We all believe we're right. You speak with a certainty and imperative authority that is both unreasonable and undeserved. It rubs people the wrong way. The draft is not an exact process, everyone is best guessing and blind bidding. The draft putnick group think is often wrong. So are NFL teams. So am I. So are you.

[like54ninjas]

The comment was made that the team tries to understand what other teams are going to do. My response was that they have done a terrible job of that at times. The Te'o trade was one example of that.

In 2013, there were 4 ILBs (Te'o, Minter, Bostic, and Alonzo) that were all closely rated. The team seemed to take the approach that because they valued Te'o a certain way, other teams did also. They traded up to take Te'o when they probably could have just drafted him at #45. One clue for them that was there to be read was that Arizona, a team also in need of an ILB, was willing to trade back with us and not take Te'o when he was sitting there for them. So, there was clear knowledge that one ILB needy team did not value Te'o very highly. That, and the fact that all 4 similarly rated ILBs were still on the board, should have told Telesco something. 7 picks to go and 4 similarly rated ILBs and we traded up. That was an awful decision and represented a complete failure to read the situation.

The Gordon trade was another example of that. Telesco heard phantom trade up footsteps from other teams and just wasted a bunch of draft picks for no reason at all.

Telesco is not as guilty when it comes to trading up for no reason as he once was, but he still does not appreciate at times that other teams may have a player rated lower, sometimes much lower. I get that McKitty was a need based pick, but does anyone think he would not have been there for us to take in round 5? Again, that was just a gross failure to read the situation.

And do you know what all of the Telesco picks called reaches when they were drafted have in common? None of them have turned out to be good players for us.

How could you, I, or any non-NFL insider know if there were phantom trade rumors? That is pure speculation on your part.

Closely rated by media pundits.
Perhaps we had Teo rated higher than any of the others. Do you know one way or the other? Again pure speculation.

So here is what I will compare your analogy of the consensus of media pundits comparing to professional NFL team scouting departments.....

... creation science to evolutionary biology

[Guest]

So you're just making stuff up. Of course, knowledge of super secretive NFL draft boards is not as common as breathing. NFL teams could commonly take 10% of the top 300 off their boards and we would have no way of knowing outside of direct experience. The draft wouldn't play out any different. Hell, 25% and it wouldn't be noticeable to outside observers.

You realize if this was court your whole testimony would be thrown out?

We all believe we're right. You speak with a certainty and imperative authority that is both unreasonable and undeserved. It rubs people the wrong way. The draft is not an exact process, everyone is best guessing and blind bidding. The draft putnick group think is often wrong. So are NFL teams. So am I. So are you.

WTF?! Making stuff up?! That is ridiculous.

I am using common sense and experience. Amazingly enough, you can know things without actually having witnessed them firsthand. That is also how I know that you eat, use the restroom and breathe without having personally witnessed it.

If there were these massive disqualifications due to poor system fit or medical reasons from otherwise great players, you would not see 98 of Drafttek's top 100 rated players getting drafted, which is what happened. Instead, you see two players that did not get drafted. Was it a medical issue, off the field issue, system fit issue? It could have been, but whatever it was, it only served to disqualify two players from being drafted out of Drafttek's top 100. (I chose Drafttek because they highlight the drafted players on their big board so I could see the results much more easily.)

I chose the top 100 as those players were seen as clearly good enough to play in the NFL, so if they were not selected, the odds are more likely that it was due to a specific reason unrelated to natural ability such as an off field issue or a medical reason and not due to a difference of opinion regarding the player's actual ability, which is more likely later in the draft. This would tend to give us a look at the rate at which these mysterious unknown reasons, which I have acknowledged do exist, come into play, And the clear answer is just as I stated--they appear to happen in a comparatively small number of instances relative to all draft candidates, which is why every year we are not shocked by a whole multitude of top players mysteriously not getting drafted.

If 25% of players got dropped from a draft board, a team would have to go 340 players deep in general talent level to get to 255 draft candidates. They would be reaching increasingly more so as their increasing set of disqualified players would make them reach further with each passing round. It would be very, very noticeable as a team drafting in the 4th round would be a full round behind in terms of player talent. The 5th round pick would be a 7th round talent and the 6th and 7th round picks would be in the UDFA range if there were such a multitude of these secret disqualifications about which the pundits had no knowledge.

Teams that struck such a magnitude of players would be at a huge competitive disadvantage versus teams that did not make such exclusions. Think about it. If the disqualifications were not talent related, then they should be distributed evenly throughout the candidates. So suddenly your team has decided that it cannot draft every 4th player (Pitts, Horn, Parsons, Collins, Toney, et cetera, all gone off of your board). Do you see the ramifications of what you are suggesting and why it is obviously false and does not happen anywhere near the magnitude that you have suggested as an unnoticeable possibility?

Teams are not going to screw themselves by striking a huge portion of good players.

I speak with certainty here because the answer is certain. It is that simple.

I think there are plenty of things that are fair debate subjects such as how good Palmer or McKitty are likely to be. But this one you have chosen to jump into about the number of disqualifications typically from an NFL team's draft board is not one of them. As I have stated and as all logic and common sense support, that number is going to be a comparatively small number relative to all draft candidates.

[Guest]

How could you, I, or any non-NFL insider know if there were phantom trade rumors? That is pure speculation on your part.

Closely rated by media pundits.
Perhaps we had Teo rated higher than any of the others. Do you know one way or the other? Again pure speculation.

So here is what I will compare your analogy of the consensus of media pundits comparing to professional NFL team scouting departments.....

... creation science to evolutionary biology

Ninja, with great respect, please consider the following:

The 49ers were set to draft 15th. In the worst kept secret of the draft, it was common knowledge that SF was going to take Arik Armstead.

Houston was set to draft 16th. Houston had Arian Foster, who had just completed a Pro Bowl season, Alfred Blue and Chris Polk, who they signed two days before the draft. They were never going RB in round 1 and, in fact, only took a depth RB to push Polk/Blue in round 7.

We wanted Gordon and the 49ers were on the clock getting ready to take Armstead. If we were not completely clueless, we knew that Houston was not going to take Gordon.

So, if the two teams in front of us were not going to take Gordon, there is only one way that we would not have been able to draft Gordon at #17, which is if some phantom team out of nowhere traded up to take Gordon right out from under us. Telesco's mind heard those footsteps and he traded up. That is the only reason in his own mind why he would have had to have traded up. There is just no evidence anywhere, however, that anyone was coming to get Gordon.

Regarding Te'o, my recollection is that Telesco had him rated as a round 1 player. And that does not make Telesco's trade up to get Te'o any better (adding a poor evaluation to a bad draft strategy decision). In Telesco's defense, none of the ILBs ended up being great and there were only a few good round 4 players in a weak 2013 draft class that we could have selected, but the strategy was wrong and the player evaluation (which I did not focus on before) was also wrong.

The pundits were right about Watt, right about Mager and right about Pipkins so far--all reaches per them, all bad players in NFL reality. Maybe your analogiy's creationists are onto something since they have been right and Telesco wrong about a whole series of round 3 picks.

[RTPbolt]

I going to be honest here Chain. You sound like Vizzini from the Princess Bride quoting your opinions based on opinions from other analysts as cold hard fact which is just not truth. You were never in the draft rooms to know what these teams were thinking or their valuation process on players. Nobody has all the facts. Nobody knows what any team is going to do with their draft pick so you cant state a fact like everyone knew this team was going to draft this player at this spot...you just cant...that is overconfidence. I see behavioral aspects like this in the financial industry...people think they have all the information but they really dont...overconfidence leads to bad decisions when they think they cant be wrong...and guessing right leads to the overconfidence. But its still a guess.

Good players have landed in bad locations with bad coaches and the odds are stacked against them in succeeding too. Success is influencable by the situation and people around you....would you agree? I believe TT drafting a player at whatever draft position is stage 1, then its up to the coaches to have a plan for how to coach them up thru training physically and mentally, then coaches have to develop the schemes to put those players into a position where they can succeed. Other players mentoring is also a huge factor for development in sports. Then its up to the player to incorporate all the training into gametime action. There are a lot of variables within each of those and any one can derail a players success. Players all learn differently. Drsfting a player is the easy part but its all the follow on activity that builds upon a players potential. We are really drafting for potential and there is no master formula that values a player the absolute right way....its subjective.

[wu-dai clan]

LOL.
In this adversarial proceeding,
Chainy is an advocate for...Chainy.

[dmac_bolt]

[powderblueboy]

The comment was made that the team tries to understand what other teams are going to do. My response was that they have done a terrible job of that at times. The Te'o trade was one example of that.

In 2013, there were 4 ILBs (Te'o, Minter, Bostic, and Alonzo) that were all closely rated. The team seemed to take the approach that because they valued Te'o a certain way, other teams did also. They traded up to take Te'o when they probably could have just drafted him at #45. One clue for them that was there to be read was that Arizona, a team also in need of an ILB, was willing to trade back with us and not take Te'o when he was sitting there for them. So, there was clear knowledge that one ILB needy team did not value Te'o very highly. That, and the fact that all 4 similarly rated ILBs were still on the board, should have told Telesco something. 7 picks to go and 4 similarly rated ILBs and we traded up. That was an awful decision and represented a complete failure to read the situation.

The Gordon trade was another example of that. Telesco heard phantom trade up footsteps from other teams and just wasted a bunch of draft picks for no reason at all.

Telesco is not as guilty when it comes to trading up for no reason as he once was, but he still does not appreciate at times that other teams may have a player rated lower, sometimes much lower. I get that McKitty was a need based pick, but does anyone think he would not have been there for us to take in round 5? Again, that was just a gross failure to read the situation.

And do you know what all of the Telesco picks called reaches when they were drafted have in common? None of them have turned out to be good players for us.

All of this is speculation on your part; you would be better off admitting to it instead of passing it off as absolute certainty..
That Arizona team had a lot of needs & inside linebacker is not the most highly valued of defensive positions. They ended up passing on inside linebacker with their 2nd round pick (even thought Jamie Collins was available). That pretty much renders your description of their intentions wrong. That you characterize all 4 players as 'equally' rated is once again you chasing your own tail. Who had them equally rated - consensus? Jamie Collins turned out to be the best of the group and i don't remember consensus projecting him in the 2nd.

Gordon was the last player Telesco had a 1rst round grade on. It seemed worth while to him to give up a 4rth to ensure that they got him. In hindsight, there were of course better options - but that is not what this argument is about. This argument is about whether Telesco could have gotten these players later, and quite frankly you, or anyone else, will never know..