Draft Value Chart 'firepower' by team

Since *all teams conduct trades according to the draft value chart (very few deviations), I thought it was best to look at each team based on its cumulative draft value points. Note: I assumed we traded #189 to Baltimore for Anquan Boldin. In the second list, I have 'real' draft value based on the actual career performance of past NFL draft picks. This is Michael Schuckers' work, which you can find via google. In the second chart, you see that the 49ers, Vikings, Dolphins, and Rams are the teams that will dominate this draft.

The Colts and Seahawks will be sitting this draft out ;)

Team Draft Value Chart Total
Jacksonville Jaguars 3656
Kansas City Chiefs 3479
Philadelphia Eagles 2802
Oakland Raiders 2654
Detroit Lions 2587
St. Louis Rams 2560
Miami Dolphins 2559
Arizona Cardinals 2443
Minnesota Vikings 2288
Buffalo Bills 2280
New York Jets 2253
Tennessee Titans 2176
San Diego Chargers 2060
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 2029
Cleveland Browns 2024
Cincinnati Bengals 2002
San Francisco 49ers 1940
Dallas Cowboys 1747
Carolina Panthers 1712
Pittsburgh Steelers 1699
New York Giants 1600
New Orleans Saints 1417
Chicago Bears 1377
Green Bay Packers 1310
Houston Texans 1259
Denver Broncos 1221
Atlanta Falcons 1149
Baltimore Ravens 1106
New England Patriots 1100
Indianapolis Colts 977
Washington Redskins 704
Seattle Seahawks 610

Team Real Value
Minnesota Vikings 2841
San Francisco 49ers 2720
Miami Dolphins 2702
St. Louis Rams 2554
Philadelphia Eagles 2328
Jacksonville Jaguars 2285
Arizona Cardinals 2157
New York Jets 2108
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 2089
San Diego Chargers 2022
Buffalo Bills 2003
Detroit Lions 1986
Tennessee Titans 1985
Pittsburgh Steelers 1919
New York Giants 1885
Dallas Cowboys 1811
Kansas City Chiefs 1773
Green Bay Packers 1752
Baltimore Ravens 1741
Oakland Raiders 1729
Houston Texans 1725
Cincinnati Bengals 1723
Denver Broncos 1708
Carolina Panthers 1695
Cleveland Browns 1678
Atlanta Falcons 1671
Chicago Bears 1578
New Orleans Saints 1546
New England Patriots 1390
Washington Redskins 1344
Seattle Seahawks 1180
Indianapolis Colts 1150

Looks like it's going to be a quiet draft in Seattle.

Originally posted by JamesGatz83:
Looks like it's going to be a quiet draft in Seattle.

Indy too -

They have a really poor compilation of picks for still having their #1.

Interesting stuff, but I have a couple questions for you:

One, I've heard people argue that the draft value chart basically needs to be thrown out the window now because of the latest collective bargaining agreement. Now that rookie salaries are so controlled and diminished compared to what they used to be, it totally distorts the value of these picks. Any thoughts on that?


Two, you said that the second list if based off of Michael Shuckers work. Can you elaborate on that? What do you mean it's showing the value of "actual performance by past NFL players?" What barometer is used for "good" or "bad" performance? That seems like a difficult thing to quantify for something like this.

Second of all, how far back does this go? If it's the entire history of a franchise, then it is clearly flawed and has very little value (why would a strong draft under Bill Walsh's regime have any bearing whatsoever on well the Niners will draft this year?). If it's only the past 3-5 years -- or some smaller subset like that -- then I'm still skeptical of it, because the Seahawks, for instance, have drafted tremendously these last few years, and there's no way they're second-worst in value return...

It's tough to analyze these numbers without knowing more about them.

Originally posted by theduke85:
Interesting stuff, but I have a couple questions for you:

One, I've heard people argue that the draft value chart basically needs to be thrown out the window now because of the latest collective bargaining agreement. Now that rookie salaries are so controlled and diminished compared to what they used to be, it totally distorts the value of these picks. Any thoughts on that?


Two, you said that the second list if based off of Michael Shuckers work. Can you elaborate on that? What do you mean it's showing the value of "actual performance by past NFL players?" What barometer is used for "good" or "bad" performance? That seems like a difficult thing to quantify for something like this.

Second of all, how far back does this go? If it's the entire history of a franchise, then it is clearly flawed and has very little value (why would a strong draft under Bill Walsh's regime have any bearing whatsoever on well the Niners will draft this year?). If it's only the past 3-5 years -- or some smaller subset like that -- then I'm still skeptical of it, because the Seahawks, for instance, have drafted tremendously these last few years, and there's no way they're second-worst in value return...

It's tough to analyze these numbers without knowing more about them.

Schuckers took player performance over their career according to pro-football reference. He then looked at where those players were drafted and fit a curve to that.

quote:

The performance measures that we have for every player are the number of games in which they appeared (G), the number of games that they started (GS), the Career Approximate Value (CAV) and the number of Pro Bowl (PB) appearances they had. CAV is a player metric devised by Drinen (2008) and is calculated by Pro-Football-Reference.com and is a method for comparing the value of players over their careers/

He tracked all players drafted between 1991 and 2001, then analyzed those players performance in seasons 1991-2009. Others have done similar work that corroborates this -- its peer-reviewed.

http://statsportsconsulting.com/main/wp-content/uploads/Schuckers_JQAS_NFL_Draft.pdf

Funny - here is the mathematically-optimized trade scenario
Keep in mind, this is based on observed career player performance based on draft position published by Michael Schuckers paper.

So, we would keep picks #61 and #74, then trade ALL of our other picks for #68, #69, #70, #71, #72, #73.

We would end up drafting one 2nd rounder and SEVEN 3rd rounders!

Its dead-even on the draft value chart.

For Jacksonville, they would trade all of their picks for the first SIXTEEN picks in the 3rd round.

Originally posted by nickbradley:
He tracked all players drafted between 1991 and 2001, then analyzed those players performance in seasons 1991-2009. Others have done similar work that corroborates this -- its peer-reviewed.

http://statsportsconsulting.com/main/wp-content/uploads/Schuckers_JQAS_NFL_Draft.pdf

So we're talking about players that were drafted during a 10-year period, concluding with the 2001 NFL draft. What relevance does the draft methodology of a team 10, 15, even 20 years ago have on their respective franchise today? Almost every team has a different head coach/general manager/scouting department today than they did back then.

I'm not saying the study isn't interesting -- it's very cool. But I don't see how it has any bearing on the upcoming draft whatsoever. Maybe you're not even trying to make that assertion and I'm just putting words in your mouth.

Originally posted by theduke85:
So we're talking about players that were drafted during a 10-year period, concluding with the 2001 NFL draft. What relevance does the draft methodology of a team 10, 15, even 20 years ago have on their respective franchise today? Almost every team has a different head coach/general manager/scouting department today than they did back then.

I'm not saying the study isn't interesting -- it's very cool. But I don't see how it has any bearing on the upcoming draft whatsoever. Maybe you're not even trying to make that assertion and I'm just putting words in your mouth.

Not sure if you understand what peer review is, but his findings are consistent with other time periods. There in his bibliography.

Its obvious.

Originally posted by nickbradley:
Not sure if you understand what peer review is, but his findings are consistent with other time periods. There in his bibliography.

Its obvious.

It may be obvious to you, but some of us do not understand statistics all that well.

Originally posted by buck:
It may be obvious to you, but some of us do not understand statistics all that well.

OK - then they should trust people that do.

rule of thumb: value is maximized in the late 2nd/early 3rd. trade up or down towards that point.

Nick,

After re-reading your original post, it is clear that we are bickering about apples and oranges. When you said that the list was "based on the actual career performance of past NFL draft picks", I was under the impression that this computation was relative to a particular franchise. After your first post I Google'd for the study and wasn't able to find it, so I continued with that assumption. However, after looking through the study, it is clear that the study is completely franchise/regime agnostic and is viewing production-to-pick value with no concern at all for the team that picked up the player. With this in mind, I can see this can be an objective means of determining expected returns on picks.

Originally posted by theduke85:
Nick,

After re-reading your original post, it is clear that we are bickering about apples and oranges. When you said that the list was "based on the actual career performance of past NFL draft picks", I was under the impression that this computation was relative to a particular franchise. After your first post I Google'd for the study and wasn't able to find it, so I continued with that assumption. However, after looking through the study, it is clear that the study is completely franchise/regime agnostic and is viewing production-to-pick value with no concern at all for the team that picked up the player. With this in mind, I can see this can be an objective means of determining expected returns on picks.

cool.

Originally posted by nickbradley
cool.

Alright, well sorry for the misunderstanding and thanks for posting this. It's definitely an interesting study. Are you planning on revisiting once compensation picks are announced?

Originally posted by theduke85:
Alright, well sorry for the misunderstanding and thanks for posting this. It's definitely an interesting study. Are you planning on revisiting once compensation picks are announced?

I don't know if I will. Sure, the value of the picks change, but they're non tradeable. It only took me 20 - 30 minutes to add these up, so I guess I will.

I expect us to get a 4th and (2) 7ths this year. I expect to get a 3rd, 4th, and 5th next year.