Avoiding Dumb Mistakes at the NFL Draft

Benefit from 2-for-1 deals. No, the NFL 2-for-1 is not a coupon that grants you extra draft picks just when you dearly need them. Instead, it's a trade archetype that has helped push the 49ers into owning arguably the league's most talented roster. The 2-for-1 is the deal you make when you give a second-round pick to a team in need while acquiring a future first-round pick in the process. At the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in March, this trade came up in discussion as possibly the most obviously egregious decision a team can make. I'm not here to disagree with them.

http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/58704/avoiding-dumb-mistakes-at-the-nfl-draft

Trust in Baalke

Yeah, teams (usually bad ones) get antsy at the end of round 1 or beginning of round two and give up way too much to get someone that fell. Usually it's for a quarterback who won't work out. Doesn't necessarily have to be a pick this year for a round higher next year, some times it's just giving up a bunch of picks for one player. Recent examples: Broncos did it for Tebow, Lions for Best. Teams that are struggling need all the picks they can get to build a team. Another example of bad drafting imo is teams trading for older vets when they should be rebuilding. The raiders gave up a 1st for Richard Seymour. It's not like they were one step away, should have kept it and used the 1st on a young player that could help the team rebuild and grow. I guess they probably would have missed anyways. Part of the problem is coaches and gm's on the hot seat who have to win now so they dont care about the future.

And back to the article one time it worked out for us.. traded 43 (everrette brown - car) and ended up being 17 which was mike iupati... example of when it didn't work out, traded 42 to colts (tony ugoh) for what ended up being 29 I believe and we took Kentwan Balmer so it didnt work out for either team. One time we traded up and did it we got the Pats 28th which became Staley and ended up giving up a 1st the next year which became #10 overall. They took Jerod Mayo so it worked out for both teams. Anyways, just glad we have Baalke and not one of those gm's where everyone knows they are making a mistake and you can't do anything about it.

Originally posted by Gore_21:
Yeah, teams (usually bad ones) get antsy at the end of round 1 or beginning of round two and give up way too much to get someone that fell. Usually it's for a quarterback who won't work out. Doesn't necessarily have to be a pick this year for a round higher next year, some times it's just giving up a bunch of picks for one player. Recent examples: Broncos did it for Tebow, Lions for Best. Teams that are struggling need all the picks they can get to build a team. Another example of bad drafting imo is teams trading for older vets when they should be rebuilding. The raiders gave up a 1st for Richard Seymour. It's not like they were one step away, should have kept it and used the 1st on a young player that could help the team rebuild and grow. I guess they probably would have missed anyways. Part of the problem is coaches and gm's on the hot seat who have to win now so they dont care about the future.

And back to the article one time it worked out for us.. traded 43 (everrette brown - car) and ended up being 17 which was mike iupati... example of when it didn't work out, traded 42 to colts (tony ugoh) for what ended up being 29 I believe and we took Kentwan Balmer so it didnt work out for either team. One time we traded up and did it we got the Pats 28th which became Staley and ended up giving up a 1st the next year which became #10 overall. They took Jerod Mayo so it worked out for both teams. Anyways, just glad we have Baalke and not one of those gm's where everyone knows they are making a mistake and you can't do anything about it.

I think it all boils down to being an effective evaluator of talent. It works out when you draft good talent. When you don't, the move is questioned. Ironically, I remember when the Staley trade happened and MANY people on this board stated we could've had Tony Ugoh and kept out first round pick in 2008. Just goes to show you can't write the complete story on a player after one season.

I can see the logic behind staying pat, because good players will surely fall, and also trading back to pick up extra 2nd and third round picks where there will be starter quality talent available. I don't really see us making any real mistakes. We haven't so far and that is including 2012. I won't label any of our non-producing players a mistake until either A) they get ample opportunity in 2013/2014 and fail to produce or B) fail to make even a minor contribution in 2013.