Grade the 49ers 2010 Draft [3 years later]

This years draft is going to top the last 5. Big statements I know but we went light out this year. These guys are going to be starters and potential pro bowlers for the next 5 and I will put up anything at least 3 of the the first 5 we picked are big names within two seasons.

Originally posted by jreff22:

Originally posted by AmpLee:

Originally posted by jreff22:
Assign letter grades to each, run the numbers and what you get is what you get.

That's a silly way to grade a draft. So if we drafted Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, and Ronnie Lott in a draft we also drafted 7 guys that amounted to nothing (F-grades), you would "run the numbers" and average out 3 As and 7 Fs? (15 + 7 = 22 / 10 = 2.2) So if we went about it that way it would net us about a D average. Would you "run the numbers" and give that draft a D?

The thing you seem to be missing, is that you don't assign grades to each pick and then run the numbers. That's ridiculous. If that were the case, a team that drafted only one player and he was an 'A' player, then they would get an 'A' for that draft? Again, you are diluting a fairly easy process. How many contributors and to what degree they contribute is the most accurate and non-complicated way to grade a draft.

If we are evaluating the ENTIRE class, yes you get the grade for the class.

I'm not sure what kind of GPA you used in college but your numbers are way off, it would be a 1.2. While you hit 3 all stars, the vast majority of the class was a failure.

If a team only drafted 1 player and they hit an all star with it what kind of grade would you give them? If its 1 guy and he's a superstar the grade is an A. You cant say its a D because they only had 1 pick.

You judge the contributions of each player and give them a grade for it. Its the only fair way to look at a class across the board in a given year and compare it to other years.

If you say well for 3 years it was an A, it doesnt explain the situation. Saying one year it was a 3.04, than 3.36, then 3.13...we can see out of 3 years which was the strongest in the sea of "A's".

A few questions/thoughts:

In your opinion has there ever been an A draft? I can't imagine a draft in which every player pans out, especially to the degree Davis, Iupati, and Bowman have. Let alone getting some solid contributors in Dixon and Williams (just because they aren't superstars doesn't mean they weren't good picks).

Also, in grading a draft, you cannot use a basic GPA grading system. The consequences of failing a class is much greater than missing on a draft pick. Other classes can only compensate so much. One F ruins an entire quarter, while missing on one pick can be compensated for by drafting a super star like Aaron Rodgers.

I understand your thinking, but it is flawed. You have to grade drafts relative to drafts in the past. It is extremely rare to get three pro bowlers in one draft. I really think it has only happened a handful of times. The only way I could fathom giving this draft anything but an A is because Kyle Williams is directly responsible for making us miss the Superbowl in 2011, but even that is flawed because Davis, Iupati, and Bowman are directly responsible for getting us there.

Originally posted by thl408:
You draftniks should bring back your 2010 mocks and see how it stacks up. Now that would be interesting to see.

1 Ndamukong Suh DT Nebraska
2 Eric Berry FS Tennessee
3 Gerald McCoy DT Oklahoma
4 Trent Williams OT Oklahoma
5 Sam Bradford QB Oklahoma
6 Russell Okung OT Oklahoma State
7 Rolando McClain ILB Alabama
8 Jimmy Clausen QB Notre Dame
9 Bryan Bulaga OT Iowa
10 C.J. Spiller RB Clemson
11 Joe Haden CB Florida
12 Anthony Davis OT Rutgers
13 Derrick Morgan DE Georgia Tech
14 Earl Thomas FS Texas
15 Dan Williams DT Tennessee
16 Brandon Graham DE Michigan
17 Dez Bryant WR Oklahoma State
18 Charles Brown OT USC
19 Mike Iupati G Idaho
20 Bruce Campbell OT Maryland
21 Kyle Wilson CB Boise State
22 Jared Odrick DT Penn State
23 Jason Pierre-Paul DE South Florida
24 Patrick Robinson CB Florida
25 Brian Price DT UCLA
26 Jahvid Best RB Cal
27 Jerry Hughes OLB TCU
28 Maurkice Pouncey C Florida
29 Devin McCourty CB Rutgers
30 Corey Wootton DE Northwestern
31 Eric Norwood OLB South Carolina
32 Rodger Saffold OT Indiana

Seriously, its a joke that anyone would not consider the 2010 draft an A grade. Personally, I think Jreff just likes attention because no one with any football knowledge would call this a B- draft.

Davis, Iupati and Bow in 1 draft?

Call in Emma stone cuz this is an Easy A.

I actually liked the Taylor Mays choice at the time, and honestly I loved the Navarro Bowman choice too even tho not many knew who he was, i remember him at Penn St and his teammate Sean Lee (Now a Cowgirl) was getting all the accolades but Bowman was faster, hit harder and made more plays. So I missed on Taylor Mays and I hit on Bowman that year with my judgement, Overall since we did hit in the 1st round and Bowman and Dixon is a nice Special teamer and even Kyle Williams has produced a little as a 6th rounder sans that Giants game, My 2010 Grade is a B+

Think about it this way.

The lowest score for this draft in 7 pages on a very contentious 49ersWebzone is a B-, this must be a very good draft.

Originally posted by AmpLee:
I'm going to briefly explain, again, why this is an incredibly flawed way to grade a draft.

Team A selects: 1 A player (they traded their entire draft to get the number 1 selection)

Team B selects: 7 A players
3 B players
1 C player

According to your grading system, team A got the higher grade. Not much else I can say on this matter, other than it's a poor way to evaluate drafts.

The likelihood of that happening is so rare I dont even know why you would bring in up. But the difference between both teams would be .55. Depending on how you view it, its usually considered an A- and for a team to take 11 players with a score like that would be crazy and the context of a singular player class would come into question because of its rarity.

Originally posted by Disp:
I wouldn't bother. The only thing that matters is how many impact players a team drafts. Coming away with 1 "A" rated Navarro Bowman and 6 crap players is a better draft than 2 "C+" rated Anthony Dixons and 5 crap players. But by your grading, the 2 Anthony Dixon draft is better. We'll just have to disagree.

You could go 16-0 with 11 Bowmans (A) and 11 Taylor Mays(F). You could go 0-16 with 22 Anthony Dixons(C+).

If the whole point is only about impact players than why talk about the unit, discussing individual players is a different story.

Both the scenarios you described would get F ratings with a difference of .09 points. Miniscule differences.

Originally posted by Draftology:
A few questions/thoughts:

In your opinion has there ever been an A draft? I can't imagine a draft in which every player pans out, especially to the degree Davis, Iupati, and Bowman have. Let alone getting some solid contributors in Dixon and Williams (just because they aren't superstars doesn't mean they weren't good picks).

Also, in grading a draft, you cannot use a basic GPA grading system. The consequences of failing a class is much greater than missing on a draft pick. Other classes can only compensate so much. One F ruins an entire quarter, while missing on one pick can be compensated for by drafting a super star like Aaron Rodgers.

I understand your thinking, but it is flawed. You have to grade drafts relative to drafts in the past. It is extremely rare to get three pro bowlers in one draft. I really think it has only happened a handful of times. The only way I could fathom giving this draft anything but an A is because Kyle Williams is directly responsible for making us miss the Superbowl in 2011, but even that is flawed because Davis, Iupati, and Bowman are directly responsible for getting us there.

A perfect score of 4.0 would be impossible but a score of 3.5ish would put you into the realm of an A/A-.

While drafting a player can compensate for another...how long was it repeated that taking Alex over Rodgers killed this franchise? Or the constant reminder that Balmer was taken over Jackson. Sometimes that miss can kill a franchise....easiest example would be the failed first round QB's. If a team gets 2 probowlers in the middle rounds but fails miserably on its top pick which is a QB, no player can compensate for that immediate error.

We run a good chance of having the 2011 class have 3 probowlers....so it does happen. I would grade the 2011 draft higher on a numerical value chart for instance. Kap, Miller, and Aldon are all A's IMO.

Slapping an A on back to back drafts is great but for a more detailed approach giving something do differentiate between them is where the numbers come in.

Originally posted by AmpLee:

Originally posted by jreff22:

Originally posted by AmpLee:
I'm going to briefly explain, again, why this is an incredibly flawed way to grade a draft.

Team A selects: 1 A player (they traded their entire draft to get the number 1 selection)

Team B selects: 7 A players
3 B players
1 C player

According to your grading system, team A got the higher grade. Not much else I can say on this matter, other than it's a poor way to evaluate drafts.

The likelihood of that happening is so rare I dont even know why you would bring in up. But the difference between both teams would be .55. Depending on how you view it, its usually considered an A- and for a team to take 11 players with a score like that would be crazy and the context of a singular player class would come into question because of its rarity.

lol, the point seems to have passed by over your head. It's an example to show the inherent flaw in your grading system. Simply put, you aren't accounting for quantity. Why is this so hard to understand?

I understand your point just fine, but creating a grading matrix that takes various quantities into account would be complex because each team and draft is different. The ideal goal with this is to hit on the majority of your players and have them be quality players...not just warm bodies.

It could be that the ideal draft is a score of 2.5 or better, while a great draft would put you close to 3.0. Again in a given year a 2.7 (B-) could be the best score out of the entire league, which means you curve that number to an A.

Originally posted by AmpLee:

'A' Player - A good to great player - 3 points
'B' Player - An average to good player - 2 points
'C' Player - A poor to average player - 1 point
'D' & 'F' - N/A

Now take the average amount of picks per team. 254 picks / 32 teams = 7.9 (we'll round up to 8)

Now it's time to find an average score of these 8 picks. This theoretically would change from draft to draft and would take some time to figure out, but we can just guess for ease of use...

Pick 1 - 3
Pick 2 - 2
Pick 3 - 2
Pick 4 - 1
Pick 5 - 1
Pick 6 - 1
Pick 7 - 0
Pick 8 - 0

This seems like an average draft to me; 1 high caliber player, 2 solid starters, and 3 backup types. So if this is the average (and since I'm not giving point to D players I'll skew the average to 80%), let's give it a middle of the road "C+/B-" grade with 10 points scored. Now is the tricky part, what are our threshold between letter grades? Again, this is arbitrary right now and would take some statistical work to figure out if you wanted to get precise, but we can guestimate fairly well. Let's look at your ratings from our draft from 2010 (which I think you graded individually well)...

1. Anthony Davis-A (3)
1. Mike Iupati-A (3)
2. Taylor Mays-F(0)
3. Navorro Bowman-A (3)
6. Anthony Dixon-C+ (1)
6. Nate Byham-C- (1)
6. Kyle William-B (2)
7. Phillip Adam-C- (1)

That gives us a total of 14 points (4 over our average of 10 points). So where does this leave us? Without finding out more examples of drafts we must consider what is widely accepted as a solid A draft and was is widely considered an F draft? I think this is pretty well defined as an A draft by most people on this board. Ninerjohn is definitely not a homer, and I wouldn't consider most posters in this thread. I would do the grading scale like this...

7 and below - D/F
8 - C-
9 - C
10 - C +
11 - B -
12 - B
13 - B+
14 - A-
15 - A
16 and Above - A+

I think your rational on this matrix is good but can be expanded on. First if we are assigning a +/- system to players, which seems like the common trend, the point system needs to reflect that.

A 4.0 A- 3.7 B+ 3.3 B 3.0 B- 2.7 C+ 2.3 C 2.0 C- 1.7 D+ 1.3 D 1.0 D- 0.7

The problem I have with this is the max points awarded to a team. If you factor in 8 picks with a max of 3 points a piece you come to 24, the difference between 16 and 24 while not big, is a problem.....your difference between a true 100% and your proposed 100%

What I would argue is that a base of 90% of the total points allotted be the cutoff for an A. As aforementioned the ability to hit a 4.0 or perfect grade is impossible so dropping it to a 3.5 (90%) seems like an easier number. Now if we use the full grading scale posted above and add in the numbers I originally calculated plus the addition of Ginn, which you left out, we come to a total of 24. If we use the above scale, a total for the draft is 9 players and a max of 36 points. Using 90% as the max cutoff for an A would put us at a total of 32 (without going into crazy %'s). Now if we say the change in +/- is 3.0 points to keep things again easy to calculate, the grade scale would be as follows. And the 3.0 fluctuation can only be used in larger drafts, smaller ones might need a change to 2.0 or 1.5....again not an exact science.

32-A
29-A-
26-B+
23-B
20-B-
17-C+
14-C
11-C-

My total of 24 points would put this draft between a B and B+ which is a raised grade from my original grade on the 4.0 scale. To expand on this further, if we say our score was the best out of the NFL that year, or one of the best we should get the following breakdown if this logic was applied to most teams....using the 8 draft picks plus 1 FA idea...which is again not perfect.

1 team should receive an A with a score between 24 and 23.72.
4 teams should receive a B with a score between 23.72 and 21.76.
22 teams should receive a C with a score between 21.76 and 12.24.
4 teams should receive a D with a score between 12.24 and 10.28.
1 team should receive an F with a score between 10.28 and 10.

Because many have expressed concern over the issue of a weak draft class, a curve to increase the letter grade would fix the problem. The numerical total value of the draft would remain but the final letter grade (what everybody cares about) would be increased.

And the 2011 draft I come up with a score of 28. Having 10 picks with a total score of 40 then subtracting to 90% gives a new max of 36 (roughly). Using the 3.0 +/- scale, the 28 score puts that class at pretty much a B. Now if Kilgore becomes a good starter and Kap becomes what we all hope we will be the number changes to 29 which is for arguments sake a B+. This most recent draft I initially gave a B+ and using this formula it comes out between a B+ and B and because I like when my professor round up, I will as well.

What I think is missing here is the fact that everybody wants an easy way to give an A. The point of an A is to not make it easy to attain. Standing out from the avg GM means pulling over a C+/B- and Trent has done this which means he is above the curve.

Originally posted by AmpLee:
A more accurate grading system would account for quality and quantity. How about this:

'A' Player - A good to great player - 3 points
'B' Player - An average to good player - 2 points
'C' Player - A poor to average player - 1 point
'D' & 'F' - N/A

Now take the average amount of picks per team. 254 picks / 32 teams = 7.9 (we'll round up to 8)

Now it's time to find an average score of these 8 picks. This theoretically would change from draft to draft and would take some time to figure out, but we can just guess for ease of use...

Pick 1 - 3
Pick 2 - 2
Pick 3 - 2
Pick 4 - 1
Pick 5 - 1
Pick 6 - 1
Pick 7 - 0
Pick 8 - 0

This seems like an average draft to me; 1 high caliber player, 2 solid starters, and 3 backup types. So if this is the average (and since I'm not giving point to D players I'll skew the average to 80%), let's give it a middle of the road "C+/B-" grade with 10 points scored. Now is the tricky part, what are our threshold between letter grades? Again, this is arbitrary right now and would take some statistical work to figure out if you wanted to get precise, but we can guestimate fairly well. Let's look at your ratings from our draft from 2010 (which I think you graded individually well)...

1. Anthony Davis-A (3)
1. Mike Iupati-A (3)
2. Taylor Mays-F(0)
3. Navorro Bowman-A (3)
6. Anthony Dixon-C+ (1)
6. Nate Byham-C- (1)
6. Kyle William-B (2)
7. Phillip Adam-C- (1)

That gives us a total of 14 points (4 over our average of 10 points). So where does this leave us? Without finding out more examples of drafts we must consider what is widely accepted as a solid A draft and was is widely considered an F draft? I think this is pretty well defined as an A draft by most people on this board. Ninerjohn is definitely not a homer, and I wouldn't consider most posters in this thread. I would do the grading scale like this...

7 and below - D/F
8 - C-
9 - C
10 - C +
11 - B -
12 - B
13 - B+
14 - A-
15 - A
16 and Above - A+

This would be an A- minus draft, which seems fair to me.

Obviously, more work would need to be put in to find truly accurate numbers to base a grading system, but at least this way accounts for quanity and quality.

I have a suggestion to build off what you did.
A system exponentially based upon the quality of the player and where they were selected.

A steeper reward system for "tops" players at their position:
Top 3, Elite player -- 24 points (Eg. Patrick Willis, NaVorro Bowman, Aldon Smith)
Top 6, Pro-Bowl type player -- 12 points (Eg. Frank Gore, Vernon Davis, Mike Iupati)
Top 12, Very good players -- 6 points (Eg. Michael Crabtree, Ahmad Brooks)
Top 24, Good players -- 3 point (Eg. A Davis)
Top 48, About average -- 2 point (Eg. T Brown, K Williams(gets a higher score because of his "good" return ability))
Top 96, Serviceable -- 1 point (Eg. A Dixon)
If a player makes a team and contributes in games, they are worth at least 1 point.

The "Top XX" is a rough guide measure; not to be taken literally.

The point score is then multiplied by the round where they were selected. For example, Tom Brady in the 6th round would be 24 X 6 = 144 points. Tom Brady in the 1st round would be 24 X 1 = 24 points. First rounders are expected to be good, there is far less effort needed to find a good player in the 1st round.

So in our case:

1. Anthony Davis-A (3 X 1 = 3)
1. Mike Iupati-A (12 X 1 = 12)
2. Taylor Mays-F(0)
3. NaVorro Bowman-A (24 X 3 = 72)
6. Anthony Dixon-C+ (1 X 6 = 6)
6. Nate Byham-C- (1 X 6 = 6)
6. Kyle Williams-B (2 X 6 = 12)
7. Phillip Adams-C- (1 X 7 = 7)
Total = 118 points
Obviously, Bowman in the 3rd round is the pick of the draft. We also had a lot of nice picks contribute to our team in the later rounds.

With this system, teams are rewarded for hitting home runs in the first round, but are also rewarded for making solid choices in the later rounds. The system does not take into account the importance of the players position.
Remember, this is not a measure of how "good" or "important" a player is, for example, Bowman is not 24 times better than A Davis. It is only a measure for how "good" the actual draft selection was.

Originally posted by Ninerjohn:
Seriously, its a joke that anyone would not consider the 2010 draft an A grade. Personally, I think Jreff just likes attention because no one with any football knowledge would call this a B- draft.

yeah, I wanted to spend an hour explaining myself to a bunch of strangers on the internet for attention....

Originally posted by jreff22:
drafting that high we would turn any OL into a probowler by this point....remove Iupati and put Pouncey in his place and we still look good. Bowman gets the credit because of where he was drafted.

The Mays pick which almost every west coast homer wanted, set us back....a big reason why we were drafting FS this year

What exactly is a west coast homer?

San Francisco and Los Angles are both on the West Coast, but they do not share much more than that.

There is almost an antagonistic relationship between the two cities.

I went to Cal, and I have a hard time admitting that a player from Southern Cal or UCLA might be good.

In fact, there is part of me that thinks Mays was terrible precisely because he went to the USC--the University of Spoiled Children.