Draft grades from PFF

D

Deleted member 6794

Guest
This article proves that it doesn´t make any sense rating a players performance based on his draft position.
 

Sunshinepacker

Cheesehead
Joined
Jul 29, 2013
Messages
5,766
Reaction score
896
Sam Shields and Victor Cruz are prime examples of how meaningless draft position can be...two guys who weren't even DRAFTED

Btw, I know it's a draft grade but it's weird that they don't include undrafted guys.
 

easyk83

Cheesehead
Joined
Apr 20, 2013
Messages
2,783
Reaction score
280
A lot of people rated Clay Matthews as a huge reach back when he was drafted, now it's just "the Scouts nailed it."
 

El Guapo

Cheesehead
Joined
Dec 7, 2011
Messages
6,111
Reaction score
1,590
Location
Land 'O Lakes
Lang and Matthews with the same grade?

Bulaga and Newhouse with the same grade?

Those say it all to me about this analysis.

This article proves that it doesn´t make any sense rating a players performance based on his draft position.
I've always agreed with this statement. A GM's goal is to get as many starters out of the draft group as possible. Yes you pay more to the guys picked first, but you pay the same total amount to each draft class. It's like elementary school kids expecting more out of the first kid picked for kickball teams. Yes there is a reason that you picked somebody first but you just want to win the game, not dissect the order in which players were chosen.
 
OP
OP
ivo610

ivo610

Cheesehead
Joined
Feb 13, 2010
Messages
16,588
Reaction score
2,250
Location
Madison
It's bang for your buck. That's why tom Brady would be graded higher than peyton manning
 
D

Deleted member 6794

Guest
It's bang for your buck. That's why tom Brady would be graded higher than peyton manning

Yeah, but nobody should care about it. Drafting a franchise QB (or any other player) in the sixth round doesn't make your team better than getting a similar talent with the first pick.
 
OP
OP
ivo610

ivo610

Cheesehead
Joined
Feb 13, 2010
Messages
16,588
Reaction score
2,250
Location
Madison
Yeah, but nobody should care about it. Drafting a franchise QB (or any other player) in the sixth round doesn't make your team better than getting a similar talent with the first pick.

Tell that to the people who are upset with teds mediocre results with his 1st rd pick. To some where you draft a player really matters
 

AmishMafia

Cheesehead
Joined
Sep 27, 2010
Messages
7,279
Reaction score
2,395
Location
PENDING
Yeah, but nobody should care about it. Drafting a franchise QB (or any other player) in the sixth round doesn't make your team better than getting a similar talent with the first pick.
No, but this appears to be about the ability of a GM to draft players. There are players who have it all, talent, toughness, brains, and desire to succeed. The Peyton Mannings and Andrew Lucks are top of the draft as the likelihood of their success is obvious. Guys like Brady are a gamble because they do not have it all but have the ability to get better. Brady was not the refined star coming out of Michigan that he is today - he developed into it. And you have to give extra credit to a GM who sees the possibility and selects a player. A lot of the credit goes to the coaches who helped him develop as well.
 
D

Deleted member 6794

Guest
No, but this appears to be about the ability of a GM to draft players. There are players who have it all, talent, toughness, brains, and desire to succeed. The Peyton Mannings and Andrew Lucks are top of the draft as the likelihood of their success is obvious. Guys like Brady are a gamble because they do not have it all but have the ability to get better. Brady was not the refined star coming out of Michigan that he is today - he developed into it. And you have to give extra credit to a GM who sees the possibility and selects a player. A lot of the credit goes to the coaches who helped him develop as well.

I think having success with late round draft picks like Brady or Sherman is mostly based on luck.
 

AmishMafia

Cheesehead
Joined
Sep 27, 2010
Messages
7,279
Reaction score
2,395
Location
PENDING
I think having success with late round draft picks like Brady or Sherman is mostly based on luck.
Luck was drafted first overall. :D


There seems to be some GMs who are consistently 'lucky' like our very own Ted Thompson. If it was all just 'luck', then teams would not bother scouting. There is a skill - an art - to drafting. There are never any 'sure things' and the ones that are close to that come off the board pretty quickly in the first round. Its all about risk/reward. Picking guys who have the skills but maybe are poorly coached, inmature, or some other issue. The gamble is that with better coaching or the maturation process, the player will reach his potential. Not everyone will, but you have to find the guys who most likely will.

Great poker players don't win every hand. But they know to put money on the cards that have the highest likelihood of winning. In the end, they will have more winners than the next guy, and that is what matters.
 

jaybadger82

Cheesehead
Joined
Jan 17, 2012
Messages
837
Reaction score
83
It's bang for your buck. That's why tom Brady would be graded higher than peyton manning

I love value as much as the next guy but that's what makes ignoring UFA even sillier. It also seems like the numerical scoring system was used to create the impression of objectivity (mathematical precision) while obscuring what seems like a remarkably subjective evaluation on the part of the writer...

Good to know PFF continues to churn out content during the off season but I can find better things to look at on the internet.
 
OP
OP
ivo610

ivo610

Cheesehead
Joined
Feb 13, 2010
Messages
16,588
Reaction score
2,250
Location
Madison
I love value as much as the next guy but that's what makes ignoring UFA even sillier. It also seems like the numerical scoring system was used to create the illusion of an objectivity (i.e., mathematical precision) while obscuring what seems like a remarkably subjective evaluation on the part of the writer...

Good to know PFF continues to churn out content during the off season but I can find better things to look at on the internet.

I'm wondering if everyone is missing the point that it's not a traditional draft grade. Obviously any ufa you keep and that makes an impact would have a very high rating on this. So obvious in fact, that you wouldn't really need to address it.
 

jaybadger82

Cheesehead
Joined
Jan 17, 2012
Messages
837
Reaction score
83
I'm wondering if everyone is missing the point that it's not a traditional draft grade. Obviously any ufa you keep and that makes an impact would have a very high rating on this. So obvious in fact, that you wouldn't really need to address it.

I dunno. If the goal is to grade teams according to how well they identify talent through the draft process, I think it makes sense to go ahead and factor UFAs but it's their circus not mine.

I don't really care about this writer's opinion of our draft grade since I can make my own determination when the Packers take the field.
 

Sunshinepacker

Cheesehead
Joined
Jul 29, 2013
Messages
5,766
Reaction score
896
Yeah, but nobody should care about it. Drafting a franchise QB (or any other player) in the sixth round doesn't make your team better than getting a similar talent with the first pick.

It makes a HUGE difference if you also grab someone like Urlacher/Shaun Alexander/etc in the first round...
 

Sunshinepacker

Cheesehead
Joined
Jul 29, 2013
Messages
5,766
Reaction score
896
I'm wondering if everyone is missing the point that it's not a traditional draft grade. Obviously any ufa you keep and that makes an impact would have a very high rating on this. So obvious in fact, that you wouldn't really need to address it.

You would need to address it since those teams that are better at finding UFAs would then receive higher grades than those teams that don't find UFAs. Again, I get that this is a "draft" grade so they don't include it, but if you actually wanted to grade how well the GM did at adding rookie talent to a team, you would HAVE to include UFAs in the value grading.
 

Einstein McFly

Cheesehead
Joined
Jun 15, 2012
Messages
441
Reaction score
31
A healthy Bulaga will make a huge difference. These rankings (and PFF in general) are kind of a silly attempt to try to get baseball-like stats shoe horned into football.
 

Dylan Hoppe

Cheesehead
Joined
Oct 1, 2013
Messages
477
Reaction score
14
I haven't been on this forum too long but was anyone on here rooting for us to grab datone jones last year? How about Perry the year before?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Einstein McFly

Cheesehead
Joined
Jun 15, 2012
Messages
441
Reaction score
31
I think the stats at PFF are a pretty good indicator of a player´s performance.
The top five guys are probably better than the bottom five, I'll give them that. There are an awful lot of guys in the middle though that are better than the guys they rank at the top, and the contracts that guys get prove it. Only the coaches on the team know what each player's assignments were on any given play, and other top football guys (coaches, GMs etc) can probably guess a lot of the time. Those guys do their rankings and pay guys accordingly. The guys at PFF just try to find some stats to keep etc and then rank them based on what they think they could/should have done on one play or another. The guys whose entire lives have led up to player evaluation and whose dream jobs as GMs come down to making the right decisions on player evaluations go in different directions that PFF, which gives me confidence that it's just some BS stats for fans to play with and for lousy/mediocre "journalists" on bleacher report and/or blogs to use to have player comparison discussions all the time.
 

Einstein McFly

Cheesehead
Joined
Jun 15, 2012
Messages
441
Reaction score
31
I haven't been on this forum too long but was anyone on here rooting for us to grab datone jones last year? How about Perry the year before?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I was excited for them to take Jones, as he was supposed to have the potential to be a legit three down 3-4 DE with a ton of pass rush. In training camp he was whipping guys in the one-on-ones but he seemed too lost against the run to get many snaps as the year went on. Given his athleticism though, if he can make the kind of jump from first to second year that Daniels made, he'll be great.

As for Perry, I've always felt like the bears did a murder-suicide in that draft. Shea McClellan was the "high motor, super athletic, versatile" guy that would be a perfect 3-4 olb and Perry was (is?) a 4-3 DE with a ton of strength but not the balance/athleticism to operate out as a 3-4 olb. The bears took McClellan and he's been way to small for a 4-3 DE and we have a big strong 4-3 DE playing olb and trying to figure it out. Both teams would have been way better taking the other guy.

That said, considering what the needs were and who was left at the time (and, lets be honest, 99.9999% of fans, including the "experts" on this board, don't know more than fifty names on draft day anyway) I was fine with it. Sure there were better guys taken after him that most fans, if they're being honest, hadn't heard of at the time and so now it can look like a really stupid pick. That's hindsight for you though.
 
D

Deleted member 6794

Guest
The top five guys are probably better than the bottom five, I'll give them that. There are an awful lot of guys in the middle though that are better than the guys they rank at the top, and the contracts that guys get prove it.

I think money is a terrible indicator for a player´s performance as GMs and coaches make mistakes in evaluating players as well. Otherwise the teams spending huge in free agency or close up to the cap would be the most succesful as well.

Only the coaches on the team know what each player's assignments were on any given play, and other top football guys (coaches, GMs etc) can probably guess a lot of the time. Those guys do their rankings and pay guys accordingly. The guys at PFF just try to find some stats to keep etc and then rank them based on what they think they could/should have done on one play or another. The guys whose entire lives have led up to player evaluation and whose dream jobs as GMs come down to making the right decisions on player evaluations go in different directions that PFF, which gives me confidence that it's just some BS stats for fans to play with and for lousy/mediocre "journalists" on bleacher report and/or blogs to use to have player comparison discussions all the time.

I agree the guys at PFF have no idea of a player´s assignement. But as I said above it´s a nice tool for fans to rank players as most of us don´t have time to watch coaches film of every single game.
 

Pack-12

Cheesehead
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
155
Reaction score
8
I was excited for them to take Jones, as he was supposed to have the potential to be a legit three down 3-4 DE with a ton of pass rush. In training camp he was whipping guys in the one-on-ones but he seemed too lost against the run to get many snaps as the year went on. Given his athleticism though, if he can make the kind of jump from first to second year that Daniels made, he'll be great.

As for Perry, I've always felt like the bears did a murder-suicide in that draft. Shea McClellan was the "high motor, super athletic, versatile" guy that would be a perfect 3-4 olb and Perry was (is?) a 4-3 DE with a ton of strength but not the balance/athleticism to operate out as a 3-4 olb. The bears took McClellan and he's been way to small for a 4-3 DE and we have a big strong 4-3 DE playing olb and trying to figure it out. Both teams would have been way better taking the other guy.

That said, considering what the needs were and who was left at the time (and, lets be honest, 99.9999% of fans, including the "experts" on this board, don't know more than fifty names on draft day anyway) I was fine with it. Sure there were better guys taken after him that most fans, if they're being honest, hadn't heard of at the time and so now it can look like a really stupid pick. That's hindsight for you though.

I don't really see how we'd be better off with McClellan. All he's done on the field is get abused game after game. Just because he's a better fit as a LB than a DE doesn't mean he isn't still an awful football player. We've at least gotten solid play out of Perry at times. I certainly wouldn't make that trade.
 

El Guapo

Cheesehead
Joined
Dec 7, 2011
Messages
6,111
Reaction score
1,590
Location
Land 'O Lakes
Playing in an unnatural position can make you look like an awful football player. From that standpoint, you've got nothing to lose if neither pick is working out.
 

Members online

Latest posts

Top