The NFL Draft: How Do You Maximize Your Draft Success?
We're about to begin a series about ways that teams can do the best possible job of drafting the right players.
With NFL free agency settling down, aside from the occasional "big name" signing a one-year deal, thoughts will next turn toward the NFL draft, which is about a month away.
The draft, which will be held April 27-29, is the next date that NFL fans await during the offseason. And though you've heard plenty about this year's NFL prospects, you'll hear a lot more in the coming weeks.
Since the rookie pay scale was included in the collective bargaining agreement, drafted players have become a valuable asset for teams. Drafted players allow teams to acquire talent at a lower cost than they might have to pay for a veteran.
Therefore, teams arguably want to "hit" on their draft picks more than ever. Find the right player in the draft and you get yourself a top starter at a lower salary than the top veterans. This is particularly true if that drafted player is a quarterback.
But the reality is that it's difficult to "hit" on a draft pick. You can look at one example of the "hit rate" for first-round picks at offensive skill positions. Or you can consider this example from a couple of years ago, saying that more than half of first-round picks are busts.
Regardless of what data you consider, the truth is that getting drafts right is not an easy task. There may be a year in which you hit on the majority of your picks, but that isn't going to happen that often.
Therefore, when you approach a draft, you need to not just do a good job of scouting players. You need to do a good job of maximizing what you get out of a draft overall, ranging from the number of picks you make to the rounds in which you need to minimize risk and in which you can take more chances.
In the coming weeks, I'm going to talk more about some of the things to consider when it comes to approaching an NFL draft. Among the topics I hope to examine are:
Expectations for each round: My philosophy about draft picks is that first-round picks should be players who become long-term starters for your team, while seventh-round picks are best viewed as depth players who might not make the team. I'll explain more about this philosophy, particularly regarding how it pertains to the rookie pay scale.
When to target particular positions: When should you target a particular position? There are certain positions in which it makes more sense to wait, not only because you can get better value, but because the success rate for that position in later rounds is solid. I'll look more in depth at this.
How much draft capital you should have: Because it's not easy to hit on draft picks, it's not a bad idea to accumulate more picks. I'll look into what the data says about having more draft capital and what it doesn't.
Trade up or down: Finally, we'll look at the success rate when teams traded up to obtain certain players. We'll figure out when it really makes sense to make a move up the board and when it's better to move down and let other teams chase players.
My purpose here isn't to give you a foolproof strategy for making sure every draft pick is a "hit" because that isn't going to happen. Instead, my purpose is to give you ideas about how a team can do the best possible job of succeeding with a draft, even if not every pick will become a "hit."
We'll get more into this next week in the first installment about how the rookie pay scale has set the expectations for each round.