THE PRICE IS RIGHT: FINDING VALUE IN THE NFL DRAFT
What the last decade has taught us about value in the NFL draft.
A fun debate broke out on “NFL Twitter” last week when this meme began making the rounds. While it may be an over simplistic view of football, it does raise an interesting question about positional value in the NFL.
Outside of quarterback, there’s not a consensus on what the most valuable positions are. The teams that have made their conference title games have had dominant right sides of the offensive lines, but not great edge rushers or left tackles. Pro Football Focus (PFF)’s WAR stat says wide receiver and safety are the most valuable positions outside of quarterback. From a drafting perspective, the positions that were most likely to receive a second contract by the team that drafted them were offensive line and linebacker. The only consensus is that there is no consensus.
With that said, teams still need to draft someone-and the good teams rely on data to do so. So, in order to find out how team should approach the draft, let’s dive into some numbers. I went back and looked at the last ten years of NFL drafts and compiled the average approximate value (CarAV) of every position and player drafted to see if there were any trends teams can use to make the best decision.
WHICH POSITIONS YIELD THE BEST RETURNS IN THE EARLY ROUNDS
NFL teams are efficient drafters. The graph above shows the average CarAV players produce based on what round they are selected in. There is a very clear relationship that demonstrates the earlier the player is selected, the more CarAV they produce, as the table below outlines.
What happens when we break it down by position? The graph below compares the CarAV of each major position group (offensive line, defensive line, linebackers, secondary, quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers) relative to the round they were selected in.
Once again, we see a negative linear relationship with every position. However, further analysis tells a more complete story. Let’s take the same graph, but only look at the first three rounds.
The three dots above the line in the first round are quarterback, offensive line and defensive line. I’ve tackled quarterback value previously, so I won’t go into too much detail other than to point out that the third-round numbers are skewed by Russell Wilson, who leads all NFL players in CarAV over the last decade. Also, while the gap between the first and second round quarterbacks doesn’t seem very steep, that’s only because there have been a couple second-round quarterbacks that have had long careers and over time have compiled a high CarAV. If we account for years spent in the NFL, the CarAV chart looks like this:
In other words, grab the good quarterbacks early or don’t take one at all.
Once we get past quarterback, the next most valuable position is offensive line. In all three early rounds, offensive linemen outperformed the average CarAV.
A deeper dive deeper into the offensive line shows just exactly how valuable early offensive linemen tend to be. The next chart shows the value each offensive lineman has produced based off how early they were selected in their draft. (ex: 1=first lineman selected in their draft, 2=second lineman selected, etc etc)
The top three offensive linemen selected in each draft have a combined CarAV of 37.1, the highest of any positional group. Teams and scouts are clearly very good at identifying top level offensive line talent and elite offensive line prospects tend to produce a great return on investment. This year features two tackles, Penei Sewell and Rashawn Slater, that are consensus top 12 prospects. History suggests they are destined to become great professionals.
The next highest producing position in the first round is defensive line. However, there is a slightly different pattern with defensive linemen compared to offensive linemen, as the graph below illustrates.
While first-round defensive linemen have exceeded their average value, second and third-round picks have underperformed relative to their draft position.
This is due largely to the fact that elite defensive line talent tends get drafted early. Four of the last five drafts have had a defensive lineman selected with one of the top two picks, and they’ve all been quite dominant. In fact, the next chart shows just exactly how great the top three defensive linemen tend to be relative to their peers:
Just like offensive linemen, the top three defensive linemen tend to dominate relative to the rest of the draft class, but the fall-off is even steeper. While there’s no consensus dominant defensive line prospect this year, players that have first round grades such as Kwity Paye, Jaelan Phillips and Azeez Ojulari should be safe bets.
I’m going to skip running back and linebacker for this exercise. It’s not that there aren’t talented players at those positions. In fact, first and second-round running backs and linebackers tend to be very good NFL players. However, as both offenses and defenses continue to evolve, the running back and linebacker positions just aren’t as valuable.
WHICH POSITIONS YIELD THE WORST RETURNS IN THE EARLY ROUNDS
Now let’s go back and look at the draft chart and focus on those two dots that fall below the curve.
Those two positions are wide receiver and secondary. If we look at the same chart but only the early rounds, the results look like this:
While both positions underperform relative to the round they’re selected, wide receivers tend to perform closer to their average starting in round three, while secondary prospects don’t close the gap until round six.
That’s why grabbing a receiver in the top ten is often frowned upon. Let’s look at the wide receiver chart that compares when they get selected in the same draft.
Remember how steep the drop-offs were after the first three picks with offensive and defensive line? That doesn’t exist with wide receiver. There’s still a linear relationship, and the second wide receiver drafted has produced the highest CarAV by far (thank you Julio Jones and DeAndre Hopkins). However, the seventh wide receiver in a draft has produced almost as CarAV much as the first receiver taken. The third and fourth receivers have produced less value than the ninth receiver taken. So, while Ja’Marr Chase, DeVonta Smith and Jalen Waddle seem like no-brainers, history says prospects like Dyami Brown, Elijah Moore and Rondale Moore may be just as valuable.
Finally, let’s look at the secondary.
The curve is almost an exact mirror of the average player-except they’re consistently less valuable. The simple explanation for this is that playing secondary in the NFL, especially cornerback, is really hard. Most veteran cornerbacks struggle in the NFL, much less a young corner.
While it is extremely difficult to find them, good secondary play is crucial. It’s why teams must keep taking cornerbacks early in the draft-evidence shows the talent really drops off after that. It’s also why teams are willing to hand out big contracts to defensive backs via free agency or make very aggressive trades. If a team finds a good cornerback, they should do everything in their power to hold onto them. It would be especially bad to cut them in order to make room for a mediocre quarterback
Conclusion
Drafting is an inexact science and there is no magic formula to identify players. Therefore, the best draft strategy mirrors the best team building strategy. Spend your draft capital on the crucial positions (quarterback, offensive and defensive line) and wait until later in the draft to fill out the luxury positions (wide receiver, linebacker). Just like the meme tells us to.