Comments on Advanced NFL Stats: Career Success by Draft Order

Using Pro-Bowls as a judge of success is not good....

2010-09-23T22:07:11.183-04:00

Using Pro-Bowls as a judge of success is not good. The fan vote rendered the pro bowl selection meaningless.

The 11-20 spike may be a sign that good players ar...

2010-03-11T11:42:48.169-05:00

The 11-20 spike may be a sign that good players are going to (pretty) good teams. It may be that players 1-10 are significantly better than their position on the graph would indicate, but they go and play for the worst teams in the NFL (i.e. those with a high draft slot). As most players in the first round are pretty quality, it would seem that the biggest determinant of who would get Pro Bowl selections would be who played for the best team, and therefore had the best system supporting them (not to metion the extra media exposure, which might help since it is a voting process).

In regards to previous Anonymous's post--this may be towards the back end of the draft, in that low-drafted players get gametime, but high drafted players who suck get a huge opportunity before they get the boot, so that also could pull down the numbers at the beginning picks (See Russell, Jamarcus).

I'd say, just using my radar, that yes, the highes...

2009-04-30T23:33:00.000-04:00

I'd say, just using my radar, that yes, the highest drafted players are going to get the early opportunity. But any coaching staff worth diddly is going to recognize the better player and use him no matter where he is drafted.

Would there be any use in looking at "years a...

2009-04-24T19:45:00.000-04:00

Would there be any use in looking at "years as a starter" for players who had >= 1 year as a starter?
Or would that be just like the pro bowls/year graph?

I covered this last year: http://www.pro-football...

2009-04-24T19:14:00.000-04:00

I covered this last year:

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/blog/?p=527

Neat graph also included.

Is it possible to create a chart of pro bowl appea...

2009-04-24T18:33:00.000-04:00

Is it possible to create a chart of pro bowl appearances for each round of the draft instead of splitting it up into groups of 5 picks?

To clarify: Theory 1: more starter-caliber playe...

2009-04-24T15:47:00.000-04:00

To clarify:

Theory 1: more starter-caliber players at 100 than 200, but the starter-caliber players are of equal quality in both groups.

Theory 2: about the same proportion of starter-caliber players at 200 than 100, but the 100 guys get more opportunity.

I think theory 2 makes more sense.

Brian, Thanks for the graph! Hmmm ... maybe what...

2009-04-24T15:46:00.000-04:00

Brian,

Thanks for the graph!

Hmmm ... maybe what this means is that teams aren't that good at distinguishing better from worse players after the first few rounds? I mean, it's POSSIBLE that the later players are worse (judging by the number of starters), but that the ones who DO get a shot at starting are just as good as each other, regardless if they were the 100th pick or 200th. But it seems more likely to me that they'd be roughly equal overall, and the difference would just be opportunity.