With the change in television scheduling, I find that some of the spirit of the event has been lost, buried beneath cold advertising dollars. I don't begrudge the NFL the change, really; everything about the switch makes perfect sense. I do, however, have a certain nostalgia for the magic lost. April 28, 2011, did not mean the same thing to me as, say, April 27, 2008, did.
Still, I take a great deal of interest in the events of the draft and follow it fairly closely. Some thoughts on this year's first round:
- Going into the evening, I thought this would be one of the most unpredictable drafts in years, and I wasn't let down. A number of factors conspired here: a memorable class of defensive linemen (elaborated below); two elite prospects at both wide receiver and cornerback, followed by a precipitous dropoff at each position; a group of solid, if unspectacular, prospects at offensive tackle, the trendy position of the last several drafts; tough-to-grade prospects at a high-profile position (quarterback) and lackluster prospects at another (running back); and labor uncertainty (elaborated below). All that uncertainty, and Al Davis wasn't even involved.
- As I (and probably several people) predicted, the first round featured a run on defensive linemen; five defensive tackles and seven defensive ends were among the first 32 picks of the draft — an astounding 37.5% of the picks. This seemed an impressively deep collection of prospects; in any other year (2010 not withstanding), Marcell Dareus, Nick Fairley and Corey Liuget would all have probably been the best prospect at his position. Muhammad Wilkerson and Phil Taylor were deserving first rounders, and with better luck, Stephen Paea and Marvin Austin could have been first rounders, as well. (In fact, Paea is a gift at the top of the second round.) What's interesting here is the counterintuitive nature of the draft: The deeper a position is, the faster those at that position seem to come off the board. We saw this in 2008 with offensive linemen and in 2007 with wide receivers (Buster Davis was a first rounder!), to name just a couple. (Anecdotally, I'm inclined to point to quarterbacks in the 2004 NFL draft, but quarterback seems a harder position to characterize as producing a run, and three of the four prospects have more or less lived up to the billing — sorry, J.P. Losman. Despite the former caveat, we might characterize the 2011 draft as featuring a quarterback run.) The common explanation is that teams panic when players at a particular position start coming off the board and scramble to pick up whoever is remaining; the common-sense (but rarely mentioned) explanation would be that they're just picking the best players available, who happen to play the same position. If I had access to more sophisticated software, I would build a regression to try to examine the proximity with which players of the same position are chosen (it really is amazing to look at drafts while looking only at position selected, enough to give John Nash fits); instead, I bring this up more to point out the phenomenon than to try to explain it.
- I already find myself at a crossroads with Robert Quinn. The Rams are quietly coming off a stretch of rosters full of players of questionable integrity: Leonard Little, Kyle Turley, Richie Incognito, Claude Wroten, Fakhir Brown, et al. (I'd like to put down any Lawrence Phillips jokes before they start.) A coworker suggested that I'd be "waving a foam finger" as soon as Quinn gets his first sack, which, sadly, might end up being true; still, I find it hard to want to root for the guy. His talent is hard to deny, but I don't want to feel like I'm just cheering for laundry.
- Missouri had Aldon Brown drafted at No. 7 and Blaine Gabbert drafted at No. 10, one of two schools (along with Alabama) to have two players go in the top 10 (or 12). By the transitive property, the Tigers should have won the national title. Or should fire their coach. One way or the other. (For the record, that makes three straight years Mizzou has had a player drafted in the top 20. To go with zero Big 12 titles. Ever.)
- The uncertainty over the collective bargaining agreement hung over the entire evening, from the moment Roger Goodell stepped on the stage and was greeted by a salvo of boos. A coworker commented how quickly the draft was moving (until the end of the round, when everything was ground to a halt, with much of the blame due to the broadcast team); my off-the-cuff explanation, with no evidence but my intuition, is the irresolution of a rookie salary scale. Teams are weighing not only how much players will help them but also how much that will cost. In this draft, without being able to even consider contract negotiations or consult with agents about expectations, they were able to make decisions (more quickly) based on talent. I imagine this also played into the number of trades we saw; teams may be valuing picks differently — depending on how much they see themselves having to play their draft picks — leading them to look for opportunities to move up or down and exploit others' expectations.
- A friend wrote a guest column at another blog that, from what I gather, asserts that the media fervor over the draft is unfounded because 1.) the events of the draft can impact a player's career (i.e., careers are not independent of drafts) and 2.) the correlation between a player's scouting report (or draft position) and the productivity of his career can be tenuous. I concede many of the points he makes and found it an entertaining read (though I would point to the situation and system of a team as a much stronger case for No. 1 than a player's using a perceived snub as motivation or as an excuse to eat a taco). But I do find fault in the argument, especially in the second point, because, as I implied above, the draft is not merely about finding talent — it is about finding talent at an appropriate value. One of the most wide pannings of a draft pick in my lifetime, Sebastian Janikowski at No. 17 overall in 2000, had nothing to do with the player's talent. Neither did an online column I wrote in 2008 off the Donnie Avery selection, which featured my assertion that even were Avery to have a Hall of Fame career, it would not justify his selection at No. 33 (perhaps an overstatement, but I stand by the sentiment). The draft is equal parts getting the players you want and getting the players you want where you want them. The media machine that my friend criticizes causes some players to be over- or undervalued, but that only opens opportunities for smart teams to exploit — to gussy it up, arbitrage.
I am inclined, given some of the ways this blog post went, to apply more economic theory to football (and to do it more thoroughly). But that will have to wait for another day.
No comments:
Post a Comment