NFL Draft Grades Are Wrong - An Analysis of Reaches, Steals, and How a Team Should Draft

It’s not normal…

Ayo, go Hawks!

I think what is neglected here is that you do have metrics you can use to determine who is historically good and use that to run models/analyses to determine what good teams do. I.e. look at team rankings by average size of second contract and see what they were doing in that time period.

Twin Cyclones to Houston 🌪️🌪️

I have actively avoided NFL coverage for 10-12 years now, without regret: it gives me more time in my life. But for you? I'm watching this video. :)

I wonder whether this distance gives me perspective on draft grades, or whether it just makes me sound foolish. From way over here, it sounds an awful lot as if both "big board" evaluations and "draft grades" are largely, well, groupthink. It reminds me of financial markets where you sometimes see "irrational exuberance" that drives market prices to diverge from the underlying value of the asset. Or to take a different analogy, I think about the art world, or simple athletic free agency. People ask, "How could this painting (or player) possibly be worth so many millions?" And the answer is simply: all it takes is just one party who's willing to spend that much, and that becomes the market value -- even if it diverges from the group consensus that was long ago agreed upon by the rest of the world.

Brandon Perna spotted, lmao.

What about the fridge dt and fb

What I’m seeing is Zabel was versatile, played as tackle his Sr year and can play guard. As a potential tackle replacement, I imagine his value increases substantially

One of the biggest skepticisms I have with a lot of these instant-grades is how profoundly wrong they get the Detroit Lions over the last few years. 2020's draft was roundly praised, getting A grades all over. It was a complete disaster with none of the players on the team today, only a couple still in the league. 2021, 2022, and 2023 were generally given Bs and Cs but in retrospect, they're absolute A+s and the biggest reason the Lions won 15 games last year.

Was that a wild Perna sighting?

Brandon Perna

As a Blazer fan, the Jody Allen jab made my day

This is pretty far back, but you should check out the slide of one Brian Brohm of Louisville. He was drafted the same year as Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco. Early and mid-season mock drafts had him over Matt Ryan as the #1 QB until somewhere around the combine where he started slipping in mocks because pundits couldn't get a word from teams about him. I remember him being on site at draft day and everything but I don't remember him being drafted in the first 2 rounds.

Draft rankings are several layers deep in opinion. It factors in things beyond player skill. It assumes some team sees the same value as the analyst. It tries to calculate what teams are desperate and overpay or have bad judgment. It’s just a guess.

The thing a lot of people don't acknowledge about early round draft performance is that it doesn't just come down to capital, evaluation and development, it also comes down to managing your needs well enough that you can afford to practice some level of BPA. For example, the Ravens try like hell to have a viable starter at every position before the draft, and usually succeed (although notably not in 2024), because going into the draft with blatant need, particularly at a premium position, is a great way to pressure yourself out of BPA and telegraph your intentions to other teams.

Analyst's do not truly know a teams needs. They are not in the front office and do not know the personal plan going out multiple years. Good teams are planning to fill holes 2-3 years out, not just the obvious ones.

Really???? You're going to be yet another moron talking about this a-hole, Shedeur Sanders. Get it through your thick skulls THE KID IS AN ASSHOLE and nobody wanted him and his asshole father ruining the chemistry of THEIR TEAM.

What year WASN'T weird in the NFL Draft? Cool video, thumbs up, but my question remains :)

Zack Martin is a hall of famer and he was drafted 16th 🤔…….. so this video is the dumbest sh*t I’ve ever seen

Surplus value will be highest with teams picking last which already won the most. Hard to classify that as a useful predictive metric rather than just reflecting existing performance.

Very few tackles were available in free agency. Also, the only tackles of immediate starter quality were gone by the time the Seahawks picked. Frankly, it seems like too much analysis with an insufficient understanding of the class.

how does Kyler Murray still have a job in the nfl

Travis Hunter won't be a two-way player. The offense and defense have their meetings, film study, drills etc. at the same time but not together. And if he is so transcendent of a talent at WR or CB, then it's FAR better to have him just concentrate on one of them rather than diluting that talent at two positions. Also as was pointed out, he's doubling his exposure time to injury, so it makes even less sense for him to try this- they won't be giving him two contracts, so essentially he'd be doing one job for free.

I like your vids like everybody else, but I find the sound effects a bit much.

more nil content!!!!

This is the kind of content ESPN should be producing. We live in a time where independent creators are completely shitting on the mainstream networks despite way less budget.

Thought i was about to watch chase from house talk sports

Babe wake up, Michael MacKelvie dropped another banger

This is a very polished and high quality video, but it mostly sizzle and not a lot of steak.

Love Perna made the cut.

Fan: The Browns can't tell the difference between a starting quarterback and a bust, just ask Baker Mayfield.

Browns: If the quarterback is on our roster then he is a bust, duh.

I still can’t believe how high quality these videos are. Fantastic work

Shadeur fall was the nfl trying to humble him no breakdown is needed

While the production value is sky high on these videos, none of the two videos answered any of the questions or topics it had.

It's like a bait video that wants to analyze things and at the end still says oh wait, it's still unpredictable. So basically a bunch of gibberish analysis and it just adds more questions than answers to the topics presented.

Great presentation and host though, just not good information.

you talk like tek kight from the boys and have the mannerisms and facial expressions of fedora-man, but the actual content is good

Ngl this guy pisses me off, he just sounds so fucking snarky

"Weapons...." The most important weapon for a QB is his Left Tackle.

i feel like i should be paying for a production like this

There should be a minimum spending limit that is higher, to make for more fair football.

I like the occasional video showing expectations with results three or four years later.

So "reaches" are generally accurately labeled and less valuable than their draft position, and "steals" are generally only about as valuable as their draft position - but success within the NFL is a net-zero game, and ultimately the sum of all over- and under- valuations of drafted players needs to equal zero. Therefore somewhere there must be a category of players whose average value is higher than their draft position would indicate. Does that suggest that the picks which are drafted right about where they are valued by consensus actually average a bit better than that consensus, and are on average better value than the "steals"?

The salary cap, and the owner's own cap on salary is what makes football so good. Go look at baseball and there's very little incentive to the big teams like the Yankees, Mets, or Dodgers to grow any talent in their feeder teams.

Not to say that wouldn't help, but there's no incentive to them for drafting well in their respective drafts currently. Same for the NBA to a certain degree, although the new aprons have changed that.

Listening to this in the car was a mistake. So many sub drops lol

Will be interesting to see if Luther Burden III and Kyle Monangai are true steals down the road.

Insane production value, as always