BB drafting WRs

Saints Rest · Oct 11, 2023

Suggestion for weighting: 7x multiple for 1st round, 6x for 2nd, and so on. Almost the way GPA uses credit hours as a multiple.

tims4wins · Oct 11, 2023

Saints Rest said:
Suggestion for weighting: 7x multiple for 1st round, 6x for 2nd, and so on. Almost the way GPA uses credit hours as a multiple.

Agree, the 7th grade F's don't even register for me against his grade. But that said, Edelman has to count a bunch, so I'm not sure how to handle.

Does an Edelman offset a Harry? I would lean toward saying yes, the problem is that they were 10 years apart so since 2010 the drafting has SUCKED.

Edit: beaten by seconds

Saints Rest · Oct 11, 2023

I considered the Edelman example, but the way I looked at it, was the opportunity cost of drafting a different player at that spot. For example, if they don't draft Harry, there is a much higher chance of getting a high-level contributor with that pick, than there is with missing out on a 6th or 7th rounder.

Saints Rest · Oct 11, 2023

Maybe a multiplier for number of years spent with the Pats? A lot of Edelman's value came from his spending 10 years with the Pats. Conversely, Mitchell's value or Branch's value were mitigated by a lack of years in a Pats uniform.

Also, wasn't Slater nominally drafted as a DB way back when?

johnmd20 · Oct 11, 2023

Saints Rest said:
Maybe a multiplier for number of years spent with the Pats? A lot of Edelman's value came from his spending 10 years with the Pats. Conversely, Mitchell's value or Branch's value were mitigated by a lack of years in a Pats uniform.

Also, wasn't Slater nominally drafted as a DB way back when?

Yeah, I don't think you get Slater as an A+ WR. But definitely an A+ draft pick.

SMU_Sox · Oct 11, 2023

Of the 10 guys they took rounds 1-4 only 1 had a lasting impact, Branch. Only 1 of these guys actually was a good NFL player. You can get unlucky here but 1/10 is just rough.

Don't lump Slater in here imo. He's a special case.

Personally I think they have issues identifying which traits are actually translatable to the NFL. It could be SSS though so I can't be sure.

astrozombie · Oct 11, 2023

Yeah, an A+ for Slater doesn't work for me personally because he isn't really a wide-receiver. He hasn't really contributed anything as a WR. I get the point of the exercise and think it's overall fine, but giving BB an A+ for drafting a WR because that receiver was great on ST for a number of years seems like a stretch.
The Harry pick was so so bad. Not only was he bad, but BB went against the advice of his scouts to take Harry over Samuel and Brown (or even Metcalf), relying on the fact that he had a rapport with Harry's coach. woof. I agreed with @Saints Rest that its particularly bad since there is the opportunity cost of missing out on (ostensibly) a high level contributor.

Saints Rest · Oct 11, 2023

I wonder if having a poster-child for late-round success story as your WR coach impacts either the way the team rates college WRs or the way the team has turned late-round WRs into successes?

DJnVa · Oct 11, 2023

The B+ for Berrios needs a big old asterisk. It's going to bring up Bill's GPA with zero proof that Bill could have gotten anything out of him. All of his production is elsewhere. He provided no value to NE.

BigSoxFan · Oct 11, 2023

BaseballJones said:
Yeah, I agree. Their better picks (which may include Boutte and Douglas when all is said and done) are almost all late rounders. Which is awesome - finding legit talent late in the draft. But it also means they've missed on almost all their higher WR picks. So something is wrong there.

Mitchell is a case of being unlucky. He was pretty darned good. But yes, this is a systemic problem.

BUT...you gotta keep swinging, right? You can't give up on high-round WR picks.

Was Mitchell really an unlucky case? My recollection was that he had health concerns with his knees due to earlier injuries at UGA, which is partly why he dropped to the 4th round.

Completely unrelated, his NFL.com draft profile comp was…Nelson Agholor, which I found kind of funny (and don’t really agree with).

lexrageorge · Oct 11, 2023

Dobson was dealing with a (back, IIRC) injury starting late his rookie season that he was never able to get past. Sort of like Mitchell luck.

jezza1918 · Oct 11, 2023

The toughest part for me to swallow is that in the last ten drafts they've to only used three picks on receivers in the first four rounds. That seems exceptionally low to me in this day and age of the nfl.

ManicCompression · Oct 11, 2023

I was curious, for reference, how many wide receivers other teams have drafted during the same time period. Picking three teams out of my mind-hat, I found that:

- Minnesota drafted 27 wide receivers
- SF drafted 29
- GB drafted 35

Now, I'm not saying that either strategy is better or worse, and there needs to be more of a deep dive about this topic, but it would seem harder to find good wide receivers when you're picking them 25-40% less often than other teams. I'm not sure what other positions NE is picking more often than other teams to balance this out, but seems noteworthy for this particular position group.

E5 Yaz · Oct 11, 2023

jezza1918 said:
The toughest part for me to swallow is that in the last ten drafts they've to only used three picks on receivers in the first four rounds.

Well, we know the reason for the first six years ... it's the past four that shows a lack of ability to adjust and adapt

Cellar-Door · Oct 11, 2023

yeah letter grades don't really work, since a 7th rounder doing nothing isn't bad, it's expected.

I think someone did this earlier and used how much they over or underperformed expected AV of the draft slot. That would be much better, as it would show the busts in the early rounds as worse than late round misses, and late round hits as valuable.

lexrageorge · Oct 11, 2023

BaseballJones said:
I've tried doing something like that when it comes to QBs but some people have felt that the data I was using was too old to be relevant (I was using 2000-2018, to give the 2018 class time to actually have an NFL career). So I'm not really sure how best to do this.

At least a couple of those objections to your methodology were trolls and should not be taken seriously.

The above data is certainly illustrative. It looks awful since 2013. Now they did trade some high end draft capital on Cooks (and Gilmore) and generally ventured into the UFA market since 2013, which explains a lot of the reason for having picked so few WRs. The team did win 3 Lombardis during that time so I wouldn’t call that strategy a failure.

But the Harry pick onward has looked particularly bad, albeit incomplete given 3 of the 4 picked since are hurt and one of the healthy ones was picked for longer term development potential as opposed to contributing this season.

Auger34 · Oct 11, 2023

DJnVa said:
The B+ for Berrios needs a big old asterisk. It's going to bring up Bill's GPA with zero proof that Bill could have gotten anything out of him. All of his production is elsewhere. He provided no value to NE.

I was just about to post something similar. Maybe a B+ in what the player turned out to be but Berrios didn't do anything for the Patriots.

Also, I appreciate that this tells the whole picture, but in terms of moving forward I am not sure that 2002-2012 provide any value (honestly I am not sure anything before 5 years ago really matters as the Patriots rebuild)

Jed Zeppelin · Oct 11, 2023

SMU_Sox said:
Of the 10 guys they took rounds 1-4 only 1 had a lasting impact, Branch. Only 1 of these guys actually was a good NFL player. You can get unlucky here but 1/10 is just rough.

Don't lump Slater in here imo. He's a special case.

Personally I think they have issues identifying which traits are actually translatable to the NFL. It could be SSS though so I can't be sure.

People cite the Steelers a lot and inevitably it's pointed out that they have thrown a LOT of draft capital at the position so maybe it's that they are equal parts pretty good and also just trying a lot. The Pats both do not try a lot and have been bad when they've tried. Here is the Steelers Tomlin-era history:

2022: 2 (52) Pickens*, 4 (138) Austin
2020: 2 (49) Claypool
2019: 3 (66) Diontae*
2018: 2 (60) James Washington
2017: 2 (62) JuJu*
2016: 7 (229) Demarcus Ayers
2015: 3 (87) Sammie Coates
2014: 4 (118) Martavis Bryant
2013: 3 (79) Markus Wheaton, 6 (186) Justin Brown
2012: 7 (231) Toney Clemens
2010: 3 (82) Manny Sanders*, 6 (195) Antonio*
2009: 3 (84) Wallace*
2008: 2 (53) Limas Sweed
2007: 7 (277) Dallas Baker
2006: 1 (25) Santonio Holmes*, 3 (95) Willie Reid

Picks by round:
1: 1
2: 5
3: 6
4: 2
5: 0
6: 2
7: 3

7 out of 19 (asterisked above) were hits and Martavis was on the path to being an 8th but for off-the-field issues. Austin is a tbd. Even among the "misses" you have guys like Washington and Wheaton providing some value on their rookie deals. Hell, Claypool I am counting as a miss but STILL provided way more value to the Steelers than a lot of the Pats' equivalent picks. The only true bust pick above is Sweed. It puts our 1 for 10 in the early rounds to absolute shame.

So, yes, they are probably good at identifying the right players, but they are also simply drafting more guys to be good. They draft WRs the way Belichick drafts DBs. Antonio Brown is the only guy after round 3 that really hit. The Pats on the other hand have drafted a lot of late guys hoping to get lucky AND their few attempts at drafting a WR to be good have been tragicomically bad.

All that said, we OF COURSE did devote resources to bringing in receivers that were good fits for Brady and the roster at various times, whether it was the Welker/Moss era or the Edelman/Amendola/Hogan era. Can't ignore that context. Sans Brady and other strong offensive infrastructure, though, the philosophy now appears disastrous to the offense, amongst other problems with it.

SMU_Sox · Oct 11, 2023

Yeah the answer is they need to prioritize drafting WRs early in the draft and do so until they have at least 1 guy and preferably 2. They could have traded up for JJ or taken Aiyuk in 2020 for example. Instead they traded back and took Dugger and Uche. Both those guys are good players for their respective roles but I would rather have JJ or Aiyuk (the receiver who went before and the receiver after them).

And they KNEW Harry was a bust year 1 or if they didn't they at least had a lot of concerns about him. Eagles took Reagor and then got Slim Reaper. You have to have good pass catchers especially if you are developing a QB!

Take bites at the apple early. Sorry, Bill that means you have to deprioritize other positions until you get WR/TE, OL right. The tricky part though is getting the pick lined up with the draft value. In 2023 they did not match. 2020, 2022 they did. In 2020 they traded down, and in 2022 they picked the wrong guy.

slamminsammya · Oct 11, 2023

I've said it before but we can't really fully evaluate the talent evaluation without seeing what their entire draft board looked like.

Jed Zeppelin · Oct 11, 2023

SMU_Sox said:
Yeah the answer is they need to prioritize drafting WRs early in the draft and do so until they have at least 1 guy and preferably 2. They could have traded up for JJ or taken Aiyuk in 2020 for example. Instead they traded back and took Dugger and Uche. Both those guys are good players for their respective roles but I would rather have JJ or Aiyuk (the receiver who went before and the receiver after them).

And they KNEW Harry was a bust year 1 or if they didn't they at least had a lot of concerns about him. Eagles took Reagor and then got Slim Reaper. You have to have good pass catchers especially if you are developing a QB!

Take bites at the apple early. Sorry, Bill that means you have to deprioritize other positions until you get WR/TE, OL right. The tricky part though is getting the pick lined up with the draft value. In 2023 they did not match. 2020, 2022 they did. In 2020 they traded down, and in 2022 they picked the wrong guy.

Re: the bolded, this is a bit of unresearched conjecture on my part but if I had to guess, I'd say it is probably much easier to add quality players at value in the FA market at DB, for example. You can bring in a Jabril Peppers for cheap, you can find corners who can play a bit, you can test out a CB>safety conversion, bring in an older player to squeeze out the last few years of juice. Meanwhile we've paid a lot for guys like Agholor and JS-S to do nothing simply because they were some of the top guys on the market and the real top guys tend not to hit FA. You can acquire a Diggs/AJ Brown/Hill but you have to pay through the nose with $$$ and picks. (Not random aside: who was the last WR of Tee Higgins' quality to hit FA?)

It seems dang near impossible to try to fill the pass-catching holes (and maybe OT, at least at the highest end) through FA but because of the nature of defense (players fitting different schemes differently, etc etc), you can find pieces who fit what you're trying to without breaking the bank. The player movement at the positions we'd need to deprioritize in the draft to favor WR more seems very different to me in a way that favors going much heavier at WR.

ManicCompression · Oct 11, 2023

SMU_Sox said:
Yeah the answer is they need to prioritize drafting WRs early in the draft and do so until they have at least 1 guy and preferably 2. They could have traded up for JJ or taken Aiyuk in 2020 for example. Instead they traded back and took Dugger and Uche. Both those guys are good players for their respective roles but I would rather have JJ or Aiyuk (the receiver who went before and the receiver after them).

And they KNEW Harry was a bust year 1 or if they didn't they at least had a lot of concerns about him. Eagles took Reagor and then got Slim Reaper. You have to have good pass catchers especially if you are developing a QB!

Take bites at the apple early. Sorry, Bill that means you have to deprioritize other positions until you get WR/TE, OL right. The tricky part though is getting the pick lined up with the draft value. In 2023 they did not match. 2020, 2022 they did. In 2020 they traded down, and in 2022 they picked the wrong guy.

It's even worse that BB KNEW Brady was leaving, that the Pats wouldn't have the luxury of their QB making the most of his meager receiving corps, that there would probably be a young QB in the mix, and he still put a minimal emphasis on the position.

tims4wins · Oct 11, 2023

Jed Zeppelin said:
Re: the bolded, this is a bit of unresearched conjecture on my part but if I had to guess, I'd say it is probably much easier to add quality players at value in the FA market at DB, for example. You can bring in a Jabril Peppers for cheap, you can find corners who can play a bit, you can test out a CB>safety conversion, bring in an older player to squeeze out the last few years of juice. Meanwhile we've paid a lot for guys like Agholor and JS-S to do nothing simply because they were some of the top guys on the market and the real top guys tend not to hit FA. You can acquire a Diggs/AJ Brown/Hill but you have to pay through the nose with $$$ and picks. (Not random aside: who was the last WR of Tee Higgins' quality to hit FA?)

It seems dang near impossible to try to fill the pass-catching holes (and maybe OT, at least at the highest end) through FA but because of the nature of defense (players fitting different schemes differently, etc etc), you can find pieces who fit what you're trying to without breaking the bank. The player movement at the positions we'd need to deprioritize in the draft to favor WR more seems very different to me in a way that favors going much heavier at WR.

I think this is exactly right. Difference-making WRs are signed to a 2nd deal. Or, they are traded late in their first deal and then paid $$$.

Whereas look at a guy like Dugger. He is almost 100% assured to hit free agency, and he'll likely depart. He's a good player, but safeties like him have little value on the open market (e.g., Peppers). Ditto a guy like Cole Strange. I think that's the biggest issue I have had with the Pats recent drafts. They have drafted some decent players, but not at positions where you can create significant surplus value. Obviously Mac was a pick where they could have created significant surplus value, but it hasn't panned out, no matter who you want to blame.

slamminsammya · Oct 11, 2023

tims4wins said:
I think this is exactly right. Difference-making WRs are signed to a 2nd deal. Or, they are traded late in their first deal and then paid $$$.

Whereas look at a guy like Dugger. He is almost 100% assured to hit free agency, and he'll likely depart. He's a good player, but safeties like him have little value on the open market (e.g., Peppers). Ditto a guy like Cole Strange. I think that's the biggest issue I have had with the Pats recent drafts. They have drafted some decent players, but not at positions where you can create significant surplus value. Obviously Mac was a pick where they could have created significant surplus value, but it hasn't panned out, no matter who you want to blame.

why wouldn't dugger resign if he won't get much money anyways? you think the pats won't value him at whatever he gets?

Bowser · Oct 11, 2023

Just for fun, I attempted a grading scale (out of 100) to evaluate Pats WR picks by performance and round. Then, using @BaseballJones' player grades, I came up with an overall score for 2002-2023. For example, Mitchell, a round 4 B-, scored an 80. Givens, a round 7 A, was a 200. A round 1 A+ (100) was scored the same as a round 7 C+ (100).

The Pats' overall score? A 61 (D-), which feels about right, I guess. Here's hoping Thornton, Boutte, and Douglas will increase the grade.

Cellar-Door · Oct 11, 2023

tims4wins said:
I think this is exactly right. Difference-making WRs are signed to a 2nd deal. Or, they are traded late in their first deal and then paid $$$.

Whereas look at a guy like Dugger. He is almost 100% assured to hit free agency, and he'll likely depart. He's a good player, but safeties like him have little value on the open market (e.g., Peppers). Ditto a guy like Cole Strange. I think that's the biggest issue I have had with the Pats recent drafts. They have drafted some decent players, but not at positions where you can create significant surplus value. Obviously Mac was a pick where they could have created significant surplus value, but it hasn't panned out, no matter who you want to blame.

Safety this might be true a little of, guard it isn't generally. The very top left tackles get paid more, but good guards get very good money, very similar to Right tackles.

j44thor · Oct 11, 2023

BaseballJones said:
I know this is a WR draft thread, since I started it. But I do think you guys are hitting on something really important. And that is: use high end draft capital to select the very best talent you can at the elite (and expensive) positions. QB, WR, OT, CB, Edge. And just keep hammering away at those spots year after year after year. You’re bound to hit on some. And then you’ve got elite talent at really expensive positions for less than market money.

And THEN you spend in free agency on the cheaper positions like OG, TE, C, DT, LB, S, and RB (to say nothing of K and P). That way when you’re spending FA market money, at least it’s on the cheaper positions.

I think this ought to be the general philosophy moving forward.

I think it is less about drafting positions and more about maximizing value on your day 1 & 2 picks. There are drafts where the WR class is shallow and say DT/LB class is deep where you don't want to be drafting WR just to draft them (which NE has done at times) and vice versa you can't miss out on the good WR class just because you invested in WR the previous class. My concern is that this scouting dept simply doesn't evaluate skill positions properly so they are going to have to throw away an awful lot of draft capital in hopes of hitting on a couple. Now I would absolutely advocate for prioritizing the higher paid positions when you have comparable talents available across different positions just don't force it. I don't think we would be complaining about taking a G in 2022 if we had picked Tyler Smith at 21, he went 24 to DAL and is having an all-pro kind of season, instead of the off the board selection of Strange.

j44thor · Oct 11, 2023

I'll add that I'm quite certain by the end of the season we will be questioning why we reached for Mapu instead of taking the value in WR Josh Downs who would have been the perfect athletic twitchy slot receiver this team needs. Mapu likely would have been there when we had a plethora of 4th rd picks whereas many mocked Downs in the 2nd and he fell to the third where it appears IND got a steal.

Cellar-Door · Oct 11, 2023

j44thor said:
I'll add that I'm quite certain by the end of the season we will be questioning why we reached for Mapu instead of taking the value in WR Josh Downs who would have been the perfect athletic twitchy slot receiver this team needs. Mapu likely would have been there when we had a plethora of 4th rd picks whereas many mocked Downs in the 2nd and he fell to the third where it appears IND got a steal.

Meh, you can't play the "well if we had taken the guy who panned out on another team instead" game. We got Mapu who looks good, and we got a WR who is putting up better per target numbers than Downs late, Downs isn't really doing much more than Douglas if anything, he's just getting more snaps/targets. And we got Boutte who a few months earlier would have been considered a better prospect than Downs. I'm not particularly worried about missing out on Downs even though I like him some as a player

SMU_Sox · Oct 12, 2023

Tyler Smith was actually a LT prospect and will likely take over LT when Tyron Smith retires. Positional value is crucial. Think about how hard it is to get a quality starter in FA at WR or OT. You can get guys like Dugger for relatively cheap: Adrian Philips, Peppers, Chung, etc.

Positional value doesn't make sense when the prospects are multiple tiers different than each other. You probably wouldn't want to take a 6.99 graded WR over a 7.5 rated guard. But you might want to take a 7.0 WR over a 7.5 rated guard. You can't reach for positions but you also have to be willing to commit to taking positions like WR and OT when the value matches up until you get them stocked. There isn't an arbitrage opportunity to find elite pass catching talent anymore. We also don't have Scar.

They could have easily solved OG in FA or even by extending their own guys and drafted an OT in 2022 for example. Dugger is, when he is playing in the box, a near pro-bowl caliber level safety. But as useful as a box safety is the downgrade from him to Peppers is not nearly as impactful as the downgrade is from someone like Aiyuk or Pittman vs Parker. It is also harder to find quality guys like Philips and Peppers at receiver.

I don't think you need to do this all the time. Once you have your WR1, a good TE, a passing down back, and at least 1 more WR2 level receiver (or some combination of good pass catchers) then by all means take a year or two off from drafting one. Once you have a LT and a RT sure go ahead and take a break from trying to draft one. But until you have those guys you are just setting yourself up for failure by taking other positions first (again with the caveats that the value has to make sense).

You could make an argument for leaving RT or WR2 or TE or passing down RB to FA. Fine. As long as your LT and top shelf dude are drafted then other strategies can work.

You can also trade for these guys but that's a lot of money and draft capital when you could have done it yourself, possibly. That's costly.

Edit: I mean isn’t this team a perfect example of why positional value is important? Gaping holes at WR and RT.

Garshaparra · Oct 12, 2023

SMU_Sox said:
Tyler Smith was actually a LT prospect and will likely take over LT when Tyron Smith retires. Positional value is crucial. Think about how hard it is to get a quality starter in FA at WR or OT. You can get guys like Dugger for relatively cheap: Adrian Philips, Peppers, Chung, etc.

Positional value doesn't make sense when the prospects are multiple tiers different than each other. You probably wouldn't want to take a 6.99 graded WR over a 7.5 rated guard. But you might want to take a 7.0 WR over a 7.5 rated guard. You can't reach for positions but you also have to be willing to commit to taking positions like WR and OT when the value matches up until you get them stocked. There isn't an arbitrage opportunity to find elite pass catching talent anymore. We also don't have Scar.

They could have easily solved OG in FA or even by extending their own guys and drafted an OT in 2022 for example. Dugger is, when he is playing in the box, a near pro-bowl caliber level safety. But as useful as a box safety is the downgrade from him to Peppers is not nearly as impactful as the downgrade is from someone like Aiyuk or Pittman vs Parker. It is also harder to find quality guys like Philips and Peppers at receiver.

I don't think you need to do this all the time. Once you have your WR1, a good TE, a passing down back, and at least 1 more WR2 level receiver (or some combination of good pass catchers) then by all means take a year or two off from drafting one. Once you have a LT and a RT sure go ahead and take a break from trying to draft one. But until you have those guys you are just setting yourself up for failure by taking other positions first (again with the caveats that the value has to make sense).

You could make an argument for leaving RT or WR2 or TE or passing down RB to FA. Fine. As long as your LT and top shelf dude are drafted then other strategies can work.

You can also trade for these guys but that's a lot of money and draft capital when you could have done it yourself, possibly. That's costly.

Edit: I mean isn’t this team a perfect example of why positional value is important? Gaping holes at WR and RT.

It's the age-old draft challenge of "draft for need" or "draft best available". Despite considerable need at OT and WR, BB decided to draft best available. In the long run, maybe it works out. Gonzo is clearly as good as advertised, and single-handedly helped the Pats stay in games that they had no business being in weeks 1-3. Keion White flashed speed and power in the preseason and game 1, but ever the scheme hound, BB doesn't like his work in at least one facet of his game, so he's situationally available. Mapu seems to be in the same boat - toolsy, but not polished enough to start. That's your top 3 picks, despite major starting needs elsewhere.

Exchange Mapu for Dawand Jones, and sign Isaac Seumalo or another FA guard instead of Reiff+Anderson, and you've got a vastly improved line for the same money, with Trent Brown insurance for the future. Exchange Keion White for Josh Downs, and sign DeMarcus Walker or another EDGE/DT, and you've got better production from both DL and WR.

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