Drafting in the NFL

This is often a conversation on the vikes and packs thread. What teams or gms do you think do it best league wide? It seems like often draft success is centered around those coveted first round picks, but more important in my mind is the draft as a whole. I still wonder about Spielman, did he do a good job as GM? The big bust was Ponder of course, but then they get a guy like Diggs late in the draft. Treadwell was a terrible pick. How many first rounders are still in the league 4 years after a draft? I remember for a while pack-land was all aglow with the fact that they built their teams only through the draft, they had almost or zero FA signings. That song and dance fizzled out as they never got A rodge a second ring, and then the gm was fired, wolf might have been his name.

One generally accepted measure of success, especially with 1st-rounders, is if that player made it to a second contract. If that was the case, the player was likely enough of a success that the team offered them a second contract.

As you mentioned, drafting is one part of the overall GM performance. Their job also includes trades, free agent signings, and retaining their own free agents. The Vikes got Hockenson for what, a 2nd round pick? A way that’s often used to evaluate that would be “would you be happy to get Hockenson value out of a 2nd round pick?” The answer is obviously yes, but the GM still needs to continue to manage the roster; Hock is one of the best TE’s in the league and fits great in the Vikes’ offense, but he’s gonna cost a ton more over the course of a few years than that 2nd-rounder would’ve.

I don’t follow other teams and their later-round picks like I do the Vikings, but you mentioned drafting Diggs out of Maryland with a 4th-round pick. Danielle Hunter was drafted in the 3rd round and may sign the largest contract for a defensive player this off-season with the right team. I’m generally against drafting RB’s in the 1st round nowadays, but a RB with the value Dalvin Cook provided was a very solid 2nd-round pick.

I’ve mentioned it on this site several times, but some group dove into the drafts of all NFL teams going back to the 1980’s and found no evidence suggesting any team succeeded much more than the others. Every team #@$k’s it up, because it’s a guessing game. The same goes for the college level. Stefon Diggs, as we mentioned, was drafted in the 4th round out of Maryland. You’d think an Alabama, Michigan, Georgia, etc. would be recruiting a guy that’s gonna ultimately be a multi-time pro-bowler. It happens there too, there’s talent out there that maybe was mis-evaluated or not exposed enough to the right people.

Look at Brock Purdy, drafted absolutely last a few years ago, and he was in the MVP conversation this year. I often wonder how many guys are currently on the streets or working in a job their college degree got them that are better than current NFL players but simply didn’t impress the right people in the right ways.

To each their own, but two fan complaints that absolutely drive me nuts are regarding 1) Drafting, and 2) Play-calling. Probably because in both cases, wrong decisions are very “duh” obvious, but we all grade them with the benefit of hindsight from the outcome.

Sorry for the long post. This stuff interests me and obviously millions of other fans.

Historically the Ravens are about as good as it gets imo. And Belicheck is about as bad as it gets, yet still won 6 Super Bowls. Personally I think we overrate drafting, and underrate development and usage. Look at the Vikings defense this year, basically no FA additions or major draft picks (Pace an UDFA was the best rookie), lost Kendricks, Pat P and ZDarius and were light years better than last year. That has little to do with the front office and more to do with Brian Flores understanding players and their skillsets and putting them in positions to succeed. We basically started 3 safeties all year, because he recognized how versatile Metellus is, and how solid Harrison Smith and Bynum were at coordinating everything on the backend.

The Eagles had some really good recent drafts. Almost all of their starting players on both sides of the ball were drafted, not traded for.

Course, now they’re tanking too, so Nothing For Long in the NFL.

How many GM’s have been in their role for 5 plus years. I would say those teams then.

I think the most important part of what a GM does isn’t necessarily drafting, but also how they manage players and contracts. That Daniel Jones contract is worse than a 1st round bust in my opinion.

Just because a player is really good, doesn’t mean they’re “good” for your team. Even the best players in the league aren’t always smart to roster at a certain dollar value. RBs are one of the position groups where people have quickly caught on to this.

Since Hockenson was brought up it seems like a great move and I think it was, but that contract could quickly bite if he struggles to rehab from the injury or if the Vikings decided to move on from Cousins and launch a rebuild (not what I think will happen).

The 30 million dollar yard ornament in Green Bay is looking like a terrible resigning. Sure Bahktiari went from an overlooked draft pick to the best Tackle in the league for a while, but knowing when to cut a guy loose is just as important as drafting them. I’d love to see what $30 million in veteran players could do to this current Packers roster…but it’s tied up in the yard ornament.

Thanks Dan, good post.

I think a big aspect of a GM’s job is just plain luck hitting on a few key players (draft picks or cheap free agents that overachieve) early into the tenure and then being able to leverage those few lucky decisions to sort of make up for all the bad decisions they ultimately make and thus keep themselves employed…

Who was the Dallas GM that hoodwinked the Vikings into trading away the farm for Walker? Dallas won super bowls and acquired numerous HOF players with those pics. That Dallas GM was a genius or the Vikings GM at the time was just plain dumb.

That was all Jimmy Johnson.