Rookie Picks – Post Mortem

Kevin OBrien

For as long as dynasty football has been talked about, the argument of longevity has always been at the core when determining a player’s intrinsic value. Sure, Player X is a very good player, but how long will he play for? How long will that player produce at current level? Or even, what is the player’s value over time? Is time defined by more than one year? Maybe, two years? Some draft Andrew Luck with the hopes he holds value for 10 years. While our collective outlooks are subjective, we can relatively gauge whether some players have held value or not. There’s a mixed bag in determining value over time as a player’s value will in most cases follow a rise, a peak, and sometimes a sharp fall. Averaging out that value can be very difficult to quantify.

With the NFL draft and many of our rookie drafts upon us, I wanted to take a historical look back at how our rookie picks have held up since being selected. The data I could find goes back to 2007. However, I found that 2007 and 2008 had very small sample sizes, and were extremely running back heavy. While I cannot say for sure, I believe they were likely standard scoring leagues and not point per reception. So for the purpose of this article, I will be using the data from 2009-2015. This data is all startup average draft position (ADP) mostly from DLF’s mocks held over the course of a few months, over that span of seven years.

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Rookie picks, just like in the NFL, have been used both as supplemental additions to good teams, but also with the hope in which an organization can turn their misfortunes around. The Patriots, Packers, and Seahawks are a few examples where they have their franchise quarterback, a solid roster and coaching staff, and they can focus on their depth. Teams like the Rams, Browns, and Jaguars have been trying to mostly rebuild themselves through the draft. On occasion, there have been examples like the Panthers and Colts, who hit on that franchise quarterback and are able to become competitive almost immediately. All of this highlights a blend of approaches and shows that not every team will be successful merely building through the draft, but teams that ignore it, will also likely see their rosters deteriorate without quality players supplementing their veterans.

The Rookies

First, I would like to share with you the top 12 rookies in startup drafts by year. There is a mixed bag of success here. However, just like the NFL learned, there have been absolute horrible players drafted early who have not provided us the success that was bargained for. The color codes are by position; green is RB, blue is WR, yellow is QB, and pink is TE.

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Now, let’s take that same table, but I am going to replace the names with their 2016 startup ADP.

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With this table, I have color coded the top 50 (green), the top 100 (blue), top 150 in purple, the 200-300 in yellow, and the undrafted in red. By far, the most disheartening for me is seeing so many undrafted. Over the past seven years of players drafted in the top 12 of rookies, we are now not even drafting 41 percent of them in our 2016 startup drafts. While only one third of these rookies are top 50 in 2016 startup ADP.

Stop and think about that. There are a higher percentage of undrafted rookies than there are rookies that have become top 50 players. This is even given the recency bias of insulated cost that rookies maintain in the first year or two. Just three years out, and our rookies have gone below the 50 percent threshold of being a 2016 top 50 pick. At this three year mark, we also start to see that 42 percent of them are undrafted.

The counter to this would be this is average draft position. And while no one is striving to be average, this table is providing us a window of 12 rookies in startup ADP. You would have to show that there were top 50 players you preferred in the second and third rounds to the players that have fallen outside the top 50 in order for me to believe you are that much better than average. While I believe, yes, you can probably choose the 1.05 better than I can choose the 1.10, I have a hard time believing that you were taking Antonio Brown or even TY Hilton as the top 12 rookies in their respective years.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the top 13-24 rookies and see if maybe the second round rookies fared any better. Some interesting names pop out, like Emmanuel Sanders, Jimmy Graham, and Alshon Jeffrey. For the most part, there’s heartbreak in there.

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As we did for the top 12, let’s now replace the names with their 2016 startup ADP.

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Similar to the top 12, this group does OK for 2014 and 2015, but when we get three years out, things fall apart. In 2013, we have 58 percent of them undrafted in 2016 startup drafts, and none are top 50 picks. In fact from 2013 to 2009, we only have two rookies that are top 50 picks now. Giving the benefits of recency, we can see over the seven years, that 50 percent of the 84 rookies went undrafted, and only 7.1 percent of the rookies are top 50.

Looking at this group, maybe the above average drafter would have taken Jeffrey and Lamar Miller in the first round as their top 12 rookies, however, there were five in the top 12 that year that were undrafted. For example, in 2012 for the top 24 rookies, there were only five rookies that have risen into the top 50 picks in 2016. It’s still early to say on 2014, but in the top 12, Bishop Sankey and Tre Mason were the two big misses we had. While in the 13 through 24 picks, the two top 50 players are Devonta Freeman and Donte Moncrief. Are these the two players, you, as the better than average drafter would have had in the top 12 rookies? I will have to take your word for it.

Let’s take a look at the top 25 through 36 rookies.

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There’s not a lot here, but some big hits, such as players like Rob Gronkowski, T.Y. Hilton, Randall Cobb, and Eric Decker. Now, let’s replace the names with the 2016 startup ADP.

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Well, this is just disturbing. Only 4.8 percent of these players are top 50 startup picks in 2016. Even with the recency bias of the past two years, two thirds of this group went undrafted. From the 2009 class, there wasn’t even a single player of the 12 drafted in a 2016 startup draft.

While it’s possible that the above average drafter could’ve had a better pick here and there, it’s hard to imagine that one could dance through the mine field that is the 25 through 36 rookie picks.

The Conclusion

Allow me to play devil’s advocate for a moment.

There is enough evidence in the last two to three years, to see why some believe the answer is to acquire more draft picks. Over 2014 and 2015, just over 50 percent of the top 12 rookie picks have been top 50 picks in 2016. Let’s use an example of having six first-round draft picks in 2014. If we had drafted Sammy Watkins, Brandin Cooks, Bishop Sankey, Tre Mason, Davante Adams, and Odell Beckham we could be looking at a core of Watkins, Beckham, and Cooks even if we were to view Sankey, Adams, and Mason as complete busts. These three studs would easily be worth six first-round draft picks. Using this mindset, clearly it would have merit.

Here’s the letdown. Unfortunately, increasing our horizon by seven years, this strategy doesn’t quite hold up, as we have just reviewed for the 2009 to 2012 rookie picks. Of course, just like with our mutual fund research for our 401k portfolio, past performance is not indicative of future success.

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As I have highlighted in my Roster Construction – 401k Style article, I place my draft picks into the group with my high-growth, high-risk players which make up about 25 percent of my roster. This strategy for me has mitigated my exposure to the risk associated with these top 36 rookie draft picks. However, it also allows me to invest in them with the ability to reap the rewards of all my research I still put into these rookies. Just as with small cap mutual funds in my 401k, I still research and work hard to select the proper funds, just within context of what they are. This approach has served me well for many years, not just the past couple of years.

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kevin obrien