Rookie Rebuilding – Part 1: Quarterbacks

Jeff Haverlack

So you want to rebuild (or build) your team via the NFL Rookie Draft?  While I will be getting to some heavy rookie analysis in later parts in this series, we’re going to start with some foundational performance data and will ramp up from there.

Regardless how long you’ve played in the dynasty format, you’ve no doubt gotten caught up in rookie fever, or at least the excitement leading up to the NFL Rookie Draft.  Like a kid in a candy store with a fist-full of change looking up in sheer wonderment at the glass jar on the counter containing those multicolored sugared treats, the rookie draft holds much the same allure.  In a format where youth+excellence+production can equal championships (if it were only that easy), it stands to reason that building your team around rookie additions is the surest way to the ultimate prize.

There’s no doubting the impact that a young productive rookie can have on your results.  When just that right mix of youth versus production is struck, team performance can follow.  And the younger your productive team is, the longer you can stay near the top.  Rinse and repeat successfully and, perhaps, you may even build the next dynasty in your league.

But the reality is that the rookie draft is a minefield of pitfalls mixed with equal parts of luck and opportunity.  Every year, the parrots (‘experts’) emerge to being squawking about the next sure thing, the ultimate sleeper or  the looming bust that will be well over-hyped and over-drafted.  Truth be told, your rookie draft will hold all of things and more.  While no one can correctly forecast all the incoming rookie players, their impact and their relative performance in fantasy, by looking at the trends history provides, you can most certainly steer clear of some of the more common mistakes while also finding those within the industry that have a knack for correctly forecasting players.  All the research in the world won’t guarantee your coveted selection will be the next Aaron Rodgers, Randy Moss or Adrian Peterson but no level of research or objectivity certainly isn’t a recipe that will produce results.

Here at DLF, we’ve always prided ourselves on getting you the data, objective information and player names that you need to be aware of throughout the year.  When other sites are going dark following the NFL regular season, the wheels keep turning at DLF  and, in fact, pick up speed.  The NFL’s “off-season” is DLF’s peak season.  These precious following eight months at DLF aren’t just about talking football.  These next eight months are all about getting you prepared for the upcoming season and beyond.  We haven’t even reached the NFL playoffs yet and we’re already ramping up to get you prepared.

In this series, I will be looking at various trends and data to see if we can find  applicable truths that we can use in future rookie drafts.  I’ll be looking at a decade of NFL performance, player attributes, statistics, draft position and even past fantasy rookie drafts to see if we can find nuggets of wisdom to give us an edge.  Should we trade up, down or out in the draft?  What is the percentage chance that my second round pick will be a rookie standout?  Should tight ends really never be selected in the first round of a fantasy rookie draft?

I’ll be honest, while I already do have some preconceived ideas on some of these topics, I’m always open to new information that will provide a catalyst for me to change my view.  For other areas, I’m not sure what I’ll find but I’m excited to go down the rabbit hole to see what may be at the bottom.

Want to come along Alice?

In part one of this series I thought I’d embark on a little fantasy study dating back to 2007.  Specifically, I wanted to track the top ten performers in fantasy by position along with their NFL-drafted selection in addition to their height and weight (when applicable).  What I’m looking for are trends in the players-to-performance based on either drafted round, size or a combination of both.  Through this data, perhaps we can find patterns of performance that can be exploited to give our own draft selections a more successful slant.

First, let’s look at the raw data for a PPR league dating back to 2007 beginning with the quarterbacks.  Then, in future installments, we’ll dig a bit deeper into each position to see what we can glean, if anything at all.  To be honest, I had planned on doing all positions in a single installment but the piece would be much too long and be too much to digest in my estimation.

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Quarterbacks

7-10

15-16

With ten years of results, the results are rather interesting, though I could say that about all of the data.  One thing you will notice is that I have not listed any height and weight data for the quarterbacks.  Bigger quarterbacks do tend to fair better but there are very notable, and well known, exceptions.  Size will, at least in most cases, not determine the rookie draft selection of quarterbacks in fantasy.  We should concern ourselves far more with drafted situation and selections number.  It doesn’t take long to survey this list and see a repeating list of names which sufficiently creates a shallow pond effect.  Once you have a multi-year performer, the odds grow of having a long term productive asset.

Let’s review some specifics:

  • 59% of the total ranking slots were held by quarterbacks selected in the first round of the NFL draft
  • 14% of the total ranking slots were held by quarterbacks selected in the second round of the NFL draft
  • 9% of the total ranking slots were held by quarterbacks selected in the third or fourth rounds of the NFL draft
  • 10% of the total ranking slots were held by quarterbacks selected in the fifth through seventh rounds of the NFL draft
  • 8% of the total ranking slots were held by quarterbacks that were Undrafted Free Agents (UDFA)

Going deeper:

  • Of those 14%ranking slots owned by second round quarterbacks, only Drew Brees (10), Brett Favre (2), Andy Dalton (1) and David Carr (1) are represented.
  • Those 9%ranking slots owned by third or fourth round quarterbacks are: Russell Wilson (3), Kirk Cousins (2), Matt Schaub (2), David Garrard (1), Dak Prescott (1),
  • Those 10% ranking slots owned by fifth through seventh round quarterbacks are: Tom Brady (7), Derek Anderson (1), Matt Cassell (1), Matt Hasselbeck (1)
  • Those 8% ranking slots owned by UDFA quarterbacks are: Tony Romo (6), John Kitna (1), Kurt Warner (1)

Summary

There’s little way to get around this in my estimation, especially if you take it one step further.  Aside from the 59% of first round performers, you have Tom Brady and Tony Romo occupying 13% of the remaining slots.  Neither would have been selected in rookie drafts, including most other names from this list.  In fact, when surveying the names outside of the first round that placed in the top ten of performers over the past decade, you can make a very strong argument that the chance of identifying and selecting a would-be top-ten quarterback beyond round one stands at relatively long odds.

This is not to say that you should not select quarterbacks outside of the first round as owners of Russell Wilson, Dak Prescott and even Kirk Cousins would tell you.  But, instead, doing so with the expectation that they will be high-end producers at the position would be somewhat of a fools errand.  It’s clear that the highest of fantasy performing quarterbacks come from the first round of the NFL Draft and there you should look should you find yourself in need.  If you’re looking for a needle in the proverbial haystack outside of round two, do so with much later rookie selections, perhaps beyond your own draft’s round four.

If anything, this may be a catalyst to overweight a selection of a first round NFL drafted quarterback who is falling in your rookie draft.  What we don’t know, yet, is how many quarterbacks have been selected in the first round over the past decade to those that have become highly productive fantasy players.  When looking at the list of usual suspects above, it’s safe to assume what this study will look like and it doesn’t appear to be a pretty picture.  Rest assured, I will be doing a deep-dive on exactly this information as I dissect a decade of drafted quarterbacks to ascertain the odds, by round, that a drafted player will become a high-performing rookie starter.

Next we turn our attention to the performing running backs of the past decade and we’ll be looking at not only drafted round, but also ideal height and weight characteristics.

Stay tuned ….

Follow me on Twitter:  @DLF_Jeff

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jeff haverlack