Three Years in the Making!
How would the average Twitter football know-it-all do against NFL General Managers in terms of picking draft prospects?
In 2017, this crazy idea kicked off an odyssey that has brought hundreds of football fans together to debate, share scouting methods and have fun while voting to help compile what has become an annual tradition, the DraftTwitter Top 100. Here are the results of the very first survey.
The idea is simple: take super-enthusiastic NFL draft fans, give them a chance to rank their top 100 prospects for the upcoming draft and crunch the numbers to get an aggregate list that should smooth out the bumps to reflect the draft sentiment of the Twitterverse.
I promised to review the performance of the Aggregate Top 100 list to the results of the actual NFL GMs to see who did a better job. So here it is, the very first 3 year review for the 2017 NFL Player Draft!
Step 1. Determine the true Top 100 players in the 2017 NFL Draft
Sure, we ranked players we thought were the best and the pros spent millions in scouting resources to actually drafted them. But 3 years later, neither group's ranking of the plays (through the DraftTwitter Top 100 and through the first 100 players picked in the 2017 NFL Draft) reflects the true ranking of the best players in that draft from 1 to 100. So, we will create that list right now.
The process of stack ranking players uses three measures to determine an overall score based on (1) importance of that player to his team and (2) player production compared to his peer group.
- Importance to Team- For all players except quarterbacks, Games Started and Positional Snaps (Special Teams play is not included) are the first two measures in the calculation used to determine the rankings. The assumption being coaches put their most capable players on the field and, if a player can maintain his starting spot or generate a high number of snaps compared to his peer group, he has high importance.
- Production - Each position has a production metric calculated over the first 3 years of his career:
- RB: Yards from Scrimmage/Snaps
- WR and TE: Receiving Yards/Snaps
- Offensive Line: Snaps/Penalties
- DL: Snaps/(Tackles for Loss plus Sacks)
- LB:Snaps/(Solo Tackles plus Tackles for Loss plus Sacks)
- S: Snaps/Total Tackles
- CB: Target Ratio (Catches Allowed/Times Targeted)
- Quarterback Stat Ranking: Top 100 QBs are given far more opportunity to fail as opposed to other players and so the Importance to Team metrics above are not as helpful. Instead we look at:
- Passing Yards/Attempt = 50%
- Touchdowns/Interceptions=50%
Players are graded in their respective position groups with the top player awarded 100 points and each subsequent player graded based on their relationship to the top position and the mean. The differential between the top player and the next is recorded, and so on. This differential is used to gauge how much better a player is compared to the next in his position group, which is key in breaking ties.
The three metrics are averaged and all players are ranked regardless of position with ties broken by the position differential.
The Actual 2017 NFL Draft Top 100
- Actual Score: Score generated from the stack ranking exercise above.
- Expected Score: Expected Score if player performed exactly to the level he was drafted, based on the actual top 100 scores.
- Value +/- : The Value gained or lost based on Expected Score compared to Actual Score.
- No Expected Score or Value +/- means player was drafted outside the Top 100.
For example, Patrick Mahomes (shocker) was the #1 player in the 2017 so his Actual Score is 100. He was the the 9th pick overall and so, based on the actual scores, the 9th player's score is 96.2. The Actual Score minus the Expected Score divided by the Expected Score shows he provided 3.9% value based on the analysis.
Sleepers and Underperformers
Here are the Sleepers, guys who way outperformed their draft positions.
And the Underperformers:
Step 2: Assess Scores of NFL and DraftTwitter Based on Actual Scores
Lining up the results, we score each draft pick based on how much off the NFL and Draft Twitter Pos(ition) it is compared to the 2020 Value (as we figured out above).
Going back to the Pat Mahomes example, he was drafted 10th overall but is the #1 player in his draft. Because the NFL Draft had him 9 slots lower than he earned out, we deduct those 9 points from the possible 100 points for each player. So, he was worth 91 points to the NFL and only 67 points to DraftTwitter who were much lower on him (although, in line with many sources that also overlooked Mahomes).
Any player with a position > 100 was not in the NFL's or DraftTwitter's Top 100 and so the score is a zero.
All the scores are averaged and, if you scroll down, you will see if the NFL GMs or the DraftTwitter guys had better results...
And the Winner is...
OK, so the GMs reign supreme like they should (they get paid enough) BUT the margin of victory is just 1.5 points. I know the term "moral victory" does not belong in football but I think we will take it here...
Shout out to the Contributors
These guys came through by providing the first survey results. Many have gone on to bigger and better things but they all stay connected to the DraftTwitter community. Looking forward to breaking down their individual draft performances in the next article.
Zone
Reads @ZoneReads
Matt Miller @NFLdraftscout
Matt Miller @NFLdraftscout
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