Day 3 of the NFL Draft - Who's Screwed?

Nothin' from Nothin' Leaves Nothin'

The great singer and part time mathematician Billy Preston may have had the NFL draft in mind when he wrote those lyrics.  After 2 days and 3 rounds, we get down to final day where we really get to see which teams did their homework and which teams are breaking out their officially licensed NFL Ouija boards to try to figure out who to pick next. 

Supply and Demand 

A few days ago, I provided an analysis of the supply of top players for this draft compared to projected team needs (provided by NFL.com) or their demand.  The detail was adjusted given the players coming of the board with the remaining needs reanalyzed to determine what teams will feel pressure to address certain needs, given the rapidly increasing projected ADP of the remaining talent.  As of the beginning of the third round, here is how it looks:

• Fulfillment Rate represents the excess percentage of how many Top 160 players remain in the draft at each position compared to the individual team needs.  Example:
• Based on the data source, Kyle Lauletta and Kurt Benkert are the last two available QBs remaining in the Top 160.
• Based on the NFL projected needs, there are 7 teams who have a QB on their priority list. 
• The "Fulfillment Rate", that is, the excess of the need to the supply, for QBs is -250%.

On the flip side, there are 7 Top 160 RB available and 4 teams with "need", therefore a surplus resulting a Fulfillment Rate of 42.9% exists.  Teams in this position have a decent shot at getting a nice player.

• ADP Decline measures the erosion in Average Draft Position projected from Pre-draft sources to the end of Day 2.  
• Going back to QBs, the average projected ADP at the start of Day 1 was  36.8.  After the top players came off the board over the first couple of days, we see ADP of 102, a decline of 177%.
• Because there is no Fulfillment Rate for Centers as each team with need has claimed their snapper, there is no ADP decline.

What's it All About?

The Bottom Line is some teams are in a tough spot as the Fulfillment Rates for the positions they need and the ADP decline (combined to give us a "Success Rate" are falling faster than Facebook's new member sign ups. 

High Priority represents 1st (highest) and 2nd priority rankings for that team.

• The Giants had better be sure about Davis Webb.  They have set themselves up to rely on Webb or take a lottery ticket in later rounds for a QB.
• It's going to be interesting to see how quickly Linebackers fly off the board, given the Success Rate is third lowest and there are 6 teams looking to fill spots in their defenses' 2nd level.
• While there are needs at Safety, Receiver and Running Back, no team has primary or secondary needs, so the urgency to draft these positions is not great. 
• Defensive Linemen/Tackles have the lowest ADP decline so I would expect High Priority teams with jump on the few remaining top players early. 
• The only position left where the "Success Rate" is positive is Offensive Tackle, so I would expect that position to be snapped up early. 
• OAK, DET  and JAX each have two high priority positions remaining to be filed so don't be surprised if those teams are aggressive and trade up at some point. 

Enjoy Day 3!

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Click here for the People's Top 100 Prospect List created by football fans like you!

2nd Annual People's Aggregate NFL Draft Top 100

Power to the People!

After months of study and analysis, you, the people, have spoken through the ballot.  Your top 100 prospect ballots were updated and aggregated to provide the table below which represents the thoughts of the people, the fans who make football a year round sport. The pre-Combine Top 100 was previously posted, and now, the results of the Second Annual People's Aggregate Top 100 NFL Player board are presented below:

Fun Facts

• Position Breakdown:  Edge and WR - 13; CB 12; DL and OT - 10; RB 9; LB and QB - 7; S - 6; G and TE - 5; and C - 3.
• Highest Average Position Grades
1. Guards average grade was 66.11 (out of 100)
2. Quarterbacks 63.35
3. Cornerbacks at 49.98
• Position Grade Variance (the lower the variance the smaller the talent gap between players in the position group)
1. Wide Receiver - (5.51)
2. Offensive Tackle - (6.73)
3. "Edge" - (7.17).
• Biggest Risers (compared to the Pre-Combine results)
• Josh Sweat rose 44 spots to 55
• Justin Reid rose 42 spots to 34
• Mike Gesicki rose 30 spots to 45
• Biggest Dippers
• D.J. Moore dropped 41 to 91
• Orlando Brown dropped 38 to 54
• Tavrares MacFadden dropped 37 places to 81
• Newcomers to the List - Lorenzo Carter, Austin Corbett, Uchenna Nwosu, Rasheem Green, Anthony Averett, Da'Shawn Hand, Kyle Lauletta, Tre'Quan Smith and Ian Thomas.
• Players who didn't make it onto the final list include: Chad Thomas, Jaylen Samuels and Deontay Burnett.

More data analysis to come after the NFL Draft. 

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Supply and Demand of the NFL Draft

As we slide into the final days before the 2018 NFL Draft, there has been a lot of talking about strength of position classes.  Is the QB class the strongest in years?  Is this WR class a bit light?  While the subjectivity of each opinion cannot be denied, let's take an objective look to see where teams should be focusing in terms of addressing position needs from potentially thin talent pools.

Methodology

Team Needs  

First, we started with team needs pulled from NFL.com which provided the top 5 needs for each team.  These were analyzed to determine what positions were most in demand.  Some positions were combined for consistency purposes. 

Player Availability

Next, based on 5 readily available Big Boards, the aggregate top 160 players were devised and separated by position for total number of players available.  The average draft position for each group was assessed to give us guidance of the perception of the strength of the group as a whole. 

Based on each teams' Top 5 needs all positions have an ample number of prospects within the first 160 selections to supply the demand (that is, 32 teams times the top 5 position needs based on NFL.com) EXCEPT:

• Offensive Line:  The league projects to need 30 OL while there are 26 available prospects assuming our methodology.  The Fulfillment Rate (that is, the rate at which the draft will fulfill the league "need" at each position) is negative at -13.3%.
• Quarterback:  The league needs 12 where as our availability analysis projects only 8 within the 160 pick range.  The Fulfillment Rate is -33.3%.
• Tight End:  The league needs 12 but there are only 7 for consideration leading to the lowest Fulfillment Rate of -41.7%.

By contrast, positions with positive Fulfillment Rates (more Top 160 prospects than Team Needs at that position) include Safety (25%), Linebacker (27.3%) and Running Back (85.7%).  Teams prioritizing these positions should have a great chance of picking up a top prospect.

Team Needs and Average Draft Position

Now that the needs have been analyzed, how do we determine the talent at each position?  For this undertaking, we take the average of each players' projected position in the top 160 list and compare:

Some player positions like FB and ST were excluded from the above. 

As we go from left to right on the table above, the talent pool thins out.  Looking at the teams with the lowest Fulfillment Rates, Quarterback and Offensive Line needs are in luck since they have a fairly deep group from which to select with the two composing the top talent pools.  Those with Tight End needs have a thin group, based on the rankings used, with an average ranking of 97.76.

Based on NFL.com teams' needs ranked from 1 (most urgent) to 5 (least urgent), we aggregated the player needs priority and represented them from 10 (most urgent) to 1 (least urgent) and then compared them side by side with their "ADP":

Looking at the Cornerback position on the far left, they are the most in demand position  (evidenced by their Yellow "Need Rank"column maxed out at 10), yet their ADP is about a 4, indicating the talent, overall is not considered top notch according to the sources we used.  By contrast, Running Backs are not a huge priority position in general, but they perceived talent is pretty high.  One would think that some pretty solid RBs will slip a bit as teams address other needs through the first 160 picks. 

Looking at the negative Fulfillment positions we can assume there will be a lot of Offensive Linemen and Quarterbacks drafted early and often, but we may also see some Tight Ends going a lot earlier than some might suspect, given the need but lack of depth at the position.  

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Post Combine Ballot

The NFL draft is just around the corner!!  Be heard!  Get your ballot for the 2nd Annual DraftTwitter Top 100 aggregation TODAY!  Please reach out to have a ballot (which is on an Excel online based spreadsheet that is quick and easy to use) by leaving a comment or emailing me at boombearfootballmail@gmail to have a ballot link forwarded to you.