Livin' on the Edge - What Round Produces the Best Value for Pass Rushers?

First Rounders or Nothing?

Recently on my favorite social media site, I read a comment advising a team to do what it would take to draft a first-round pass rusher since only those in the first 32 selections matter.  Bold indeed, but if you have read this column you know I do not like absolutes.  So, I wanted to see how pass rushers from other rounds stood up to those drafted in that sacred category of first rounders. 

Methodology

There were several steps to be performed before I was comfortable that the data presented was fair and showed an "apples to apples" comparison of info.

Data Source
I used complied the Defensive End/Outside Linebacker Data for the draft classes from 2014 to 2017 and ranked them based on the following categories for their entire careers:

• Games Played 
• Total Defensive Snaps Played 
• Tackles
• Sacks

The player rankings were averaged and the detail for the Top 20 in each draft class was broken out by Round. A table for the 2014 Draft is below:

1. Round includes all the players drafted in that round.
2. Quantity represents the number of players selected in each respective round who made it into the Top 20 (based on the rankings of the four categories above).
3. Average Rank of the Top 20 draftees of that round- in this example.
4. Snaps is the average number of snaps per year for the members of each round. 
5. Draft Pos: Represents the average draft position of the players in each round.
6. Rank - Using the Avg Rank column, each round is ranked with a grade starting at 100% for the best performing round (with the basis for other rounds based on the top score and the average of all rounds with selections).

What is the expected performance level of other rounds in relation to first-round selections?
Because market rates are the best indicators for value, the following table based on the  NFL Draft rookie salary schedule is the basis for our value assessment.

The table above compares the average of the top and bottom salary of rookies for each round of the 2019 draft.  
The row "% of 1st Round" assumes the value of a 2nd rounder as 27.8% that of a 1st rounder which is assigned a value of 100%. The line below, "First Round Superiority" shows a 1st rounder is 3.60x more valuable than a 2nd rounder, 5.83x more valuable than a 3rd rounder and so on. 

What is the actual performance for each round over the analysis period?

Let's look at the table for 2014:

• The top performing Round was the 3rd, as the average rank based on our criteria was 8.33 (please see the first table in this article, 2014 NFL Draft EDGE Data above)  which was the best measure for that draft class.  As such, it earned the top Avg Rank value of 100%.
• The 1st round draftees were a close second with an average rank of 99.3%.
• % Top 20 reflects how many of the Edge rushers drafted in that round made it into the top ten. 
• Of the 6 Edge rushers drafted in the 3rd round of the 2014 draft, 3 made it into the Top 20.
• Risk Value is the Avg Rank adjusted to reflect their % Top 20.  Sure, the third rounders earned the top score, but they have a 50/50 chance of making it to the top 20, whereas 85.7% of the 1st rounders for this draft made it to the top 20 based on my methodology.
• +/- Expected compares the Risk Value to the Expected Performance values in the second column; this reflects the value beyond the expected amount we would have selected in that round. 
• Zero would represent the Edge rushers performed as expected based on our benchmarks with no additional value. 
• In Round 3, the Risk Value is 50% but the Expected Performance is only 17.2% so the excess Expected Value in potentially selecting aTop 20 selecting player in the third round is 191.4%
• In the 2014 draft, there were no Edge rushers drafted in the 6th or 7th round and those fields are blank.

Expected Performance- What's the Bottom Line?

Based on the above, we learn the following:

• It's no surprise that first Round picks are consistently the best performers in terms of the metrics used for this analysis.
• Over the four year period reviewed there was only one first-round "miss"(that is, he didn't finish in the top 20 based on the metrics described above) and that was Marcus Smith, drafted by PHI (currently a free agent). 
• The worst performing round was the sixth which had an average rank of 23.2%. This group includes the 2016 group that underperformed to the point they contributed a negative ranking (caused by the large difference in the average aggregate player ranking for 6th rounders compared to the average for the 2014 draft).
• Second Round picks have been surprisingly poor based on our criteria over given the analysis period. 
• Through the third, fourth and even the fifth rounds, the Avg Rank was in the 80's, which is pretty solid.
• Despite the notion that there is no talent outside of the first round for pass rushers, from the results we see that is clearly not true. 
• From a value perspective, we see that overall, you can't go wrong going with a first-round pass rusher given you risk potentially losing only -3.7% from your expected performance however, based on the value of each later round being at least 3x less than the first round, there are exceptional opportunities in the later rounds with the fourth round showing the best historical value of 318.1% above the expected performance of 14%. Some of the standouts drafted in the fourth round include Trey Flowers, Za'Darius Smtih, Joe Schobert, Deatrich Wise, Samson Ebukam and Carl Lawson.
• The sixth round was the worst round with the expectation such players would provide 48.4%  LESS Expected Performance with players such as Al-Quuadin Muhamad, Anthony Chickillo and Kamu Grugier-Hill included in the analysis. 

A takeaway for me was it is critical to draft players who can help your football team. Every draft selection is not going to be a hall of fame caliber player but as long as you can find guys who can help your team, regardless of the round, a GM will keep his job.  

Feel free to leave questions or comments for me.  

Thanks!

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