The Value of a Draft Pick

Before you read this... I just want to warn you that I probably am really over thinking this, but this is the way it works out in my head...

I love reading and discussing draft strategy for the Browns prior to the NFL Draft.  It is interesting discovering the rationale why a fan thinks a particular pick will be the difference maker that catapults a team to success.  Of course, I have my own rationale.

Some fans have preached the benefits of Best Player Available (BPA) or ranking every prospect and selecting the prospect ranked the highest during each pick.  This strategy is sound to assist teams not to overdraft prospects before their projected value but might not be ideal to surgically construct the best team.  On these rankings, I like when a consistent rank can be given to a prospect that can be compared over different draft years - not the sliding values based on one single year.  It is nice to consider how Andrew Luck would compare with Peyton Manning in the snapshot before their careers begin as prospects prior to the draft when determining values of what these players could mean to a team.

Drafting by Need (DBN) is another approach where teams identify their most pressing needs and rank those positions - making selections by those needs regardless of the value of the prospect to that selection.  This targets critical positions to your team but encourages reaching or overdrafting prospects because they might fit a need.

I favor weighing several factors: BPA Prospect Rankings and Team Needs plus a weighted factor that considers Position Value, Position Supply, and Position Demand (there are a few others to consider, but I am trying to make this readable).  I touched on BPA rankings and Team Needs in the previous paragraphs but want to explain the other factors.

Position Value is the importance of a specific position to the offense, defense, or special teams.  What position would most teams rank higher, a defensive end or a fullback?  Last year before the draft, Tom Heckert explained that QB, RT, DE, and CB were the most valuable positions on the football team.  This could allow teams to justify the reason why Ryan Tannehill is rumored for consideration as a top five pick when some teams have him ranked as a second round prospect.

Position Supply refers to the number of prospects at a position that could fill a team’s need that are available on the open market.  The open market should be considered the pool of incoming draft picks, the free agents available, and potential contracted players that are available for a trade (basically... how easy is it to replace a player at a specific position).  A low number of good free safety candidates should increase the value of the top free safety candidate because of scarcity at that position - basic supply and demand rules apply.  A non-sports example is a flawless diamond which has a higher value due to rare nature of the supply compared to cubic zirconium (zircon).

Position Demand refers to the number of teams interested in filling the same need which will impact the value of that position.  An example: the success of teams using their tight ends has spiked the increased demand for linebackers or safeties that are flexible to either pass coverage or run support.  The more teams looking to find linebackers or safeties to neutralize the amazing tight ends in their division, the sooner these prospects will be drafted.

Most teams unconsciously do this mental arithmetic of weighing these values but I propose teams could use an algorithm to rank prospects based on these factors as a way to prioritize prospects.  To consider this, one would have to begin with a scouting value on every draft pick as a baseline to work from.  An example is ESPN’s draft grade or I use a combination of three sources: Walter Football, National Football Post, and CBS Sports which all project draft position for almost every prospect.

Once the base value for each prospect is considered, the three factors related to position should be identified.  I tried to keep this simple and use 1 for the highest value and .50 as the absolute lowest value for Position Value, Position Supply, and Position Demand.  This is what I came up with:

Just to help readers understand what these numbers mean, Team Need I have OT, WR, RB listed as "1" meaning these are highest needs and TE and C are the lowest.  For Position Supply, I have Franchise QB as the most scarce position (ranking .95) and CB and DT ranked as the least scarce (.65) due to the high number of quality players in the draft at these postions.  Position Demand is difficult to gauge, but I assigned values for what I think is the most in need across the NFL.

Understand this is a simplified version of these weighted factors but one could get more specific by adjusting the value based on a more specific definition of each prospect (like adding more value to left tackle vs. right tackle).  Also understand that my scouting budget at this small-time operation is pretty meager, so I am applying my educated guess to some of these values.

So these are the adjusted values based on considering all these factors:

This is a complete stab at trying to prioritize prospects by those factors.  With unlimited time, resources, and the will to complete such a task, I think this would be a very valuable way to focus on specific draft prospects.  Also, the position supply is divided by the position adjustment to come up with the adjusted value to Cleveland.

This idea was born from thinking about how to justify why I did not want to draft Trent Richardson with the fourth pick in the draft.  I love Richardson as a prospect, but think the RB position is just not a top first round priority and this does a pretty good job of showing how a position can have varying importance to a team.  The only way I could talk myself into Richardson that early was to rationalize that he could be an elite weapon catching passes out of the backfield which should bump the RB grade up because he was multi-dimensional.

I hope this windy explanation explains the way I value a draft pick.