Seahawks drafting technique

[TriCitySam]

As always, I'm very excited about the picks and looking forward to how they work out. They always make picks that go against conventional wisdom, which made be wonder: how good are they at it?

I read a while back that historically, 50% of draftees wind up starting in 50% of the games they play in. An interest stat if true. When I looked at their drafts from 2010 to 2017, they were at 39%. That's a little low, and the real performance was in '10, '11 and '12 - where they were at 57% and drafted 7 pro bowlers. In the remaining 5 years, they are at 29% and drafted 1 pro bowl player.

Makes me wonder, why so good early, and so poor later? Was it because Pete was just out of the college ranks and had a better feel for the prospects? Scot McClouhan was there from '10 to early '14 - was that part of it? Or is it just plane luck and will cycle even eventually? Is it possible their 1st 3 drafts made them think their smarter than everybody else (maybe they are) and so they'll focus there?

Certainly JS is a master at the trade game. I obviously don't know the talent answer, and am not qualified to say, just to wonder. It just seems .....

[idhawkman]

The answer could be what you posted or it could be that there were fewer slots open for draftees to compete for. As you said, there were 7 pro bowlers on the team that the earlier draftees didn't have to contend with. Also, remember, many of our draftees have gone on to other teams and start but couldn't get that same kind of time on our team. E.g. who would start over Bwags, KJ, ET, Kam, etc. We still drafted for those positions for depth but beating out one of those guys was nearly impossible.

[RiverDog]

As always, I'm very excited about the picks and looking forward to how they work out. They always make picks that go against conventional wisdom, which made be wonder: how good are they at it?

I read a while back that historically, 50% of draftees wind up starting in 50% of the games they play in. An interest stat if true. When I looked at their drafts from 2010 to 2017, they were at 39%. That's a little low, and the real performance was in '10, '11 and '12 - where they were at 57% and drafted 7 pro bowlers. In the remaining 5 years, they are at 29% and drafted 1 pro bowl player.

Makes me wonder, why so good early, and so poor later? Was it because Pete was just out of the college ranks and had a better feel for the prospects? Scot McClouhan was there from '10 to early '14 - was that part of it? Or is it just plane luck and will cycle even eventually? Is it possible their 1st 3 drafts made them think their smarter than everybody else (maybe they are) and so they'll focus there?

Certainly JS is a master at the trade game. I obviously don't know the talent answer, and am not qualified to say, just to wonder. It just seems .....

Hey, Sam! Glad to see you sticking your head in here.

Part of the answer has to be the drafting position we were in and the trades we made of our top picks in the later years. In 2010, we were in the 4th slot plus we had a gift from the previous regime, #14 overall, that we used to select Earl.

In 2011, we were in the #25 slot and in 2012 we were at the 15th spot. In 2013, we were in the #25 slot and traded our #1 pick to Minnesota, in 2014 we were in the #32 slot and traded our #1 to Minnesota, and in 2014 we were in the #31 slot.

Bottom line is that with sustained success after the 2013 season, we were drafting from lower positions and started the habit of trading our top draft picks for either players or lower selections. Those two factors obviously influenced the percentages you quoted.

[TriCitySam]

Those are all good thoughts. The calculation I did included those that wound up with other teams as well, so while I understand the starters we had kept some out, many of those did not catch on with other teams - and if they were quality guys, they may well have. Although the Hawks style of drafting players that have a unique talent that fits "our style" is likely an impact. They didn't have 1st rounders in '13, '14 or '15.

However, I'm not sure the 50% thing is true or meaningful. I went back and looked at the Holmgren's draft record - 34% hit the target. Slightly lower than JS - although what did stick out in that group was the number of players that had long NFL careers, but rarely started (Donnie Jones, Heath Evans, Dennis Norman, Maurice Morris, Craig Terrill, Darrell Tapp, Forsett, etc).

[RiverDog]

Those are all good thoughts. The calculation I did included those that wound up with other teams as well, so while I understand the starters we had kept some out, many of those did not catch on with other teams - and if they were quality guys, they may well have. Although the Hawks style of drafting players that have a unique talent that fits "our style" is likely an impact. They didn't have 1st rounders in '13, '14 or '15.

However, I'm not sure the 50% thing is true or meaningful. I went back and looked at the Holmgren's draft record - 34% hit the target. Slightly lower than JS - although what did stick out in that group was the number of players that had long NFL careers, but rarely started (Donnie Jones, Heath Evans, Dennis Norman, Maurice Morris, Craig Terrill, Darrell Tapp, Forsett, etc).

I'm not sure how much of a difference it might make in your calculations, but there's a difference in the way rookie contracts are handled in the current CBA that took effect in 2012. With the financial limitations on rookies making them cheaper, teams seem to be inclined to sign the more economical rookies rather than spend money on an expensive veteran. For example, Dez Bryant was unable to hook onto a team last year until mid season, and one reason might have been that teams had WR's under rookie contracts that would be cheaper than someone like Bryant.

With rookies being more desirable to employ in the current CBA than in the one Holmgren's teams operated under, it might not be a completely fair comparison. Just a thought.

[NorthHawk]

There are 7 rounds in the draft so usually only 1/7 would be affected by draft position.
Most drafts (good or bad) are determined by the middle rounds and that's how we built
our championship teams. We didn't do that in the worst drafting years.

JS said a while ago that they (my words) drifted away from their core philosophy for a few
years.

They weren't drafting bullies and they wanted to be that. This year, we see it return
to some degree with selecting Collier, Blair, Haynes, Metcalf, Homer, and Christmas.
These guys are all physical players with nasty streaks. I'm hoping we will get
back to the day when teams were so beat up after playing us that they lose the next week, too.

[idhawkman]

I'm not sure how much of a difference it might make in your calculations, but there's a difference in the way rookie contracts are handled in the current CBA that took effect in 2012. With the financial limitations on rookies making them cheaper, teams seem to be inclined to sign the more economical rookies rather than spend money on an expensive veteran. For example, Dez Bryant was unable to hook onto a team last year until mid season, and one reason might have been that teams had WR's under rookie contracts that would be cheaper than someone like Bryant.

With rookies being more desirable to employ in the current CBA than in the one Holmgren's teams operated under, it might not be a completely fair comparison. Just a thought.

The rooks become even more valuable when you have a few franchise players that take up a huge part of your cap, too. That's not just our team, that's every team. E.g. a veteran that couldn't get on the starting roster here but is good enough to start on other rosters may miss out because other teams have cheaper rookies that aren't as good maybe but their cap hit allows them to keep a Manning or Rodgers, etc.

[NorthHawk]

It becomes a necessity to suppress wages within a team in the Cap era when paying core players.
That's a downside from a fan perspective, but it helps the league as a whole when good but not
great players move to other teams and help them improve.