El Minion
04-06-2007, 04:46 PM
Interesting read on teams draft tendencies. To big to post, so here is the intro and snippets of what was said about Denver. From FO (http://www.footballoutsiders.com/2007/04/04/ramblings/nfl-draft/5047/):
Five Years of Draft Picks
4/4/2007
Guest Column by Mike Horn
Now that free agency has drifted into the second phase (also known as “Daniel Snyder has run out of cap room”), the draft is the next big event on the NFL calendar. I needed a football fix not generated by a Peter King column. I’m not a draftaholic, but I started wondering what positions get drafted most frequently by which teams. Regular readers of Football Outsiders know about the Patriots and tight ends, but what other patterns exist?
To look for those patterns, I compiled five years of data from the extraordinarily useful drafthistory.com. (Why five years? So we don’t have to adjust for the non-existent Houston Texans.) What follows is more reference material than analysis, although there are some comments. I don’t think this data can necessarily help you predict this draft — and you probably know more about your favorite team than I do. But when your local blowhard says (or writes in his blog), “Team X always takes a defensive back in the draft”, you have some charts to refer rather than digging around at drafthistory.com for half an hour on the company’s time. And maybe you can point out to your new best friend that Team X has drafted fewer defensive backs than any team except the Cardinals over the last five years.
cont. (http://www.footballoutsiders.com/2007/04/04/ramblings/nfl-draft/5047/)
I also noticed that two teams that I think of as having strong linebacking corps, Pittsburgh and Denver, each only drafted two LBs. .... The Broncos had used a #1 on D.J. Williams in 2004, and need fewer LBs in their 4-3 alignment than the Steelers’ 3-4 requires, so their low number of LBs drafted is a little less remarkable.
Meanwhile, the Broncos spent six picks accumulating running backs to plug into their vaunted star-RB assembly line, and that’s without drafting any RBs 2006. Of course, last year they signed undrafted rookie free agent Mike Bell instead of using a pick on him. Neither Denver nor Tennessee, the other team drafting six RBs from 2002-2006, drafted one in the first round.
Five Years of Draft Picks
4/4/2007
Guest Column by Mike Horn
Now that free agency has drifted into the second phase (also known as “Daniel Snyder has run out of cap room”), the draft is the next big event on the NFL calendar. I needed a football fix not generated by a Peter King column. I’m not a draftaholic, but I started wondering what positions get drafted most frequently by which teams. Regular readers of Football Outsiders know about the Patriots and tight ends, but what other patterns exist?
To look for those patterns, I compiled five years of data from the extraordinarily useful drafthistory.com. (Why five years? So we don’t have to adjust for the non-existent Houston Texans.) What follows is more reference material than analysis, although there are some comments. I don’t think this data can necessarily help you predict this draft — and you probably know more about your favorite team than I do. But when your local blowhard says (or writes in his blog), “Team X always takes a defensive back in the draft”, you have some charts to refer rather than digging around at drafthistory.com for half an hour on the company’s time. And maybe you can point out to your new best friend that Team X has drafted fewer defensive backs than any team except the Cardinals over the last five years.
cont. (http://www.footballoutsiders.com/2007/04/04/ramblings/nfl-draft/5047/)
I also noticed that two teams that I think of as having strong linebacking corps, Pittsburgh and Denver, each only drafted two LBs. .... The Broncos had used a #1 on D.J. Williams in 2004, and need fewer LBs in their 4-3 alignment than the Steelers’ 3-4 requires, so their low number of LBs drafted is a little less remarkable.
Meanwhile, the Broncos spent six picks accumulating running backs to plug into their vaunted star-RB assembly line, and that’s without drafting any RBs 2006. Of course, last year they signed undrafted rookie free agent Mike Bell instead of using a pick on him. Neither Denver nor Tennessee, the other team drafting six RBs from 2002-2006, drafted one in the first round.