"Just draft the best player available."
It's sage draft advice, it's so logical, it's how a team ensures they build the most talented roster they can.
But it's also a little more complicated that it sounds.
Let's dive into why.
Imagine you're an NFL GM and you have to rank all the players in the draft.
You start off by grading them on a 10 point scale. Let's say you end up with something like 5 players rated as a 10 - this is your top tier or premium blue chip players. After that, you end up with 20 players rated as a 9, and 30 players with a grade of 8. These are all very good players, they're just very similar in terms of talent.
Now, what if your pick comes up and you have six guys rated as a 9?
You want to take the best player available... so which one is the "best"?
Well, that may be hard to do on a ten point scale, so let's say you pull your ratings out to include a decimal point. You go even deeper into rating them and the six players left end up with scores like this:
- 9.8
- 9.8
- 9.6
- 9.2
- 9.1
- 9.1
Well, that's a little better. Now you can see that a couple guys really stand out in this group and a few fall to the bottom.
Unfortunately, you have two players at 9.8 and you can only pick one of them.
What do you do? Is it time to carry out the rating to another decimal point?
What if they both come out at 9.85?
Decisions, decisions.
Maybe carry out the ratings to yet another decimal point?
One is a 9.854 and the other is merely a 9.852.
Eureka! You've found the best player available!
Ok, that was highly academic and just seems silly to split hairs to that degree, right?
Let's take a more practical approach. Rank the following receivers: DeAndre Hopkins, Julio Jones, Steffon Diggs, Justin Jefferson, OBJ, Tyreek Hill.
It's not very easy, is it?
Some are better out of the slot than others. Some are better at deep route than others. Would you rather have a faster receiver or a receiver with better hands?
You probably have your favorite one or two on the top of your list, but at some point, you just say "close enough."
It's the same way in draft evaluation. You rank all the players, but some are too close to call. Add in the fact that player evaluation is a notoriously difficult exercise (as evidenced by how many 1st round picks end up as total flops every year) and you realize that making the final decisions based on a couple thousandths of a rating point doesn't make a lot of sense.
So what do teams do if they want the best player available?
First, they embrace the idea that their ratings aren't perfect and they go for close enough. They realize that with thousands of available players in the college ranks, you will quickly hit the point of diminishing returns if you try to rank them to a pinpoint rating.
Instead, they rank them in tiers.
But instead of rating them into artificial tiers, like on a 10 point scale, they flip it. Sure, they start with rough numberical rankings, but after that, they draw new lines.
Let's say the top of the board has players with the following rankings:
- 9.8
- 9.8
- 9.7
- 9.1
- 8.9
- 8.8
Putting those guys into a 9-point group and an 8-point group wouldn't make nearly as much sense as drawing a line between 9.1 and 9.7 and having a first tier with guys between 9.7 and 9.8 and having a second tier for guys between 8.8 and 9.1,
Once the tiers are set, things get really exciting.
As teams wait for their pick to come up (and for a team like the Packers, it's usually a longer wait since they win so much), they are crossing players off their list.
If the pick comes up and a team has a lot of guys from the top remaining tier, they may be more likely to trade down. If you can get one of your top guys and pick up another selection, that's good value.
I believe this is what happened to the Packers in 2017, especially based on Ted Thompson's comments at the time.
They needed help on defense and guys like TJ Watt, Reuben Foster, Kevin King, and Budda Baker were all still on the board. The Browns wanted to trade up for a tight end. The Packers could pick up a free pick for sliding down a few spots and still get someone from their highest remaining tier.
(Note: It's very possible that if the Packers couldn't trade down, they still may have taken Kevin King, so don't blame the process)
You know what's better than getting a guy you want in the draft? Getting a guy you want in the draft and gaining an extra pick in the process!
This is value trading at it's finest: get a player of similar value while picking up an extra pick for later.
On the flip side, if a team is watching players get picked and there is only one guy left on their highest-remaining tier, they may be tempted to move up and grab him.
Brian Gutekunst (who may or may not be good at drafting) seems to do this every year.
Jaire Alexander, Darnell Savage, and Jordan Love are all guys he traded up to get. In each case, I believe he saw one player that clearly stood out from the remaining group and made the decision to give up a pick or two later to secure the guy he thought was clearly better than anyone else who would probably be available if they'd waited.
In short, these guys were probably all the last remaining player on the tier for the Packers and they felt that getting the last guy on the tier was worth more than having an extra pick or two later in the draft.
So what do they do if there are multiple players left on their talent tier and the scouting report puts them all at a similar level and they can't find a partner to trade back with?
Well, what if the Packers pick came up this year at #29 and they had three players with a similar rating: a quarterback, a running back, and a cornerback?
Well let's look at the key factors in this situation:
- The Packers have the reigning MVP at quarterback and drafted the heir apparent last yea
- They re-signed their starting running back and drafted a complementary back in the 2nd round last year
- Their current starting cornerback is on a one year deal and is the obvious scapegoat for missing out on a Super Bowl trip last year
In this scenario, the Packers need a cornerback the most, so they will probably take the cornerback.
But isn't that drafting for need?
Not really.
Drafting for need would be taking the highest-rated player at the position you need most, regardless of how they tiers play out.
This is drafting the best player available while using need as a tie-breaker.
Without using tiers, teams would need to rate prospects to the thousandth decimal point and then take a player at a position so deep that they would be sitting the bench instead of taking a player that could step into a starting role - all because the rating came in 0.002 points higher.
GMs know they can't accurately predict how good a player will be to that degree (and Twitter reminds them hourly).
So they use tiers to get them close enough, move around to find value, and in the end, use position need as a tie breaker.
Now, this also explains why the Packers never seem to draft inside linebackers very highly - they rank the position pretty low in terms of relative value, so inside linebacker almost always loses the tie breaker in early rounds.
There's a lot that goes into the draft, and even a seemingly simply concept like "best player available" is a little more complicated than just ranking players 1 to 400 and taking the next one on the list.
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April 27, 2021 at 07:01AM
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What Drafting The Best Player Available Really Means - Cheesehead TV
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