Football Fragments: Draft Musings
Posted by thehuddlereport.com on March 15, 2008
By Fred Jones
Mid-March and Draft anticipation builds. Free agent re-alignment is settling down after an initial purchasing fervor. Mock drafts are sprouting up like Spring weeds. And pro days are underway for those prospects who have been mis-guided by mis-guided agents.
During this relative lull in public football activity, I have an opportunity to make some observations about the Draft. The first idea that leaped into my mind is “When is a mock draft not a mock draft?” From my viewpoint, a mock draft begins with a determination of needs by each team at each position. Combine this with the rankings of the prospects eligible for the draft and match the need with the optimal prospect, after considering the impact of free agent acquisitions. How one evaluates need and fulfills the need to make the team better is the essence of a mock draft. Everyone who publishes a mock draft considers team needs in a priority scheme and considers the available personnel options while attempting to determine what the teams selecting before you will do.
Reporters and sportscasters who gain inside information on who a team heavily considers selecting on the day before the Draft and publish their considered insights as to which teams will take which prospects are not publishing a mock draft. They are reporting what they have found out by gaining inside information. Mock drafts are fun because anyone who can think logically and gathers information from public sources about teams and their construct can develop a mock draft. The discussion that ensues about why one believes who your favorite team will take is the fun of mock drafts. Mock drafts change over time because considerations change in the period leading up to the Draft.
Another aspect of the Draft that I’ve been musing on is the worth of prospects selected in the top ten. THR subscribers have read the series of interviews I did with Draft Statistics. In those interviews, we revealed that the value received for the payment made for prospects in the top ten is poor. Why then, do teams continue to throw money at the top ten prospects when the return on their investment is greater with prospects selected later? Is it the hope that this one prospect will be enough to fill all the stadium seats and lead to a Super Bowl appearance? Guaranteed payment for unguaranteed future services is not a financially sound practice.
So does trading up into the top ten make sense? I say it never makes sense. Is one prospect worth two or three prospects? Unless you can get an iron-clad guarantee that the top ten prospect you select will get you to the Super Bowl, it’s a losing proposition. When Mike Ditka traded all of the Saints draft choices in the 1999 Draft plus the first and third choices in the 2000 Draft for the “opportunity” to select running back Ricky Williams, it was the nadir in draft day trades and demonstrated the foolishness of trading up for a sure thing.
And my final thought should stir some discussion: There should be a free agent draft. If the NFL believes that drafting in order of wins and losses to ensure equitable opportunity for all teams to have a chance at the Super Bowl, free agent movement should be managed just like the collegiate draft. Is there any rationale that says the two groups should be handled differently? Just because a player has NFL experience should not be the argument to preclude a free agent draft. But, you say, the free agent has earned the right to negotiate with any team for his services. If that’s your argument, why does it not extend to collegiate players? Collegiate players and free agents are not under contract to any team. Then why allocate players under different schemes if equitable distribution of talent is the objective of the NFL?
March 21, 2008 at 9:02 pm
First, I am not persuaded that equitable distribution of talent is the only objective of the draft. It is more like orderly distribution of which equity is but one component. So the srguement for a free agent draft does not necessarily follow. But, beyond that, the pool from which you are drafting bears little resembalance. College players are not past professional nor are they really individual free agents capable of negotiating with teams. They are a prospective class of players trained by a “minor league” university system which may have a lot to say about just when and how you may court its athletes. Compared to baseball, which spends millions grooming players, the NFL has only the short lived NFL Europe as an expense and that no more. Why offend the colleges by not controlling the initial allotment in an orderly fashion and containing the damage to the host system?
No such rational exists for free agents. If the initial allocation is fair, the only way to maintain this equity would be to let the teams own their player indefinitely. That was once the case. Free agency resulted from both fear of antitrust actions and labor retaliation. Equity was never the motivation, freedom was. Competition not competitive balance.
In the college draft, the teams are taking a collective handoff from the NCAA. The common draft then distributes the players. (equity is but a feature.) The NCAA will not tolerate individual free agent acting on their own deadlines or agents talking to kids. With free agents, the NCAA is long gone and the teams right are limited. There is no distribution because there is no common ownership or control. It is simply a legal impossibility for the league to pool these players or mandate their assigments. This would require an antitrust exemption Congress would never approve, and the players would never come of strike. I don’t know if this rains on your parade, but there never can or will be a free agent draft. And you’ll have to explain better what the advantages might be before I concede even that we should.
Considering the merit of your original idea, that the top picks in the draft are overpaid to the point it may never be a good deal to trade up into it, your final afterthought about a free agent draft is a bit screwy. Stick to the first idea. Its a lot more interesting and practical.
March 21, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Hi Fred,
Excellent summary of the factors that should be included in any mock draft. Regarding mockers (mockists?) who get inside information, I agree they don’t use the same procedure you do, but if they know whom a team intends to pick when, don’t you want to know? And isn’t it still a mock, because what a team intends to do might be upset by a draft-day trade or an unexpected earlier pick?
Your final paragraph, that there should be a separate draft for veteran free agents, is very creative. However, somebody would have to euthanize Gene Upshaw. The veteran FAs would never approve it either, because most of them naturally want to have some say in their own future. The term “free” in “free agent” would become meaningless. Many yearn to be on a team that might win the SB, and this helps not only the top teams, but improving teams.
Also, rather than having a separate draft for veteran FAs, why not have a universal draft including all the veteran FAs including applicants from Canadian or Arena, and all collegiates, including those who would not be taken in a seven-round college draft, but are presently signed soon after the draft? In a universal draft, teams would need 18 or 20 rounds. And the top two rounds would be a lot more interesting for fans! A handful or so of the better veteran FAs would displace collegians now ranked in the top 10 or 20, and push choice collegians further down the board. Mock drafts would have to include the veterans!
If the pay for veterans were slotted as if they are collegians, few veterans would risk being drafted lower than the first round. Not many veterans would go for the veteran minimum wage. This is another hindrance for advocates of drafting veteran FAs. Free agent has to mean having a degree of freedom of choice. So I don’t know of any kind of draft that gives a degree of freedom, other than the freedom to hold out. Nobody benefits from holdouts.