Draft analysis thread (AKA how bad are we really?)

[Attyla the Hawk]

DotNet Theory: Seattle has blown the last 5 drafts. You all know who we are.

My theory: Fans have a naturally restricted opinion of their favorite team's fortunes. We see the trees and not the forest. I've seen it written multiple times per week (and I've written it probably no less than a dozen times over the course of years) -- that Seattle 'got lucky' in it's first drafts and has not measured up to early success. Our current state of our team is linked closely with draft failure.

Method: I took some of our peer teams and put together a comparison of sorts. If we have blown these drafts, then we should be able to look at our peer teams and establish a baseline that they were collectively more successful than us. Obviously you can't suck if everyone else sucks too. The opinion that we draft bad is by it's nature a comparative argument.

So I took a look at some of the other playoff teams starting around the time we supposedly started sucking at drafting (2013). The maligned Michael/Hill draft. To start with, I included New England, Baltimore, Atlanta, Denver and Green Bay. Teams that most of us would consider as good drafting teams who sustained a large measure of team success over the same time period.

I ignored trades. For several reasons. One, most teams make trades. Many of those trades involve trading down. Many involve veteran players. Many are packaged with other picks to move up. It's virtually impossible to unravel or compare all those variables. I simply looked at picks. And tried to keep the comparisons between picks close in range. Obviously it's not inherently fair to compare an early 2nd round pick with a top 12 in round one pick. The idea here being that if we 'blew' a pick, then the generically available alternative that another team did pick should make for a legitimate comparison.

In addition, I ignored 'positional need'. Mainly because not all teams draft that way. But even for those that do, it's almost impossible for us as Seattle fans to be able to identify what other teams' needs were at the time. Or what kind of hedges they may have added either in UFA or later in the draft.

I also ignored injury/truncated career. I felt it impossible to realistically project what a player 'should have done'. Each team has instances of players whose career has been shortened (or ended).

Data:

I highlighted picks as Green = Seattle picked the better player. Orange = Seattle picked a worse player Some players didn't have a correlating pick between them. Additionally, I concede these comparisons are highly subjective. Opinion can vary widely. I would expect some difference of opinion.



Conclusion:

I was actually very much surprised. I expected a rather easy confirmation of our collective common sense opinion of our drafting. But quite literally the opposite appears true. Seattle's picks in similar range stacks up incredibly favorably versus each of these teams. The 2013 and 2016 drafts being much more hit and miss. The 2014, and 2017 drafts being highly favorable to Seattle. And the 2015 draft alone (Clark/Lockett) pretty easily arguable that either one of those players is better than the entire drafts of each of the peer teams.

Additionally, you do see a handful of seasons where these peer teams have an off year record wise. In several cases a horrendous year. That's a situation where you do often times see these peer teams loading up on core talent.

Something else that really stands out is that despite our occasional lack of late first round pick -- other teams that did pick in that range really didn't fare all that well, with a few notable exceptions. With a strong majority of those players being picked before we would have had a chance to select. Seems at least in this sample that there is a pretty huge drop at about pick 25 overall in most years.

For me personally, I see a lot of names taken by other teams that I liked for Seattle leading up to the draft. Players who have turned out to be misses for one reason or another. It lead me to the realization that as one who follows the draft -- we don't often, if ever, go back and get a retrospective look. Often times we leave the draft process somewhat envious that another team made off with a lot of guys we liked. And that impression that we got hot garbage and they made off with talent we pined for tends to linger or worse, become cemented in our opinions of how our team failed.

 

[Chapow]

Absolutely fantastic post. Best I've seen here in a long time.

 

[oldhawkfan]

That’s awesome. Just more evidence that the draft is a crapshoot and there are only so many that can actually play well at the professional level. How much can a good draft be attributed to a deeper draft pool? Or how much can a bad draft be attributed to a shallow pool?

 

[lobohawk]

Good deal. More confirmation that armchair GMs belong right where they are.

 

[AROS]

Brilliant stuff. Kuddos to you good sir.

 

[Seahawkfan80]

Great information. Usage of comparable teams makes this a Fantastic Piece of Work. You are awesome.

 

[jammerhawk]

Thanks for that post Attyla, easy to read and good stuff.

Perhaps things aren't as bad as some believe? Reality in point form head to head paints a much better picture.

 

[West TX Hawk]

Excellent analysis and write-up Attyla. Thank you for your research and effort. Admittedly, quite surprising data that indicates what a dartboard the draft can be.

 

[MontanaHawk05]

If you're looking for a reason to poo-poo bad drafts, a far better battleground for that argument would be depth. 2010-2012 supplied us with not just seven Pro Bowlers, but eight other starters (all but one of whom went on to start for other teams) and a couple other borderline guys that filled out our roster crucially.

That's what we largely lost afterwards. 2013 gave us...Luke Willson. 2014 gave us three starters (one of whom the Patriots traded for and dumped after not too long). 2015 gave us Clark and Lockett, which is awesome and could be two Pro Bowlers after this year, but nothing at all in the way of depth or other starters. NOBODY else from those drafts lasted more than 17 months on our roster or even ever left the bench, except for a couple. That's the sort of thing that leaves us relying on castoffs of other teams rather than our own talent. Cary Williams and Luke Joeckel are perfect examples of such ill-fated castoffs.

That's what makes me happy about the last two drafts. Chris Carson, Shaquill Griffin, Ethan Pocic, Nazair Jones, and David Moore are either undisputed starters or valid bit players that have worked their way onto the field. We've gotten three starters out of the 2018 draft already (albeit one was a punter and one got the CB2 position via injury) and everyone else has seen playing time. There really aren't more than a handful of guys we see on the faceplant track that claimed most of our 2013-2016 drafts, giving these last two drafts much more of a "2010-2012" vibe than any of the rest. That's likely to do more for our competitiveness than most people realize.

 

[iigakusei]

Amazing post - thanks for doing this.

 

[Sgt. Largent]

I think most of us that aren't happy with our last 3-4 years of drafting are this way because of two reasons;

1. Hit rate the last 3-4 drafts vs. Pete and John's hit rate first 3-4 drafts.

2. HORRIFIC O-line drafting.

Now maybe #1 is unrealistic, and maybe #2 is because Pete and John relied too heavily on Cable's input into who we drafted for the line.

Either/Neither fair? Idk, that's a different conversation. But I will stand by the fact that once you lay the expectation groundwork, as Pete and John did with drafting Pro Bowlers and potential HOF'ers for a solid 3-4 years, then followed that up with far less success means you're going to be held to a higher standard and judged more harshly for the drafts that weren't anywhere near as successful as the first 2-3.

 

[MontanaHawk05]

I think most of us that aren't happy with our last 3-4 years of drafting are this way because of two reasons;

1. Hit rate the last 3-4 drafts vs. Pete and John's hit rate first 3-4 drafts.

2. HORRIFIC O-line drafting.

Now maybe #1 is unrealistic, and maybe #2 is because Pete and John relied too heavily on Cable's input into who we drafted for the line.

Either/Neither fair? Idk, that's a different conversation.

Well, I'll take it up. It's unfair. 2010-2012 wasn't just a strong time. It was probably one of the most incredible three years of drafting in NFL history, especially once you factor in undrafted free agents. Eight Pro Bowlers in three seasons? Ridiculous.

 

[hawkfan68]

Great stuff Attyla! :2thumbs:

 

[Mad Dog]

Yes I don't think we realize how special the 2010-2012 drafts really were. We had a specific advantage as we were the only team running the 4-3 under, Cover 3 system with the single high safety. This allowed us to snag secondary and DL in the mold we needed that might have been the wrong size and speed for cover 2 and 3-4 defenses. We also got really lucky with Wilson. Getting a pro bowl QB talent in the 3rd round is rare.

I think 2013-15 sucked largely because we had no room for guys on the team. We were filled with young stars.

2016-18 Has looked good so far and this last draft will be special I think. Flowers, Dissly may be the steals of the draft if they continue to progress. Griffin will be a solid special teamer and may grow into a starting role. Dickson will be a pro bowler sooner than later. Penny likely will grow into a solid RB although the shine is coming off in these first few games.

So thanks for reviewing this. It goes with some of the other advanced analyses that show Seattle gets the most value out of its picks in the Carroll/Schneider era. Draft is a crap shoot. We are better than most teams and I'm convinced we are restocking as we speak.

 

[chris98251]

Much easier to pick new type long and lean guys, the Leo position guys, and smaller but faster Linebackers and a Linebacker Body at Safety when nobody else in the league was doing it.

Then copy cat happened, also all those guys came in close together so displacement of them was going to be rough, where we had the most turnover was O line and interior DT's.

What we were drafting many times for was possible depth and special team guys.

We failed at a Big WR several times

We failed at a all everything TE, maybe until this year at least.

We failed at a consistent Oline and success across that front, we got production from Sweezy, found a spot for Britt and of course drafted Okung but didn't keep him. But we could not build a cohesive line.

Now we have a half bare cupboard again and were seeing guys have success.

 

[hawksincebirth]

First I’ll start this by saying great post and it’s very well put together. I disagree with your conclusion though.
How can we not count trades when that’s been one of the biggest problems of our last few drafts, trading back and taking mcdowell. We traded back 3 times and got a dud .. passed on studs and ended up wit a dud. Nah we didn’t need Cam robinson, taco chartlon, Buddha baker, Kevin king.. imho that’s been one of the biggest reasons our drafting has been poor getting too cute, also idk if I’d consider the Ravens , or broncos to be good drafting teams at all.. imo how did you pick those teams. Other than that this took time and effort but I just had a few questions

 

[AgentDib]

Good post Attyla. One thing that's been posted before is that the 2013 draft in particular was a disaster for most teams, with an amazing amount of busts starting with pick #1.

Certainly the league rushing to copy us hurt us in 2013 onward, along with the difficulty of fitting young rookies onto a team stacked with pro bowlers in their prime. It sort of makes sense that we traded out as much as possible and tried to pick up other stars already in their prime with the Harvin and Graham gambles. Missing on those two just set us back quite a bit. Letting Flowers play this year is a decent silver lining and even Quem's rough first game was good for the coaching staff to see where he can contribute and where he needs more time.

I've posted about this too many times before but I think it's dangerous to aggregate our OLine picks in order to form a conclusion on them. Each individual player has had their own story and injury outcomes over that span made it very difficult to achieve any kind of continuity. From Okung becoming his own agent, to the nagging injuries to Unger and Carpenter, to the high cost of keeping our pro bowl defense together that meant letting many of our OL walk after we spent years developing them and they hit the FA market.

 

[Seahawkfan80]

Good post Attyla. One thing that's been posted before is that the 2013 draft in particular was a disaster for most teams, with an amazing amount of busts starting with pick #1.

Certainly the league rushing to copy us hurt us in 2013 onward, along with the difficulty of fitting young rookies onto a team stacked with pro bowlers in their prime. It sort of makes sense that we traded out as much as possible and tried to pick up other stars already in their prime with the Harvin and Graham gambles. Missing on those two just set us back quite a bit. Letting Flowers play this year is a decent silver lining and even Quem's rough first game was good for the coaching staff to see where he can contribute and where he needs more time.

I've posted about this too many times before but I think it's dangerous to aggregate our OLine picks in order to form a conclusion on them. Each individual player has had their own story and injury outcomes over that span made it very difficult to achieve any kind of continuity. From Okung becoming his own agent, to the nagging injuries to Unger and Carpenter, to the high cost of keeping our pro bowl defense together that meant letting many of our OL walk after we spent years developing them and they hit the FA market.

Good post too. Thanks.

We are still trying to back fill positions that are necessary for the condition....NEXT MAN UP.