Trading Down and Missing Out on Pro Bowl Players

[LTH]

So I've been giving this subject some thought and came to the conclusion that I should look at the last five years of Seahawk's drafts to understand which 1st or 2nd round Pro Bowl players we may have missed out on by trading down, and calculating the likelihood of missing out on a Pro Bowl-level players compared to the number of spots we ultimately traded down to.

Thirteen spots: In 2014, we traded down twice from #32 to #45, where we drafted Paul Richardson. The downward trades gained us a 4th round pick (#108), a second 4th round pick (#111) and a 7th round pick (#227) but we also gave up a 5th round pick (#146) to make the trades. To date, there have been four Pro Bowl players selected in 2014 between #32 and #45 (Teddy Bridgewater, DeMarcus Lawrence, Joel Bitonio and Derek Carr). Generally speaking, that equates to a 31% likelihood (4/13) of missing out on a Pro Bowl level player.

In 2015, we traded away our 1st round pick (#31) to NO in the Jimmy Graham trade.

Five Spots: In 2016, we traded down from pick #26 to pick #31, where we drafted Germaine Ifedi. The trade down gained us a 3rd round pick from Denver (#94 overall). To date, there has been only one Pro Bowl player (Kenny Clark) selected in 2016 between #26 and #31. That equates to a 20% likelihood (1/5).

Nine Spots: In 2017, we traded down multiple times from pick #26 to pick #35, where we drafted Malik McDowell. The multiple trades gained us a 3rd round pick (#95) and a 7th round pick (#249), a 4th round pick (#111), and a 6th round pick (#187). To date, there have been two Pro Bowl players (Tre’Davious White and T.J. Watt) selected in 2017 between #26 and #35. That equates to a 22.2% likelihood (2/9).

Nine Spots: In 2018, we traded down nine spots again from pick #18 to pick #27, where we drafted Rashad Penny. The trade gained us a 3rd round (#76) and a 6th round (#186) pick but we also gave up a 7th round pick in the trade (#248). To date, there has been only one Pro Bowl player (Leighton Vander Esch) selected in 2018 between #18 and #27, equating to an 11% likelihood (1/9).

After looking at the players and the numbers I am of the opinion that trading down in the early rounds is well worth the draft capital gained. I'm interested in hearing your opinion.

Nice post man!!

LTH

 

[JayhawkMike]

I am far less concerned with pro bowlers as I am with solid starters with a first pick. Collier? no a healthy scratch. Penny? He stunk most of the time but the Penny lovers will cherry pick one or two games. Was not starting. McDowell? He was a KNOWN headcase before the draft but "Magic" Pete can turn turds into all-pros so lets get him. Ifedi? The only starter in the bunch and the team might have been better off just waiving that pick.

Everyone is going to have their own opinions of the draft. I would like to use an objective standard to evaluate it. That would be by averaging the opinions of draft experts and seeing what average grade our pick received versus draft position. Otherwise there is 20/20 hindsight/"The coach didn't use them like they should"/excuse/excuse/excuse for picking turds like JS has for far far far too long.

 

[Attyla the Hawk]

Couple things:

1. Seattle seems to fall in love with guys. And they trade down to get him at a lesser reach point. I would have every expectation that if they found themselves unable to trade down (e.g. James Carpenter), they simply will take the guy they love and still let pro bowl players pass on by.

2. Seattle drafts for need early. That philosophy guarantees that pro bowl caliber prospects at positions of relative strength are going to be passed over. And in every draft, Seattle has allowed top caliber talents pass even at positions where immenent need developed in as little as two seasons down the road.

They aren't alone in this. Lots/most teams operate the same way. Part of it is trying to build on the roster you have. Not a bad principle. But equally important, is that there is considerable uncertainty about prospects as a whole. There is a degree of luck and fit and ability to develop that all plays crucial roles here. Many good/pro bowl talents that we pass over likely aren't close to that if drafted here. Just as many thrive here, that struggle to thrive elsewhere when they leave.

e.g. I loved Bitonio coming out. But does anyone think he'd be what he is if he were drafted here -- developing under Cable or incurring the general stink of this OL unit on his resume?

 

[Ozzy]

So I've been giving this subject some thought and came to the conclusion that I should look at the last five years of Seahawk's drafts to understand which 1st or 2nd round Pro Bowl players we may have missed out on by trading down, and calculating the likelihood of missing out on a Pro Bowl-level players compared to the number of spots we ultimately traded down to.

Thirteen spots: In 2014, we traded down twice from #32 to #45, where we drafted Paul Richardson. The downward trades gained us a 4th round pick (#108), a second 4th round pick (#111) and a 7th round pick (#227) but we also gave up a 5th round pick (#146) to make the trades. To date, there have been four Pro Bowl players selected in 2014 between #32 and #45 (Teddy Bridgewater, DeMarcus Lawrence, Joel Bitonio and Derek Carr). Generally speaking, that equates to a 31% likelihood (4/13) of missing out on a Pro Bowl level player.

In 2015, we traded away our 1st round pick (#31) to NO in the Jimmy Graham trade.

Five Spots: In 2016, we traded down from pick #26 to pick #31, where we drafted Germaine Ifedi. The trade down gained us a 3rd round pick from Denver (#94 overall). To date, there has been only one Pro Bowl player (Kenny Clark) selected in 2016 between #26 and #31. That equates to a 20% likelihood (1/5).

Nine Spots: In 2017, we traded down multiple times from pick #26 to pick #35, where we drafted Malik McDowell. The multiple trades gained us a 3rd round pick (#95) and a 7th round pick (#249), a 4th round pick (#111), and a 6th round pick (#187). To date, there have been two Pro Bowl players (Tre’Davious White and T.J. Watt) selected in 2017 between #26 and #35. That equates to a 22.2% likelihood (2/9).

Nine Spots: In 2018, we traded down nine spots again from pick #18 to pick #27, where we drafted Rashad Penny. The trade gained us a 3rd round (#76) and a 6th round (#186) pick but we also gave up a 7th round pick in the trade (#248). To date, there has been only one Pro Bowl player (Leighton Vander Esch) selected in 2018 between #18 and #27, equating to an 11% likelihood (1/9).

After looking at the players and the numbers I am of the opinion that trading down in the early rounds is well worth the draft capital gained. I'm interested in hearing your opinion.

I was banging the table for Bitonio and Watt but it's also worked out well. I think where you get in trouble is when you're married to it or anything for that matter. Some teams never trade down and that's bad too. I wonder if we've been a little too married to it at times?

 

[Sgt. Largent]

Not that you're research is wrong, but I imagine you can literally play this game with every team in the league.

 

[jammerhawk]

Well said Sgt.!!!

As I said earlier looking back at the players drafted and the trading back it is easy to identify players of quality missed or passed over b/c of the trade backs. Reality is, accurate assessment of these guys to be drafted is not an easy exercise, and the team usually is drafting late in the first round where the the players likely certain to be quality additions to their respective team careless certain. In every draft there are usually only 10- 15 players who genuinely deserve to be 1st rd. picks, after that there reasons why the respective player isn't ranked higher, and many have similar value which depending upon the draft can be all the way down to the mid- second rd. Often trading back makes a good deal of sense.To me the team is better at identifying certain positions than others, Pete has some positional blinkers on at times for sure, but is better identifying defensive players than many.

Were these all trade back situations where the FO completely whiffed on their 1st picks, were they players at positions of then need or needs, or were they calculated moves to gain draft picks to fill the roster or take more players of deemed similar value? To me only the McDowell pick was a whiff, a swing for the fences whiff and nothing less. It was a high risk to reward pick and the players weak character gambled upon failed to pay anything except expense to the team and a lost valuable pick. The others were either injury issues or guys who failed to play up to their college performance. A careful assessment of many of the picks made shows those picks have had somewhat lengthy careers in the league elsewhere or they can play but just not at the level expected.

The Seahawks have been a highly successful team since Pn'J took over, the team has been an annual playoff contender save 1 season. There have been some poor choices made in the draft and many excellent ones. In all they are doing a darn good job and us armchair critics don't truly have all the information the team has based many of their decisions upon.

If JS trades back it certainly can be frustrating to us non-NFL personnel experts with positional biases and at time artificial expectations but he has generally been good at manoeuvring to get the players the team has identified as wanting. Drafting for need rather than simply for the BPA is a risky situation to be in and compounds the riskif the player fails to perform.

I'm rather certain the team hasn't missed out on many certain Pro Bowl players drafting late in each draft.

 

[Sgt. Largent]

Yes, I assume if you researched every team that's been good the past decade and has picked at the bottom of the first round, you're going to find a LOT of bad draft picks and missed opportunities.

N'Keal Harry (missed half the season, and didn't do crap when he did come back)
Isiah Wynn (64th rated O-lineman)
Sony Michel (good rookie season, regressed in 2nd a LOT)
Derek Rivers (who?)
Cyrus Jones (playing for Denver)
Malcom Brown (34 tackles with Saints)
Dominique Easley (out of football)


Those are the last seven top picks for the Patriots, the so called gold standard of the NFL.

I'm certainly not defending our bad track record of picking late in the first round, but again I could probably do this for every perennial winner that's had to pick at the bottom of the 1st round for this long.

There's a reason these players drop, off field issues or holes in their game.

 

[GeekHawk]

I have a small problem with your 2014 draft reasoning, since 2 of those pro-bowl players are QBs which we wouldn't have picked at all since we already had RW. If I were running the numbers (which I'm not, and I didn't) I would have excluded those 2 and said we missed out on 2/13 that we might have drafted instead. Otherwise, a pretty good analysis I think.

 

[onanygivensunday]

I have a small problem with your 2014 draft reasoning, since 2 of those pro-bowl players are QBs which we wouldn't have picked at all since we already had RW. If I were running the numbers (which I'm not, and I didn't) I would have excluded those 2 and said we missed out on 2/13 that we might have drafted instead. Otherwise, a pretty good analysis I think.

You could also say the same thing about the LBs... T.J. Watt and Leighton Vander Esch… but I was more focused on understanding the numbers than I was the "who".

In other words, considering where we have typically picked in the bottom 1/3 of the first round, has trading down and picking up later picks been a good strategy?... or has it backfired?

Imo, it has been a good strategy because the number of elite players selected between our original pick and the pick that we ultimately traded down to has been pretty low.

I'm sure that there are other ways to look at this issue but this was just the one that seemed interesting and reasonable.

 

[JerHawk81]

Your research seems solid, but your math is off.

If you're trying to get at the impact that trading down has on your chances of getting a Pro Bowl player (a legit question), I would suggest comparing the DIFFERENCE between:

The probability of getting a Pro Bowl player at the original spot (your math seems to capture this).

Against:

The probablity of getting a Pro Bowl player at the new spots (addeing up the probability of the draft picks we got in exchange).

I don't know what story that will tell, but I think that would more accurately get at the core question of whether our approach of trading down increases or decreases that aggregate probablity of Pro Bowl players.

 

[onanygivensunday]

Your research seems solid, but your math is off.

If you're trying to get at the impact that trading down has on your chances of getting a Pro Bowl player (a legit question), I would suggest comparing the DIFFERENCE between:

The probability of getting a Pro Bowl player at the original spot (your math seems to capture this).

Against:

The probablity of getting a Pro Bowl player at the new spots (addeing up the probability of the draft picks we got in exchange).

I don't know what story that will tell, but I think that would more accurately get at the core question of whether our approach of trading down increases or decreases that aggregate probablity of Pro Bowl players.

I'll leave that to someone else. Any volunteers?

 

[JerHawk81]

Your research seems solid, but your math is off.

If you're trying to get at the impact that trading down has on your chances of getting a Pro Bowl player (a legit question), I would suggest comparing the DIFFERENCE between:

The probability of getting a Pro Bowl player at the original spot (your math seems to capture this).

Against:

The probablity of getting a Pro Bowl player at the new spots (addeing up the probability of the draft picks we got in exchange).

I don't know what story that will tell, but I think that would more accurately get at the core question of whether our approach of trading down increases or decreases that aggregate probablity of Pro Bowl players.

I'll leave that to someone else. Any volunteers?

It's not a direct comparison, but I found this online.

http://www.profootballlogic.com/article ... ick-value/

It's a different analysis, but the first scatter plot seems informative.

 

[AgentDib]

The fun thing about the "what if?" draft game is that you can also use the same logic to say we missed on great players by not trading down further.

In 2017 we drafted Ethan Pocic at #58. Here's who we could have drafted if we had traded down a few spots instead:
- 4 spots: WR JuJu Smith-Schuster
- 5 spots: G Dion Dawkins
- 6 spots: G Taylor Moton
- 9 spots: RB Alvin Kamara
- 11 spots: WR Cooper Kupp
- 12 spots: C Pat Eiflein
- 13 spots: G Dan Feeney
- 29 spots: RB Kareem Hunt

In 2016 we drafted CJ Prosise at #90. If we had traded down a bit?
- 5 spots: C Graham Glasgow
- 8 spots: S Justin Simmons
- 9 spots: OLB Joe Schobert
- 75 spots: WR Tyreek Hill

Players available after we picked Terry Poole at #130 in 2015? Shaq Mason, Grady Jarrett, Jay Ajayi, Stefon Diggs, Trent Brown among many others. There are pro bowl players throughout all seven rounds of the draft most years and a few picks in the draft order is not that significant.

 

[Appyhawk]

Concluding we have achieved greater value by trading down to pick later may be a skewed point of view. Of course that's where we've achieved greater value, because that's where most all our picks come from! If we worked harder to pick higher I suspect we would have picked up some of the few GREAT players available in the earlier portion.