Attyla the Hawk
Well-known member
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2013
- Messages
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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.
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.