Where can you find All Pro calibers players in the draft?

[robert70x7]

I went through all the picks for different positions to find what rounds the All-Pro player were selected. I know there were more rounds back in the day, but the numbers still came out pretty even across the board with and without the outliers.

Everyone says that you can find great guards in the later rounds, so I wanted to see what positions are at a premium early on when it comes to drafting great NFL players. Here's what I found, the numbers next to the position is the average round taken.

DT - 1.84
OT - 1.86
LB - 2.16
QB - 2.32
DE - 2.36
OG - 2.39
WR - 2.42
TE - 2.54
DB - 2.555
RB - 2.558
C - 2.8
K - 4.28
P - 4.50

I know these numbers probably don't seem like a lot, and when it comes down to it scouting and the teams that draft the players are the reason that they are most likely successful. But I was surprised to see DT as the top pick, and it is astonishing looking over the past decade the number of All Pro DT that have been taken in the first round, really interesting stuff.

What this does tell us though is that for your offensive and defensive players, you HAVE to find home runs in the first three rounds. I don't think that it is any secret the Cowboys have not done well in that area over the past couple of years, which I will put their picks in the next post.

Before you read the next post, how many All Pro players have the Cowboys drafted since 2000?

This year has to be different if we want to move in the right direction with a young team.

[robert70x7]

2011

1. Tyron Smith
2. Bruce Carter
3. DeMarco Murray

2010

1. Dez Bryant
2. Sean Lee
3. -----------

2009

1. ----------
2. ----------
3. Jason Williams
3. Robert Brewster

2008

1. Felix Jones
1. Mike Jenkins
2. Martellus Bennet
3. --------------

2007

1. Anthony Spencer
2. ----------------
3. James Marten

2006

1. Bobby Carpenter
2. Anthony Fasano
3. Jason Hatcher

2005

1. DeMarcus Ware
1. Marcus Spears
2. Kevin Burnett
3. -------------

2004

1. --------------
2. Julius Jones
2. Jacob Rogers
3. Stephen Peterman

2003

1. Terence Newman
2. Al Johnson
3. Jason Witten

I'll stop right there because prior to 2003, no players that were drafted in the top 3 rounds are still an impact, or at least in a starting role.

[robert70x7]

What this shows me, is that the Cowboys are trending upward with their draft choices and finding QUALITY players. The past two drafts have been great, and we've drafted 3, maybe 4, players that have All-Pro ability. We just have to keep the snowball rolling down the hill and continue to find great players.

I'm going to end this by saying whoever the Cowboys draft, based on the past 2 years, odds are they have done their homework and we should be excited for the direction that the team is headed based on the infusion of youth and player development.

[Eskimo]

How were UDFAs counted - as 8th rounders?

The next question is whether they were using median or mean.

The next questions is whether they were utilizing draft position (i.e. drafted 22nd overall) to get their numbers of were they just using the round drafted (i.e. 1st round pick). If they were going by draft position I assume they would count UDFA as the next player to be drafted at the end of the draft.

I also do agree with the results overall - most of the best DTs and OTs were drafted quite high. I am somewhat surprised by how low DBs were on the list and I wonder if the results would be different if CBs and S were separated. I also wonder how different the results would be if the criteria was Pro Bowl vs. All-Pro. I also wonder over how many years was that data collected.

[batman36]

Your posts are quite informative. Please keep up the good work!

[robert70x7]

How were UDFAs counted - as 8th rounders?

The next question is whether they were using median or mean.

The next questions is whether they were utilizing draft position (i.e. drafted 22nd overall) to get their numbers of were they just using the round drafted (i.e. 1st round pick). If they were going by draft position I assume they would count UDFA as the next player to be drafted at the end of the draft.

I also do agree with the results overall - most of the best DTs and OTs were drafted quite high. I am somewhat surprised by how low DBs were on the list and I wonder if the results would be different if CBs and S were separated. I also wonder how different the results would be if the criteria was Pro Bowl vs. All-Pro. I also wonder over how many years was that data collected.

UDFA were not taken into consideration, because they were not listed on ESPN's draft history.

I was using mean for round drafted. Excel only allows 30 numbers per formula, so I had to put some positions into multiple columns and then weight them evenly across the board if there was say, 15 in the third grouping, then the first 2 would be weighted by 40% (30/75), and the 3rd group would be weighted by 20% (15/75).

Did not use individual pick numbers because it would have taken way too much time, and I didn't want to commit that much to it when I was originally doing it.

The defensive backs might have been different, but once again, I was taking numbers and punching them in excel, sometimes 90+, so I had to put them into 3-4 separate columns and weight them evenly. Prior to 2007, DB were not separated into positions of CB and S. Before 1996, I would have to go back and look up each individual's playing position unless they were an all-time great.

I might change it today to pick number, but I won't include UDFA because they are not immeiately accessible.

I also wish there was a category that could separate the players by Pro Bowl, unfortunately though, that is not an option.

The data went back to the early 60s, I'm not sure the exact year. Of course there are differences in playing styles, but I just wanted to keep this objective an somewhat simplified.

[MichaelWinicki]

What this shows me, is that the Cowboys are trending upward with their draft choices and finding QUALITY players. The past two drafts have been great, and we've drafted 3, maybe 4, players that have All-Pro ability. We just have to keep the snowball rolling down the hill and continue to find great players.

I'm going to end this by saying whoever the Cowboys draft, based on the past 2 years, odds are they have done their homework and we should be excited for the direction that the team is headed based on the infusion of youth and player development.

Agreed.

I don't know what has changed over the last two drafts, but it appears the Cowboys are rigidly following their board for the first 3 rounds.

The picks for Lee, Carter and Murray were all according to the Cowboy's board from what we've been told.

The year before that was a complete cluster... and there were whispers that Jason Williams was a Wade "pet" and Brewster was a Houck "pet", meaning that it wasn't as much about the Cowboys following their board, but about who the coaches wanted.

[robert70x7]

Agreed.

I don't know what has changed over the last two drafts, but it appears the Cowboys are rigidly following their board for the first 3 rounds.

The picks for Lee, Carter and Murray were all according to the Cowboy's board from what we've been told.

The year before that was a complete cluster... and there were whispers that Jason Williams was a Wade "pet" and Brewster was a Houck "pet", meaning that it wasn't as much about the Cowboys following their board, but about who the coaches wanted.

Wasn't Carpenter a Parcells pet? Felix was a Jerry pet for sure.

[jterrell]

How far did you go back?

I'd say stop at 10 years for sure because the NFL game has changed mightily since then.

Also small differences of .5 is a hug difference in reality. That's 16 picks on average.

[jterrell]

Wasn't Carpenter a Parcells pet? Felix was a Jerry pet for sure.

Carpenter was a BP pet. Felix was simply the highest rated guy on the board. Garrett loved Felix and wanted him badly. At that time we seriously lacked speed out of the back field.

[jterrell]

Agreed.

I don't know what has changed over the last two drafts, but it appears the Cowboys are rigidly following their board for the first 3 rounds.

The picks for Lee, Carter and Murray were all according to the Cowboy's board from what we've been told.

The year before that was a complete cluster... and there were whispers that Jason Williams was a Wade "pet" and Brewster was a Houck "pet", meaning that it wasn't as much about the Cowboys following their board, but about who the coaches wanted.

Jason Williams was ranked a round higher on our boards then where we drafted him. He was a size/speed guy we just missed on because he couldn't play football. And especially couldn't play in our scheme with Ratliff shooting gaps. JW might have worked had he been drafted as a Raven and understudy to Ray Lewis but he was never gonna be a quick impact guy and he was never going to be able to take on OGs regularly. Where we missed was his coverage evaluation. He was woefully bad at reading plays and never got into position to cover anyone.

[robert70x7]

How far did you go back?

I'd say stop at 10 years for sure because the NFL game has changed mightily since then.

Also small differences of .5 is a hug difference in reality. That's 16 picks on average.

Went back to 1967. The problem with only doing it 10 years is that the sample sizes are way too small. This problem would be helped if I had the option of picking Pro Bowl players instead of All-Pro.

[jterrell]

Went back to 1967. The problem with only doing it 10 years is that the sample sizes are way too small. This problem would be helped if I had the option of picking Pro Bowl players instead of All-Pro.

Yea, I hear ya there.

Still think the small sample would be more realistic than going back to 67. Football has changed drastically and drafting certainly has. In the 60s and 70s teams drafted guys sight unseen.

Pro-football-reference is very easy to dump to spreadsheet but I didn't see their all pro or pro bowl fields tied to their draft status. They do have all that data though. I just couldn't figure out how to grab it in one pull.

really cool tool here tho: http://www.pro-football-reference.com/play-index/draft-finder.cgi

[jterrell]

Went back to 1967. The problem with only doing it 10 years is that the sample sizes are way too small. This problem would be helped if I had the option of picking Pro Bowl players instead of All-Pro.

As an example I checked CBs the previous 3 All Pro seasons and all of them were round 1 draftees.

[robert70x7]

As an example I checked CBs the previous 3 All Pro seasons and all of them were round 1 draftees.

Yeah, I may use it at a certain point in time. There is going to be issues with anything like this regardless, and I just wanted big picture. Another thing is that the draft history stops All-Pro players for 2008. After that, there is no data.