NewsBot
New Member
- Messages
- 111,281
- Reaction score
- 2,947
If the Dallas Cowboys had listened to ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. and Todd McShay, here’s what their draft haul might've looked like over the past six years...
ESPN's Mel Kiper published his first mock draft of the year this week to much fanfare and much ridicule. Among a large percentage of discerning football fans, it's chic to ridicule mock drafts and the draft analysts who publish them. Yet it's those very same draft analysts and the big boards and mock drafts they produce that drive a large part of our overall perception of the value and ranking of the 2016 draft prospects.
Yet as much as we collectively ridicule and mock those draft analysts, almost our entire outraged or thrilled evaluation of a given draft is based on where others ranked the players our team picked.
Why are we talking so much about Jared Goff, Paxton Lynch (and perhaps Carson Wentz)? Because draft analysts have told us that they are the best of the bunch, or at least have some traits that make them stand out over other QBs. But did you go and do a comparative film study of all draft-eligible QBs in this year's draft class to arrive at your own uninfluenced and unbiased conclusion about how the QBs rank in the 2016 draft class? Of course not.
One of the reasons we are so wary of mock drafters and draft analysts is that most of their predictions for the draft inevitably look silly once those predictions are compared with the actual draft results. But that applies to all draftniks, and odds are that the one draft analyst you trust above all others is just as inaccurate as all the other draft analysts you dislike so much.
Two of the biggest in the mock draft business, ESPN's Mel Kiper and Todd McShay, have been dominating the mock draft headlines for years, so today we ask ourselves what would have happened if the Cowboys had followed the pair's mock draft suggestions in each of the last six drafts.
In the mock draft world, there's only one mock that ultimately counts: the final mock draft published before the actual draft. That doesn't stop mock drafters from inundating us with countless mocks before that final one, but none of them carries any real weight. Which is why today we'll look at Kiper's and McShay's final mock drafts from 2010-2015. Before we go there though, here is a summary of the last six Dallas Cowboys first-round picks, along with some metrics we'll use to evaluate the picks.
Year Player All
Pro Pro
Bowls Starter
Seasons Games
Started Approximate
Value
2010 Dez Bryant Pro Pro
Bowls Starter
Seasons Games
Started Approximate
Value
1 2 5 70 55
2011 Tyron Smith 2 3 5 79 54
2012 Morris Claiborne 0 0 2 36 13
2013 Travis Frederick 1 2 3 48 28
2014 Zack Martin 2 2 2 32 22
2015 Byron Jones 0 0 1 11 4
Total 6 9 18 276 176
Overall, that's a pretty impressive haul. Nine Pro Bowl seasons, 18 out of a maximum of 21 starter seasons, 276 starts and a very strong Approximate Value (AV) of 176. And all of that despite Morris Claiborne failing to live up to his draft pedigree.
Over the last six years, only two teams have had more success with their first-round draft picks (as measured by AV): The Rams accumulated 195 AV points, though they did that with eight first-rounders versus six for the Cowboys, and the Texans have 184 points, helped by the massive 88 AV points J.J. Watt adds to their total. Here are the total AV points for all first round picks of the last six years by team:
First-round AV points by team, 2010-2015
Rank Team AV Points Picks Rank Team AV Points Picks Rank Team AV Points Picks1
STL 195 8 11
TAM 144 6 23
ATL 122 5
2
HOU 2
184 6 13
ARI 141 6 24
KAN 121 6
3
DAL 3
176 6 14
CIN 138 7 24
NYG 121 6
4
CAR 4
174 5 15
PIT 135 6 26
TEN 108 6
5
DET 5
173 7 16
WAS 133 4 27
JAX 93 6
6
SEA 6
161 4 17
BUF 131 5 28
PHI 86 6
7
NWE 7
155 6 18
MIA 129 6 29
GNB 73 6
8
DEN 8
154 6 18
SDG 129 6 30
CHI 68 5
9
SFO 9
149 7 20
NOR 127 7 31
OAK 67 4
10
MIN 10
147 9 21
CLE 125 9 32
BAL 54 4
11
NYJ 11
144 7 22
IND 123 5
Note that the AV numbers are allocated to the team drafting a given player, and not to the team the player eventually moved on to. The Cowboys' Rolando McClain for example has accumulated 12 AV points in Dallas, which in the table above still count in favor of the Raiders, the team that originally drafted him. Similarly, Sam Bradford's nine points earned in Philly last year are included in the Rams' tally in the table above.
Overall, the table establishes that the Cowboys have gotten more from their first-round picks over the last six years than most other teams. With that, let's turn to Kiper and McShay to see how their picks for the Cowboys hold up in this comparison. Here are the players Mel Kiper had the Cowboys picking in his final mock drafts of each of the last six years:
Year Player POS All
Pro Pro
Bowls Starter
Season Games
Stared Approximate
Value
2010 Rodger Saffold Pro Pro
Bowls Starter
Season Games
Stared Approximate
Value
OT 0 0 5 65 27
2011 Cameron Jordan DE 0 1 5 79 40
2012 Quinton Coples DE 0 0 2 32 21
2013 Sylvester Williams DT 0 0 2 32 17
2014 Ryan Shazier LB 0 0 1 17 9
2015 Preston Smith DE 0 0 0 1 3
Total 0 1 15 226 117
That would not have been a good draft haul for the Cowboys. Kiper would have had the Cowboys drafting solid starters, so there's that, but the players he picked lack the postseason accolades the Cowboys picks garnered, and the combined AV points would rank this collection of picks in the bottom 10 of the league.
On to McShay's final mock picks for the Cowboys:
Year Player POS All
Pro Pro
Bowls Starter
Season Games
Stared Approximate
Value
2010 Dez Bryant Pro Pro
Bowls Starter
Season Games
Stared Approximate
Value
WR 1 2 5 70 55
2011 J.J. Watt DE 4 4 5 80 88
2012 Michael Brockers DT 0 0 4 60 30
2013 Sheldon Richardson DT 0 1 3 41 21
2014 Johnny Manziel QB 0 0 0 8 5
2015 Shane Ray DE 0 0 0 0 2
Total 5 7 17 259 201
McShay's picks get a healthy boost from the J.J. Watt pick, but this would have been a very impressive haul for the Cowboys. McShay let himself be suckered into the ridiculous Manziel hype in 2014, and the Shane Ray pick in 2015 doesn't look that great either, but that's complaining on a very high level. It may be pure luck, but McShay's collection of picks for the Cowboys over the last six years would have beaten every single NFL team in terms of AV points.
Also noteworthy: McShay's picks have accumulated 109.5 sacks since they were drafted. If the Cowboys had followed McShay's picks, their defensive line would easily be the one of the very best in the league today. At the same time, if the Cowboys had listened to McShay, their offensive line would likely have ranked near the bottom of the league for the last five years, and Tony Romo's career would have been over a while ago.
What all the numbers above show is that the draft can be a precarious proposition, even in the first round where the best available talent is supposed to be found. Over the last six years, the Cowboys have been one of the most successful teams at mining this resource, while other teams have not. But even for the worst teams in the league, there is some hope, as they could have drafted much worse, just as there is reason for the best teams to improve their efforts, as they are still far away from realizing the maximum potential possible.
Here, for your pre-draft delectation, are the best and worst first-round picks from each of the last six drafts and what their AV would add up to:
Best picks Worst picks
Year Team Player POS AV Points Year Team Player POS AV Points
2010 DET Ndamukong Suh DT 65
2010 DEN Tim Tebow QB 12
2011 HOU J.J. Watt DE 88
2011 GB Derek Sherrod T 3
2012 CAR Luke Kuechly LB 57
2012 SF A.J. Jenkins WR 2
2013 CHI Kyle Long G 22
2013 MIA Dion Jordan DE 3
2014 STL Aaron Donald DT 31
2014 PHI Marcus Smith LB 1
2015 TB Jameis Winston QB 13
2015 - - Four players - - 0
Total 276
Total 21
Continue reading...