Cowboys rank 17th in the NFL measuring NFL drafting since 1996

jazzcat22

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Why 1996....after Jimmy's drafts...well alrighty then....
No Brandt, Schramm, Landry draft?
ok!
 

Idgit

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Seems about right for that time range.
 

Spectre

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Could be better. Could be worse. Considering we're rarely drafting in the top 10 it's not bad. That said, I could have/would have done much better for this team if the decisions were mine.
 

Jarv

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Blame Larry Lacewell.

Yeah no kidding, Campo had Jerry and Larry giving up 2 1st picks for Joey G. and they also picked Quincy. Campo never stood a chance. We always had tough defenses un Dave though.
 

GimmeTheBall!

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JD_KaPow

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If draft success were purely random (the null hypothesis), we'd expect this to look like a bell curve. And hey, guess what? It looks exactly like a bell curve. There's one team on each end outside 2 standard deviations, and no teams outside 3. Not saying that some teams aren't truly better at drafting than others, but this data doesn't provide any evidence for that.
 

CowboyRoy

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Some teams seem to always strike gold on draft day, while others just find rocks. (We’re looking at you, Cleveland.) Revisit the past 20 NFL drafts to see how adept every team has been at mining top talent.

Read the article here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/sports/nfl-draft-history/#DAL

Combine that with middling coaching, poor FA use, and poor salary cap management and that does seem about right. If you are going to rely on the draft to fill needs then being at the middle of the pack wont cut it.
 

perrykemp

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If draft success were purely random (the null hypothesis), we'd expect this to look like a bell curve. And hey, guess what? It looks exactly like a bell curve. There's one team on each end outside 2 standard deviations, and no teams outside 3. Not saying that some teams aren't truly better at drafting than others, but this data doesn't provide any evidence for that.

They list the top 5 drafting teams since 1996 as:
  • Pittsburgh Steelers
  • Indianapolis Colts
  • Green Bay Packers
  • Baltimore Ravens
  • New England Patriots
Looking at the list those 5 teams look awfully much like the the top 5 winning teams over the past 20 years as well. Sounds like a possible correlation.
 

Nova

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I wonder why they did a 20 year study...?

I would be more interested to see how teams have done since realignment and the last expansion team.

Or at least something that has bearing on the teams on the field today.
 

JD_KaPow

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They list the top 5 drafting teams since 1996 as:
  • Pittsburgh Steelers
  • Indianapolis Colts
  • Green Bay Packers
  • Baltimore Ravens
  • New England Patriots
Looking at the list those 5 teams look awfully much like the the top 5 winning teams over the past 20 years as well. Sounds like a possible correlation.
Well sure. That's exactly what I would expect.

If draft results are completely randomly distributed (meaning that nobody is inherently better than anybody else at finding good players in the draft), we'd still expect the teams that drafted better (meaning they were luckier) to end up having better records. They got better talent, after all, even if it was by luck.

Look at it this way. Tom Brady is a huge part of why the Patriots rank high on this draft list, AND why they've been so successful on the field. And he was a guy they took a flyer on in the 6th. Did they have some major insight that other teams didn't? I highly doubt. It's just that somebody had to end up with him, and it happened to be them.

Do I think it's really this simple? No, I don't. But I suspect that a huge part of "draft success" has a lot more to do with the coaching that happens after the guys show up than it does with some ability that only some teams have to identify great talent in the draft. If Tom Brady had ended up on some other team, it's entirely possible that he gets buried in the depth chart, poorly coached, and never turns into a starter, much less a star. Getting talent is one thing, putting it in a position to succeed is another.
 

ScipioCowboy

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Well sure. That's exactly what I would expect.

If draft results are completely randomly distributed (meaning that nobody is inherently better than anybody else at finding good players in the draft), we'd still expect the teams that drafted better (meaning they were luckier) to end up having better records. They got better talent, after all, even if it was by luck.

Look at it this way. Tom Brady is a huge part of why the Patriots rank high on this draft list, AND why they've been so successful on the field. And he was a guy they took a flyer on in the 6th. Did they have some major insight that other teams didn't? I highly doubt. It's just that somebody had to end up with him, and it happened to be them.

Do I think it's really this simple? No, I don't. But I suspect that a huge part of "draft success" has a lot more to do with the coaching that happens after the guys show up than it does with some ability that only some teams have to identify great talent in the draft. If Tom Brady had ended up on some other team, it's entirely possible that he gets buried in the depth chart, poorly coached, and never turns into a starter, much less a star. Getting talent is one thing, putting it in a position to succeed is another.

Good points.

I mean, it's not like draft boards are substantially different at the top between organizations. There aren't many surprises in the first few rounds on draft day. Most teams agree on whom the best players are.
 
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