Hawkeye0202
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then again...... what does it mean? Either way, it's odd....
then again...... what does it mean? Either way, it's odd....
It is like the statistic that an overwhelming percentage of deaths from auto accidents happen with X miles of the persons residence.
They leave out the fact that most people are in that X miles radius the vast majority of the time.
There are over 1000 draft eligible players.
There are less than 300 total players drafted.
That leaves way more players not drafted than players drafted in rounds 4-7.
The other way to look at it is to look at the total number of UDFAs on the 90 man rosters each year compared to players drafted 4-7. It's probably about 4 to 1 (udfa to 4-7 picks).
Players in round 6 or 7 are also usually graded out around the same as a lot of UDFA’s. It’s really just about what player you prioritize and want to make sure you retain their rights with the limited number of picks you have.
This ought to be pretty intuitive. You get 7 draft picks and bring in 15+ UDFAs every year. Not all the lower-tier draft picks are going to stick, some get replaced in the lineup by UDFAs. 3-4 make the team as specialists or STs guys.
Note, this is also taken from week 17 active rosters, so you're going to have some injury replacements off the street inflating those numbers a bit.
But those injury replacements could just as well be 4th-7th rounders. Your first point is right on though.
Another I'd like to bring up is a lot of guys who go undrafted weren't scouted properly... or at all. Generally, a guy taken in the fifth round was scouted on par with a guy taken in the third, he was simply deemed not as good. However, a lot of UDFA's are guys from division I-AA and II who 'looked good'. You don't exactly send your Alabama scout team to Incarnate Word, but you might invite their players into minicamp to see what they got. Mis-scouted players generally will end up as UDFAs, whereas guys in the 6 and 7th are ones you know probably won't last long.
Good point. The Cowboys have publicly said they have passed on higher rated players on their board they thought were more likely to get to UDFA than players they’d taken in the 7th round.