Should we stop drafting OL?

[Goldenrichards83]

No.

Draft two LTs, just like you drafted two CBs and two RBs.

Draft a CG or two.

Draft another RT/G to compete with Brewster.

At this point, Free is hope and not a plan. You need a safety net or two. I would draft two LTs is I could get the value.

Like someone said earlier, its not that we can't draft good olinemen, we just never take one in the 1st rd. Thats where the studs are especially at LT.

 

[The30YardSlant]

You never "stop" drafting O-linemen. Linemen get injured more than any other position and have a very high rate of career ending injuries when compared to other positions. Once a linemen's ankles, knees or back start going, he is done (see: Marco Rivera, Erick Williams). Linemen also have a very high rate of variability. Only the VERY best linemen are great year in and year out, week in and week out. Look at Andre Gurode, he plays great one week, then plays like a college sophomore the next.

Pont being, you need good starters and good depth along the line. Look at the title teams the last decade or so. Everyone besides Pittsburgh had great O-line depth, with 7-8 guys who could come in and be solid players.

 

[rkell87]

so back to the topic imo next year looks to be stacked with o-linemen and, providing we are healthy at key positions and have the right people locked with contracts, i would not mind taking linemen with at least picks 1-4 providing the right guys fall to us such as ultowski, black, carter, and others.

who knows it could be fate or whatever that we've missed lately and we draft a future starting five in the same draft class that seems to be loaded with quailty talent.

 

[rkell87]

want to add that if for some reason eric berry falls to us take him!

other than that though linemen all the way lol

 

[masomenos]

Well if we took 7 OL next draft the law of averages would have us get at least two that were good. As long as one is a tackle we would be OK.
Desperate situations call for desperate measures.

Unfortunately, it doesn't really work that way. Just as an example, take last years draft, when there were 33 offensive linemen taken. In the first three rounds there were 6, 6, and 7 OL taken. Let's assume that 33% of them will turn into quality starters. For rounds 4 and 5 there were 5 and 8 players taken and we'll set the success rate at 20%. Then, for rounds 6 and 7 there were 3 and 8 players taken and we'll put the success rate at 10%.

To make things easy, we'll pretend like Dallas was picking at #20 in every round.

Last year, 3 OL were picked before the 20th spot. To reach our 33% success rate, only 6 OL have to be taken. That means that there is a chance that half of the quality starters between rounds 1-3 have already be taken by the time Dallas picks in the first round. Let's say that one of those first three guys is a bust, that means there are 4 more quality starters in the next 13 players taken. The odds are 70% against us choosing a starting quality player at pick #20.

By the time our pick in the 2nd round comes, there have been 5 more OL taken. So, from our original pool or 19 "33%" players, there are 10 left. Now we'll assume that another two of the quality starters was picked up, either by us or someone else. That leaves 2 left and now we face '4 to 1' odds against us.

By the time our 3rd pick comes around, another 7 OL have been taken and there's no more 33% success rate players left in the pool. If we want to keep drafting OL, then we have to dip into the 20% success rate club, which makes our pick a reach. Even taking the first player from that pool, we face the same 4-1 odds that we did in round 2.

I ran these odds through a random selector 10 times, these were the results.

1: Bust, Bust, Bust
2: Success, Bust, Bust
3: Bust, Bust, Bust
4: Bust, Bust, Success
5: Success, Bust, Bust
6: Success, Bust, Success
7: Bust, Bust, Bust
8: Bust, Bust, Bust
9: Bust, Success, Bust
10: Bust, Bust, Bust

In 5 of the 10 trials, we don't hit on any of our first 3 picks, nearly half of our draft is wasted. In 4 of the 10 trials, we land 1 starting quality player, that means that the odds are against us choosing a starter. Only in 1 of the trials do we reap any benefit from the 'draft all OL' strategy.

The final rounds look something like this...

1: Bust, Bust, Bust, Bust
2: Success, Bust, Bust, Bust
3: Bust, Bust, Bust, Bust
4: Bust, Bust, Bust, Bust
5: Bust, Bust, Bust, Bust
6: Success, Bust, Bust, Bust
7: Success, Bust, Bust, Bust
8: Success, Bust, Bust, Bust
9: Bust, Success, Bust, Success
10: Bust, Bust, Bust, Bust

So, in the ten trials, we come out with 1 or fewer starters 70% of the time, even though we spent all 7 picks on OL.

The odds of finding one starter is 40%, just 7% higher than if we only chose an OL in the first round. The odds of missing on all the OL picks is 30%, a full 37 percentage points higher than if we only took one in the first round. The odds of finding multiple starters increase from 10% to 30%, which still isn't a number that you'd want to gamble your draft on.

 

[burmafrd]

Evaluating talent is not mathematical. So trying to use a formula just does not work. One thing we need to do is look at what we were doing to rate OL and throw it out the window. Re do it completely. THen next season draft at least 3 and possibly 4 OL in the first 5 rds. As long as they make our draft board. Just by changing what has not worked should up the odds of being successful. Jimmy only hit on 1/3 of his picks but he had so many it did not matter. If we sacrifice one draft and manage to get a LT then it will be worth it.

 

[DallasEast]

sonnyboy, check your PMs.