First Round Pick 2019 #2, Darnell Savage

[3irty1]

I don't think most trades work that way. Teams want to trade down who either see too many players in one tier at the current spot or see no one in the proper tier. Ted trading up to get Spriggs is the perfect example of moving to get a tier and a pick aligned with a need but it seems to have been a terrible price to pay.

If you went for maximizing talent by tier and always traded down, you could combine efficient pick position with efficient talent collection. But you would be hard pressed to get to the top tiers of talent.

No one in the proper tier? What does that mean?

Trading down to get one of the last guys in your tier looks like taking an extra pick to let the bones decide who in your tier you'll end up with. Moving up to grab the last guy in your tier looks like waiting until a tier is mostly gone, maybe even down to the last guy who has fallen quite a bit, and picking up the phone to go get him. Both seem like value to me. Need has to be somewhat baked into the cake when ranking these guys to begin with.

[pbmax]

No one in the proper tier? What does that mean?

.

You are sitting at pick 24 and no one left on the board carries first round grade. Ideally, you want to trade down into the late first/early second to get an extra pick.

[3irty1]

You are sitting at pick 24 and no one left on the board carries first round grade. Ideally, you want to trade down into the late first/early second to get an extra pick.

"First round grade" makes sense when comparing players across drafts, but in a given draft the useful comparison isn't to the platonic 1st round player but to the other players in this draft class. Regardless of grades, there will be 32 first round selections. But when you rank the players against each other they'll land in tiers, not rounds. By pick 24 it's probably true that the top 10 tiers are gone. If the last player from tier 10 was chosen at pick 23, you've got maybe 5 or 6 guys of interchangeable value in tier 11 to choose from. Not great. While that situation was unfolding you should have been trying to trade up or down. Alternatively lets say there is just one player left in what you've deemed tier 11 left in which case you've got to feel great about the value. You do need to compare players across different drafts but really only to decide the value of picks from next year's draft since trading for those is an option. I see no reason why picks from next year wouldn't also be on your draft board in a tier of equivalent value.

[run pMc]

I see no reason why picks from next year wouldn't also be on your draft board in a tier of equivalent value.

I can think of one - you don't know where in a round that pick will be.
Big difference between drafting in top and bottom of most rounds. That said, you could probably come up with an expected range and thus assign a value. I understand what pbmax is getting at: if you're sitting at 24 and there are only 22 players with a first-round grade, you may want to consider trading up to get one of them, or maybe trading down a few spots because there are a bunch of players in the tier you could choose from and you're willing to let them fall to you in exchange for extra picks.

Trading for future picks like what Gute did last year is a gamble since the team you traded with could do really well (as NO did) and leave you with a later pick than you'd hoped.

[3irty1]

That's true, but this is uncertainty that you can bake into the cake when determining value. The scenario of you pick 24 and there are only 22 players with a first round grade seems to me to be using "first round grade" as a crude euphemism for tier. My point is that when evaluating players in a draft class you want them evaluated #1 through #250-something by their relative value to your football team. In that process there will be judgements that are too close to call aka tiers where a handful of players are considered interchangeable in value. Navigating the draft around those tiers, which are unknown to us, is where you can get bang for your buck in the draft. When I see someone move up or down in the draft, I think it must be assumed that both parties involved in the trade consider themselves to have gotten better value because of that trade. Both parties can be right about that too.

[Fritz]

Funny, when the pundits talk about the key to the draft's success, and the key to the defense, they don't talk about the Packers' #12 overall pick...they talk about Savage.

I hope this dude is all that and a bag of rocks. They need a safety in the worst way.

I hope they also move Josh Jones to ILB and teach Josh Jackson to play safety.

[3irty1]

Funny, when the pundits talk about the key to the draft's success, and the key to the defense, they don't talk about the Packers' #12 overall pick...they talk about Savage.

I hope this dude is all that and a bag of rocks. They need a safety in the worst way.

I hope they also move Josh Jones to ILB and teach Josh Jackson to play safety.

Gary has fallen from tragically bad pick to He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named?

[Fritz]

Gary has fallen from tragically bad pick to He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named?

Nah, it's fine. After he starts missing games and practices for undisclosed injuries, or gets easily stonewalled by an offensive tackle, you'll be calling him other names, anyway.

As for names, I hoped the Pack would draft Dru Tranquill, so the Packers could be Tranquill and Savage on the field at the same time. Alas.

[pbmax]

"First round grade" makes sense when comparing players across drafts, but in a given draft the useful comparison isn't to the platonic 1st round player but to the other players in this draft class. Regardless of grades, there will be 32 first round selections. But when you rank the players against each other they'll land in tiers, not rounds. By pick 24 it's probably true that the top 10 tiers are gone. If the last player from tier 10 was chosen at pick 23, you've got maybe 5 or 6 guys of interchangeable value in tier 11 to choose from. Not great. While that situation was unfolding you should have been trying to trade up or down. Alternatively lets say there is just one player left in what you've deemed tier 11 left in which case you've got to feel great about the value. You do need to compare players across different drafts but really only to decide the value of picks from next year's draft since trading for those is an option. I see no reason why picks from next year wouldn't also be on your draft board in a tier of equivalent value.

I don't think we are saying anything different when using tier versus round grades on players in a given draft. A round grade gives you the tier AND the comparison to previous years. Maybe that gives you more info, maybe it leads to bad decisions, but I think they are quite comparable. I'd like the idea that tiers of players would lead to smaller groups, but I am not sure pre-draft scouting gives that kind specificity with confidence.

So you are sitting at 24 and the top tier(s) is(are) off the board? A round 2 grade or dropping a tier doesn't mean you don't pick a guy or move immediately to Round 2, any pick there will do. It means you should definitely explore moving down if you can stay with the same tier/grade because you are at the lower end of the value proposition.

[mraynrand]

. By pick 24 it's probably true that the top 10 tiers are gone.

That's a lot of tiers

[3irty1]

That's a lot of tiers

I think it's probably conservative. The NFL draft trade chart values are a Pareto distribution for a reason. I said before that I doubt the players in a given draft ever conform perfectly to such a distribution, but they won't be that far off either. No matter what skill you care about for a given population it's going to look similar.



At the top of the draft the disparities between players should be easiest to tease out. There are probably "tiers" that consist of just one player. I'd expect tiers to get larger and larger as the draft goes on and players become more and more interchangeable in value. Pick 24 is not a high first round pick, but its a high pick.

[Joemailman]

Savage has signed his contract. http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap300...ge-to-contract

[Joemailman]

That's a lot of tiers

96 all together.

[mraynrand]

^^^^. Hahahahaha

[pbmax]

Either terrible editing or the two guitarists are playing a different song than the singer is singing. Like watching Keith Moon drum in a 60s music video.