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2017 Draft Prospects Thread

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If we could trade back into the teens and somehow still get Foster..... Wow...

This front office is not a "trade up" group of guys. This front office follows a formula and today that formula says trade down.

When a football team has a lot of needs, they are better off using a shotgun approach. The team is more likely to find talent with a bunch of day three picks than they are with a single day 1 pick. Not only are they more likely to find talent, it will be cheaper to keep the talent that they find once they hit free agency.

The only reason I think that there's better than a 50% chance that the team uses the #1 pick is because it is hard to get a premiere pass rusher in free agency and Myles Garrett lights up so many measurables. But you can bet that this team is going to listen to offers to trade down when they are on the clock.

The formula could change some day if other teams stop over paying to trade up or if the Browns only need to fill a single position. That's not the case though. Today formula today is pretty clear. The Browns still need to find a dozen more talented guys before they start worrying about position. Doesn't make sense to get into a bidding war with other teams who are trying to trade buckshot shells for a single sniper round.
 
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Though this draft it's possible to trade down and up in this draft and end up with 3 first round picks and still have either pick 33 or 52. So it's possible we could make multiple moves, and still get the guys we wish for.

Aka 12 for 19-20ish area with additional picks coming our way and then trade up into the 20ish from 33 with pick added (I designed it to get Garrett, ObI and Conley) but we could get three guys round 1, and still have at least one second round pick and we don't lose any value on either the Johnson or Harvard chart.
 
This front office is not a "trade up" group of guys. This front office follows a formula and today that formula says trade down.

When a football team has a lot of needs, they are better off using a shotgun approach. The team is more likely to find talent with a bunch of day three picks than they are with a single day 1 pick. Not only are they more likely to find talent, it will be cheaper to keep the talent that they find once they hit free agency.

The only reason I think that there's better than a 50% chance that the team uses the #1 pick is because it is hard to get a premiere pass rusher in free agency and Myles Garrett lights up so many measurables. But you can bet that this team is going to listen to offers to trade down when they are on the clock.

The formula could change some day if other teams stop over paying to trade up or if the Browns only need to fill a single position. That's not the case though. Today formula today is pretty clear. The Browns still need to find a dozen more talented guys before they start worrying about position. Doesn't make sense to get into a bidding war with other teams who are trying to trade buckshot shells for a single sniper round.

*Trade back from 12.

Sorry, should have clarified that.
 
*Trade back from 12.
Sorry, should have clarified that.

That makes sense and I agree with you. Unless some guy that they really like falls to them at 12, it seems very likely that the Browns will trade down using the Philly pick in order to pick up additional assets.

Thanks for tolerating my rant. I'm mainly trying to prepare myself.
 
I would not mind any of the OSU boys at 12. No hom-----er.
 
I'd pass on Lattimore. The hamstring thing just seems like something that could plague him for his whole career. I'm all for Hooker or Conley though.

I am assuming our only real legitimate shot would be Conley. Just have to wait and see how the draft falls into our lap
 
When a football team has a lot of needs, they are better off using a shotgun approach. The team is more likely to find talent with a bunch of day three picks than they are with a single day 1 pick. Not only are they more likely to find talent, it will be cheaper to keep the talent that they find once they hit free agency.

I tend to agree with this to a point. But the reality is you need a LOT of buckshot on Day 3 to ever find real difference makers. If we are counting on six day 3 picks to do anything but be depth or kinda decent starters, we are likely to be disappointed. Yes we suck, and have a lot of holes but then at the same time it's like, "well we don't need a linebacker because our coordinator rarely plays more than 2" and we just beefed up the offensive line so that's not a need either. If we don't convert some of our day 3 picks this year into day 2 picks next, I'm going to be a little disappointed. We had 14 picks in 2016 and the easy complaint is "well we had 14 picks and only came away with 2 starters". Well 9 of then were day 3 picks and the best you can say for any of them is that they're kinda sorta decent. But that's to be expected. We just have more of them now than we would otherwise. We have 3 5th round picks again. You have a chance to find a starter but most likely it'll be the defensive back version of Jordan Payton and Rashard Higgins and the defensive tackle version of Spencer Drango. That's the reality of the 5th round. They're garbage and if you think we're going to build a competitive team by hoping to hit on 5th round picks you're going to be disappointed.

They need to play the long game here (and be given a chance to finish said long game). We have more than enough JAGs on this team. The draft value charts must account for the value over replacement which I don't think the metric behind the chart does. 3 Spencer Drangos do not equal a Joe Thomas.
 
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The draft value charts must account for the value over replacement which I don't think the metric behind the chart does. 3 Spencer Drangos do not equal a Joe Thomas.

Well,moneyball is about finding under valued assets. Right now in the NFL, second and third round picks seem to be undervalued assets.

Player quality matters, but it is not as important in the NFL as it is in most sports. There's more players and more team work. Avoiding weak spots on the roster can be as important as finding transcendent talent. 1 Joe Thomas doesn't instantly make a good offensive line if the other tackle is crap.

It is very true that it is harder to find good players later in the draft, but it does happen. Curiously, different positions have had very different success rates in the different rounds.

History has not been kind to:
  • Defensive Linemen picked early
  • Line Backers picked late
  • Running Backs & Quarterbacks picked anywhere
http://www.arrowheadpride.com/2015/2/20/8072877/what-the-statistics-tell-us-about-the-draft-by-round

Historical chance of success by position by round--
1st Round - OL (83%) LB (70%) TE (67%) DB (64%) QB (63%) WR (58%) RB (58%) DL (58%)
2nd Round - OL (70%) LB (55%) TE (50%) WR (49%) DB (46%) QB (27%) DL (26%) RB (25%)
3rd Round - OL (40%) TE (39%) LB (34%) DL (27%) WR (25%) DB (24%) QB (17%) RB (16%)
4th Round - DL (37%) TE (33%) OL (29%) LB (16%) WR(12%) DB (11%) RB (11%) QB (8%)
5th Round - TE (32%) DB (17%) WR (16%) OL (16%) DL (13%) RB (9%) LB (4%) QB (0%)
6th Round - TE (26%) OL (16%) DL (13%) WR (9%) DB (8%) RB (6%) LB (5%) QB (0%)
7th Round - DB (11%) OL (9%) QB (6%) WR (5%) DL (3%) LB (2%) RB (0%) TE (0%)
 
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Calling my shot here: I don't believe the Browns will trade up in the first 3 rounds. Will they move back? Possibly.
 
Calling my shot here: I don't believe the Browns will trade up in the first 3 rounds. Will they move back? Possibly.

Browns will 100% trade up at some point in the first 3 rounds. *

Little RCF donation bet?

* I may put a caveat that if we do not trade for a QB prior to the draft.
 
If we're calling shots, here's mine: I think that the Browns will either move up, move back, or stand put. There is no in-between.
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It is very true that it is harder to find good players later in the draft, but it does happen. Curiously, different positions have had very different success rates in the different rounds.

History has not been kind to:
  • Defensive Linemen picked early
  • Line Backers picked late
  • Running Backs & Quarterbacks picked anywhere
http://www.arrowheadpride.com/2015/2/20/8072877/what-the-statistics-tell-us-about-the-draft-by-round

Thanks for this info; I've been wanting to do something like this (and have started in somewhat of a different format here (QB) and here (DL), (DT), but what I really want to do is identify "success" and place successes in tiers. They've defined "success" as being a starter for half of one's seasons, which is a good enough start in that it defines "good enough". Here's a visual way of looking at that mess of data from ArrowheadPride:
success by round and position.PNG
I'm not sure that the sample size is quite large enough (that blip in round 4 for defensive lineman is weird and not born out by either of my charts. But look at a 5th round pick - we've got 3 of them this year and I'll gauge by this chart that the success rate for 5th rounders is 15%. This means the chances you find a starter in those 3 picks is about 38%, which looks to be generally worse than the chances of finding a starter with 1 second round pick.
 

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