Pick 9 vs 16

[AU-panther]

With all of the talk about picking at 16 instead of 9 I decided to look at history to see if there was much difference between the two spots and also if we could learn anything else from it.       

In another thread Carpanfan96 posted a link to a study that looked at AV  from https://www.pro-football-reference.com/,  but that is a pretty low standard to hit so I wanted to see how the two spots compared to finding a pro bowl level player.  I know pro bowls can be a bit of a popularity contest but I'm too lazy to go through PFF so its the best I have right now.

Also I just didn't want to compare pick 9 vs 16, sample size would be too small.  In a small sample pick 14 might turn out the best depending on a few bust here or there.  So I grouped picks 9-15 together.  Think of it as the 7 players you have available to pick from at 9.  Then I looked at picks 16-22, the seven players available at 16.  Of course you could end up picking someone way later in the draft but the next seven that are drafted are probably pretty similar on most team's boards at that point in the draft.

I decided to go back to 2011, so that is a total of 56 players picked between 9-15, and 56 players between 16-22 since 2011

For players 9-15:

22 went to at least one Pro Bowl.  39% of the players

10 made All Pro at least once. 18% of the players

For players 15-22:

14 went to at least one Pro Bowl.  25% of the players

5 made All Pro at least once. 9% of the players

Conclusion:

Chance of finding a Pro Bowler:  over 50% higher at 9

Chance of finding an All Pro: Twice as likely at 9.

Also it really illustrates the point that you better be careful chasing need in the first round.  I'm guessing you odds of finding a Pro Bowler in subsequent rounds decreases even more so you really need to be looking for that Pro Bowl level player especially considering the cap cost that the first round carries.  I'm not saying to ignore need totally but you have to realize a miss at a major need is worse than a hit at a lesser need.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

[panthers55]

The problem with this discussion is that first of all the methodology is flawed.  Looking at 7 picks after your pick has little predictive validity to predict your ability to make that one pick.  If we pick at 16, how the guy 6 picks later does is pretty irrelevant. Secondly this assumes that the people making those  picks use the same methodology when picking across the board or will use similar methodology to what we will use. . Otherwise how could Dallas picking at whatever position years ago have any connection to how the Panthers will pick this year. At least if you compare Hurney's picks through the years you get somewhat of an idea about how successful we will be. Although you could argue that the scouts that were here in his first stint are not all the same as the current ones. And he said his current way of picking players is not how he did it before.

The end result for me is that these type of analyses are largely fluff but make for good debate among the shoulda coulda woulda crowd.

[LinvilleGorge]

Pie for the effort, but P55 is correct.

Fug it, what's done is done. We won that worthless ass glorified preseason game and that's that. Let's just hope we get a Star situation where someone completely unexpected falls in our laps.

[AU-panther]

19 minutes ago, panthers55 said:

The problem with this discussion is that first of all the methodology is flawed.  Looking at 7 picks after your pick has little predictive validity to predict your ability to make that one pick.  If we pick at 16, how the guy 6 picks later does is pretty irrelevant. Secondly this assumes that the people making those  picks use the same methodology when picking across the board or will use similar methodology to what we will use. . Otherwise how could Dallas picking at whatever position years ago have any connection to how the Panthers will pick this year. At least if you compare Hurney's picks through the years you get somewhat of an idea about how successful we will be. Although you could argue that the scouts that were here in his first stint are not all the same as the current ones. And he said his current way of picking players is not how he did it before.

The end result for me is that these type of analyses are largely fluff but make for good debate among the shoulda coulda woulda crowd.

But if you just look at the pick, 9 vs 16, the sample size is too small.  If you go back and look at the last 8 pick 9s vs pick 16s there can be some huge variance based on just a few bust.  With that small of a sample, pick 14 (for instance) might have actually have the best results but that doesn't mean 14 is some magical spot for picking a good player.

Also a player 6 picks later isn't irrelevant.  It would be a player available at that point.  Of course you could say that is true about a player 150 picks later but here again that would be a bit cumbersome to look at.  I'm not trying to look at the success of a player at a certain point in the draft but the chances of finding a good player at that point.  

Also a pick by Dallas , 6 picks later, was a player that was available to you.  At 16 that player is not, the next how many ever are.  

Do you actually disagree with the results?  Do you feel like the chance of finding a pro bowler at 16 is the same as 9?  If you have a better methodology I would love to hear it, its easy to point out "flaws".

Also I just wasn't looking to further the 9 vs 16 argument but also to show people that chasing need can be a bit dangerous in the first round.  People severely overestimate the amount of quality players in a draft, even in the first round.

 

[RumHam]

Didn't we take Otah at 16 or was that JStew?

[Woodie]

You know the difference between pick 9 and pick 16 this year?  Embracing a culture of winning vs. teaching your team how to lose.

I get people wanting the higher pick.  And I even get wishing we lost so we could have had that pick.  But the idea that the team should have thrown the game to insure a better draft pick is beyond asinine.  I don't want one player on this team to think it's ever ok to lose.  Even in meaningless games, you are building habits and cultures, and I want my team to always give 100 percent.  Not to mention that we had many bench guys playing for their professional futures.  How could any coach look them in the face and essentially tell them to throw the game because we want to pick a few spots higher in the draft.

And if Rivera would have in any way tried to throw the game, he would have lost all respect from the team.  Does anybody seriously think Luke or Cam would be ok with losing for a draft pick.  If you do, then you know nothing about the heart of both our offense and defense.  And this is not about your personal feelings about Rivera, if we would have thrown that game, we would be looking at a Hue Jackson type of scenario next season.  The best Rivera could do is give as many young guys a chance to play as he could, and that's exactly what he did.  

[panthers55]

1 hour ago, AU-panther said:

But if you just look at the pick, 9 vs 16, the sample size is too small.  If you go back and look at the last 8 pick 9s vs pick 16s there can be some huge variance based on just a few bust.  With that small of a sample, pick 14 (for instance) might have actually have the best results but that doesn't mean 14 is some magical spot for picking a good player.

Also a player 6 picks later isn't irrelevant.  It would be a player available at that point.  Of course you could say that is true about a player 150 picks later but here again that would be a bit cumbersome to look at.  I'm not trying to look at the success of a player at a certain point in the draft but the chances of finding a good player at that point.  

Also a pick by Dallas , 6 picks later, was a player that was available to you.  At 16 that player is not, the next how many ever are.  

Do you actually disagree with the results?  Do you feel like the chance of finding a pro bowler at 16 is the same as 9?  If you have a better methodology I would love to hear it, its easy to point out "flaws".

Also I just wasn't looking to further the 9 vs 16 argument but also to show people that chasing need can be a bit dangerous in the first round.  People severely overestimate the amount of quality players in a draft, even in the first round.

 

You said yourself the sample size is too small for relevancy. So you don't arbitrarily expand the sample size using faulty logic and assume that makes things more relevant. At pick 16 we have hundreds of players to choose from. Why just pick 7. Why not pick 4 instead of 7. Why is pick 20 relevant and pick 30 not relevant unless you are arguing all those 7 picks are equal in value and more likely to be picked than one later in the draft. Truth is that you wanted to make the point that 9 is much better than 16 and that a team stands a much better chance of picking a probowler at 9 than 16. Then you massaged the numbers until it made sense and posted it. The error was that you went in with an agenda and found relevance to prove what you already believe. That isn't the scientific method.

Few picks are made without need factoring in. Even BPA is usually based on being in a position of need. How many quarterbacks have we drafted in the past 7 years since Cam was drafted. Now we are considering it. Why? Our need for a backup plan and eventual successor went way up with Cam's injury. We need to find someone in free agency or the draft.

My conclusion is that you can find probowlers up and down the first round. The number of the pick outside the top 5 isn't as important to me as who is doing the picking and how that player is going to be used. Hurney for example has found probowlers up and down the first round. Cleveland has had top 5 picks forever and how many probowlers? The number of the pick isn't as important as who is doing the picking.

[MHS831]

sure, but by winning,  we got some  major momentum heading into  2019.

 

I can't do this....

[AU-panther]

43 minutes ago, panthers55 said:

You said yourself the sample size is too small for relevancy. So you don't arbitrarily expand the sample size using faulty logic and assume that makes things more relevant. At pick 16 we have hundreds of players to choose from. Why just pick 7. Why not pick 4 instead of 7. Why is pick 20 relevant and pick 30 not relevant unless you are arguing all those 7 picks are equal in value and more likely to be picked than one later in the draft. Truth is that you wanted to make the point that 9 is much better than 16 and that a team stands a much better chance of picking a probowler at 9 than 16. Then you massaged the numbers until it made sense and posted it. The error was that you went in with an agenda and found relevance to prove what you already believe. That isn't the scientific method.

Few picks are made without need factoring in. Even BPA is usually based on being in a position of need. How many quarterbacks have we drafted in the past 7 years since Cam was drafted. Now we are considering it. Why? Our need for a backup plan and eventual successor went way up with Cam's injury. We need to find someone in free agency or the draft.

My conclusion is that you can find probowlers up and down the first round. The number of the pick outside the top 5 isn't as important to me as who is doing the picking and how that player is going to be used. Hurney for example has found probowlers up and down the first round. Cleveland has had top 5 picks forever and how many probowlers? The number of the pick isn't as important as who is doing the picking.

I picked 7 because at 9 you have access to 7 players you don't at 16.  Then I looked at how many of those 7 players made the Pro Bowl.  Then I also looked at the 7 players at 16 and after.  If I just looked at pick 16 that would only be a sample size of 8 which would be smaller than 56.  I don't care as much about the actual pick but the quality of player available at that point in the draft.  Which btw I think is pretty clear that your chances of finding a better talent is better at 9 than 16, a good bit better actually.

While I do agree you have hundreds of picks to choose from at any point in the draft the fact is the pool of players teams are picking from at certain points, especially in the first round is rather small.  Not many GMs are going to pick a player that most teams have with a third round grade at 9.  In the first round grades tend to be similar among teams.  That is the reason that most of the better pre draft list are pretty accurate when figuring out who all is going in the top 25 or so.

I would guess over the past 8 drafts at 9 or 16 any of those GMs pretty much had the same small groups of players graded for that spot.  You don't see much variance in the first round.

Here again, do you actually disagree with the results?  Do you feel like the chance of finding a pro bowler at 16 is the same as 9?  If you have a better methodology I would love to hear it, its easy to point out "flaws".

[Basbear]

I did the math on a few different value charts. In terms of raw value from 9 to 16 (each round) the overall value from each chart was a 2nd mid-rounder. Basically, the #46 overall pick is the difference.

 

 

I thought it would be a bigger difference, still COMPLETELY disagree with the win. Once you are mathematically eliminated from playoffs, start the young ones and lose all you can. Win the long battle. 

[cookinbrak]

Here's the reason we won. If you get pleasure out of this, go elsewhere.

[Basbear]

@cookinbrak would rather have the 3rd overall pick in the upcoming draft or that week 17 win?

[panthers55]

43 minutes ago, AU-panther said:

I picked 7 because at 9 you have access to 7 players you don't at 16.  Then I looked at how many of those 7 players made the Pro Bowl.  Then I also looked at the 7 players at 16 and after.  If I just looked at pick 16 that would only be a sample size of 8 which would be smaller than 56.  I don't care as much about the actual pick but the quality of player available at that point in the draft.  Which btw I think is pretty clear that your chances of finding a better talent is better at 9 than 16, a good bit better actually.

While I do agree you have hundreds of picks to choose from at any point in the draft the fact is the pool of players teams are picking from at certain points, especially in the first round is rather small.  Not many GMs are going to pick a player that most teams have with a third round grade at 9.  In the first round grades tend to be similar among teams.  That is the reason that most of the better pre draft list are pretty accurate when figuring out who all is going in the top 25 or so.

I would guess over the past 8 drafts at 9 or 16 any of those GMs pretty much had the same small groups of players graded for that spot.  You don't see much variance in the first round.

Here again, do you actually disagree with the results?  Do you feel like the chance of finding a pro bowler at 16 is the same as 9?  If you have a better methodology I would love to hear it, its easy to point out "flaws".

Do you have the same chance to find a probowlers at 16 than 9? If you are the Panthers you likely do. If you are Cleveland it doesn't matter, you won't find a probowler either pick. That is the point. It isn't the number of the pick it is the skill of the picker to match the pick with what you need for your team that matters. 

[AU-panther]

8 minutes ago, panthers55 said:

Do you have the same chance to find a probowlers at 16 than 9? If you are the Panthers you likely do. If you are Cleveland it doesn't matter, you won't find a probowler either pick. That is the point. It isn't the number of the pick it is the skill of the picker to match the pick with what you need for your team that matters. 

so the highly skilled "picker"  has the same chance of finding a pro bowler at 20 as he does 1?

I'll put the results a different way and people can view them how they like

Historically speaking, over the last 8 years the seven players that have been available at pick at pick 9, but not pick 16 (so picks 9-15), have gone to more Pro Bowls and been named All Pro more than the first seven picks after 15 (picks 16-22).  As matter a fact,  a good bit more, twice as much for the All Pros. 

How you want to interpret that is up to you and anyone who chooses to read this thread.  Common sense would tell me the further down you go in the first round the less of a chance you have of finding an elite player.  I think most reasonable people would agree with that.  I was just trying to put a metric to it.

If you have a better way to quantify it go ahead.  Also I think the percentages of players actually turning out to be Pro Bowlers and All Pros is those ranges are a lot lower than most people think.