FanPost

Sunday Morning Geekout: Draft Capital

First of all, mad props to BEZERK0, for this post: The Falcons Front Office and Coaching Staff Have Focused on Building the Defense 1st From 2008 Till Now. BEZERK0 breaks down, round by round, the Falcon's picks on offense and on defense. But, even within a round, the value of draft picks can vary greatly. That got me thinking (and being geeky) about how much draft value the Falcons have really invested in offense and in defense, and how to quantify it.

So... is there a way to value each pick against other picks? Well, of course there is: the draft trade value chart, one version of which is here: NFL Draft Value Chart. With this, we can assign a certain value to each pick, and we can look at it as a kind of currency. Each draft, each team is given picks worth a certain amount of this currency to use or to trade with other teams - I'll call it "Draft Capital" (DC) until a clever Falcoholic comes up with a better name (DraftDollars? PickBucks?)

The NFL Draft Value chart doesn't value compensatory picks, because they can't be traded. But, the Falcons have had compensatory picks, so we'll need to figure out a value for them. For rounds 1-6, we'll just give them a value of the midpoint between pick 32 and pick 1 of the next round. For round 7, we'll just use the value of the last pick. That looks like this:

Round 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Value 585 267.5 114 43.5 27.2 14.4 2

And, here are some caveats. First, his draft value chart is the generally published one, but each team has their own, and we don't know what the Falcons' draft chart looks like. Also, this draft chart is from a time before the new Collective Bargaining Agreement. With the new CBA significantly reducing the cost of high draft picks, the cost/benefit and cost/risk factors of those picks make them a lot more valuable, and (as far as I know) the chart has not been updated to reflect this. Of course, you can question the validity of this analysis altogether. Is Matt Ryan really worth over a thousand Kemal Ishmaels?

So, understanding that this analysis is for entertainment purposes only, how have the Falcons in the Dimitroff era spent their Draft Capital? Let's look, year-by-year.

2008

Player Round Pick Offense Defense
Matt Ryan 1 3 2200
Sam Baker 1 21 800
Curtis Lofton 2 6 520
Chevis Jackson 3 5 245
Harry Douglas 3 21 165
Thomas DeCoud 3 35 114
Robert James 5 3 41
Kroy Bierman 5 19 32.6
Thomas Brown 6 6 25
Wilrey Fontenot 7 5 12.6
Keith Zinger 7 25 4.6
Total 4159.8 3194.6 965.2
Percentage 76.8% 23.2%

So, in 2008, The Falcons spent about three quarters of their Draft Capital on offense, with 3000 of their 3194 DC used in the first round on Matt Ryan and Sam Baker.

2009

Player Round Pick Offense Defense
Peria Jerry 1 24 740
William Moore 2 23 350
Chris Owens 3 26 140
Lawrence Sidburu 4 25 52
William Middleton 5 2 42
Garrett Reynolds 5 20 32.2
Spencer Adkins 6 3 26.2
Vance Walker 7 1 14.2
Total 1396.6 32.2 1364.4
Percentage 2.3% 97.8%

2009 is the most lopsided year, with only 2.3% DC spent on offense (and that on a single player).

2010

Player Round Pick Offense Defense
Sean Weatherspoon 1 19 875
Corey Peters 3 19 175
Mike Johnson 3 34 114
Joe Hawley 4 19 64
Dominique Franks 5 4 40
Kerry Meier 5 34 27.2
Shann Shillinger 6 2 26.6
Total 1321.8 205.2 1116.6
Percentage 15.5% 84.5%

A seemingly balanced draft (4 defense vs 3 offense), but with much more DC spent on the defense. The 2010 draft is headlined by Sean Weatherspoon and Corey Peters, but with Mike Johnson and Joe Hawley in the mix.

2011

Player Round Pick Offense Defense
Julio Jones 1 6 1600
Akeem Dent 3 27 136
Jacquizz Rodgers 5 14 35
Matt Bosher 6 27
Andrew Jackson 7 7 11.8
Cliff Matthews 7 27 3.8
Total 1786.6 1646.8 139.8
Percentage 92.2% 7.8%

Ah, 2011, the year of Julio. The Falcons spent much of their DC, and even borrowed some from future years, to take Ju. 89.6% of their 2011 DC went for Julio.

2012

Player Round Pick Offense Defense
Peter Konz 2 23 350
Lamar Holmes 3 28 132
Bradie Ewing 5 23 31
Jonathan Massaquoi 5 29 28.6
Charles Mitchell 6 22 16.6
Travian Robertson 7 42 2
Total 560.2 513 47.2
Percentage 91.6% 8.4%

Ah, 2012, the year after Julio. It's heavily skewed towards offense, but that doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things, since we only had 560.2 DC to play with.

2013

Player Round Pick Offense Defense
Desmond Trufant 1 22 780
Robert Alford 2 28 300
Malliciah Goodman 4 30 46
Levine Toilolo 4 36 43.5
Stansley Maponga 5 20 32.2
Kemal Ishmael 7 37 2
Zeke Motta 7 38 2
Sean Renfree 7 43 2
Total 1207.7 45.5 1162.2
Percentage 3.8% 96.2

Another defense-heavy draft, with 96.2% DC spent on that side of the ball, and Desmond Trufant and Robert Alford in the fold to show for it.

2014

Player Round Pick Offense Defense
Jake Matthews 1 6 1600
Ra'Shede Hageman 2 5 530
Dezman Southward 3 4 250
Devonta Freeman 4 3 104
Prince Shembo 4 39 43.5
Ricardo Allen 5 7 38.5
Marquis Spruill 5 28 29
Yawin Smallwood 7 38 2
Tyler Starr 7 40 2
Total 2599 1704 895
Percentage 65.6% 34.4%

2014 was the most balanced draft so far, with a roughly 65/35 split. That's due to one high-value player on offense, and a lot of lower-rounders on defense.

Overall

Offense Defense
Players 19 35
Total Draft Capital 7341.3 5690.4
Percentage 56.3% 43.7%
Avg DC per player 386.38 162.58

Overall, the split is pretty even (56% to 44%), but there's something else interesting in the numbers. The Falcons have drafted nearly twice as many defensive players as offensive, yet they've invested more DC in the offense. In fact, they spent nearly twice as much DC per player on offense than defense. Is this indicative of a Falcons strategy? Invest in offensive quality and defensive quantity?

The Falcon's garage, along with Cadillacs and Yugos, has three Lamborghinis. A total of 41.4% of all of their DC, for all of the seven years of the Dimitroff era, has been spent on three players, all on offense: Matt Ryan (2200), Julio Jones (1600) and Jake Matthews (1600). The next highest Falcons draft pick under those three is Sean Weatherspoon at 875, just a bit above half of the DC of Jones or Matthews. That shows how heavily the draft chart favors the high first round picks, and how that skews this analysis. In fact, a DC-balanced draft will be rare, since it will usually be dominated by the first-round pick.

Well, I'm about done being geeky for now. What do you think, fellow Falcoholics? Does this show a Falcons draft strategy? Or, do the first-round numbers skew the results too much? How would this look if the Falcons had pulled off a deal for the #1 pick and drafted Clowney? Discuss!

<em>This FanPost was written by one of The Falcoholic's talented readers. It does not necessarily reflect the views of The Falcoholic.</em>