DRAFT AVAILABILITY ANALYSIS for Players who've visited, and other key prospects

[dldove77]

Really great work on this!

[KB_fan]

In case it's of interest, here are the results for the Panthers of all 14 mock drafts from which those availability tables are derived.

Note, I generally followed a BPA strategy (based on each board's rankings, not my own, so sometimes I picked a player much higher than I would have in real life if that board had a player ranked highly),  I generally avoided QBs and LBs.  I mostly avoided double dipping unless there wasn't an obvious alternate pick.  I tried to focus on picking players who have visited with the Panthers, but not always.

All these drafts were done between 4/16 - 4/18 BEFORE THE EAGLES TRADE.  That obviously will change how the mock drafts shake out, but maybe since we pick so late it will have less of an impact on who is available at #30.

No trades were involved.  All of these picks were at our normal positions:  #30, #62, #93, #129, #168.  I only did 5 round mocks. 

Draft 1:  NFL Board updated 4/13

1. DE KEVIN DODD

2. OLB SU'A CRAVENS

3. CB CYRUS JONES

4. DT SHELDON DAY

5. CB DARYL WORLEY

 

 

Draft 2:  Fanspeak Board, updated 4/12

1. DE JONATHAN BULLARD

2. TE HUNTER HENRY

3. CB KEIVARAE RUSSELL

4. S MILES KILLEBREW

5. OT JOE HAEG

 

Draft 3 - Draftek Board, updated 4/6

1. OLB KEVIN DODD

2. TE HUNTER HENRY

3. DT JAVON HARGRAVE

4. CB ZACK SANCHEZ

5. OT WILLIE BEAVERS

 

Draft 4 - CBS Board, updated 4/12

1. DE EMMANUEL OGBAH

2. TE HUNTER HENRY

3. DT CHRIS JONES

4. CB HARLAN MILLER

5. OT BRANDON SHELL

 

Draft 5:  Walter Football, updated 4/18

1. CB VERNON HARGREAVES

2. OLB KAMALEI CORREA

3. RB C.J. PROSISE

4. DT HASSAN RIDGEWAY

5. S K.J. DILLON

 

Draft 6: Arrowhead Board - updated 4/15

1. DE KEVIN DODD

2. WR STERLING SHEPARD

3. RB CJ PROSISE

4. CB DEIONDRE HALL

5. OT JOE HAEG

 

Draft 7 - NFL Board

1. DE KEVIN DODD

2. G GERMAIN IFEDI

3. CB WILL REDMOND

4. DT DAVID ONYEMATA

5. S KAVON FRAZIER

 

Draft 8 - Matt Miller Board (updated 4/6

)

1. WR MICHAEL THOMAS

2. DT JONATHAN BULLARD

3. S DEANDRE HOUSTON-CARSON

4. RB CJ PROSISE

5. DE CARL NASSIB

 

Draft 9 - CBS

1. OT JACK CONKLIN

2. RB DERRICK HENRY

3. CB CYRUS JONES

4. DE MATT JUDON

5. S KJ DILLON

 

Draft 10: Draftek

1. OT TAYLOR DECKER

2. TE HUNTER HENRY

3. DT JAVON HARGRAVE

4. WRF WILHELM BOEHRINGER

5. CB HARLAN MILLER

 

Draft 11 - Inside the Pylon, updated 4/6

1. CB WILLIAM JACKSON III

2. DT VERNON BUTLER

3. G GRAHAM GLASGOW

4. DE JAMES COWSER

5. FB GLENN GRONKOWSKI

 

Draft 12: Fanspeak

1. OT JACK CONKLIN

2. RB DERRICK HENRY

3. DT SHELDON DAY

4. CB CYRUS JONES

5. S JAYRON KEARSE

 

Draft 13: NFL

1. DE KEVIN DODD

2. OLB SU'A CRAVENS

3. CB HARLAN MILLER

4. RB KENYAN DRAKE

5. OT JOE HAEG

 

Draft 14: CBS

1. OT JACK CONKLIN

2. S KEANU NEAL

3. WR STERLING SHEPARD

4. DE MATT JUDON

5. CB DARYL WORLEY

 

So, what do you think Huddlers?  Any of these drafts catch your fancy?  Are you pleased with this selection of players?  Do you think these picks are realistic without trades?

Personally, I still have trouble believing that Hunter Henry will fall to us so often in Round 2, or that Sterling Shepard would ever fall to us in Round 3.  But I'll love it if it happens!

[KB_fan]

I'm about to start listing the players & results of this analysis sorted by position. 
Apologies if it's information overload.  Hope it's enjoyable and helpful for some.  For me, I've never done anything like this before.  I've put in the time largely out of curiosity to see how close this type of projection comes to representing the reality of the draft.... we shall see!

By the way, if there are any other key players of interest who are not included in the 85 or so players listed in these tables, feel free to post the names here.  If I do get a chance to do some additional mock drafts over the weekend (in the wake of the Eagles' trade...) I could possibly include a few more players.

[KB_fan]

I'll be posting  sets of tables for each position:

1:  Details about the players, including height, weight, NFL.com grade, school.

2. Details about where each player was picked in the 14 mock drafts I did.  Yellow indicates a player not picked in rounds 1-5, thus given a draft position of "176" (which is the start of round 6).  Obviously the real pick position for some of these players would have been usually much later if I'd done a 7 round draft.

(Blue indicates a player I selected for the Panthers at one of our picks.  In some cases I didn't like the way the boards turned up and kind of picked a bit randomly... While I tried to pick players I know have visited with us, or whom many on the Huddle seemed excited about, in a few cases I just picked BPA without carefully researching a player. Thus there may be a few surprises.  Remember different boards rank players differently, so there are some very major discrepancies for some players, and in some cases I picked a player who would have been a big reach on another board at that position, but who was BPA on the board I was using.)

3.  The availability analysis showing how often (% of the 14 drafts) a player was available to us at our picks, without any trades.

[Zaximus]

This deserves a sticky

[Bartin]

Rumors swirling that VH3 failed his drug test at the combine. CB we would have previously seen as having no chance of falling to us at 30 could very well be there at 30 if true. I don't think Gettleman would take someone stupid enough to fail the damn combine test but who knows. He'd definitely be BPA and fill a huge need given yesterday's happenings but ignoring a red flag that big would be out of character for DG.

[KB_fan]

1 minute ago, Bartin said:

Rumors swirling that VH3 failed his drug test at the combine. CB we would have previously seen as having no chance of falling to us at 30 could very well be there at 30 if true. I don't think Gettleman would take someone stupid enough to fail the damn combine test but who knows. He'd definitely be BPA and fill a huge need given yesterday's happenings but ignoring a red flag that big would be out of character for DG.

Ah that explains why he's been falling farther down in round 1 much more often.  thanks.

[KB_fan]

OK.... starting off with the O-Line:

Here are the players I analyzed with details of height, weight, school, NFL.com draft grade.   All these tables are sorted in average mock draft position, from highest (1) to lowest (175 - the end of round 5).  (Rank and grade from the NFL.com draft tracker are as of about 2 weeks ago.  Sorry I didn't get a chance to update.  Hopefully there have not been massive changes)

Players shaded light blue are those reported to have visited with the Panthers.

Now for the details of the mock drafts:

Now for a summary of the round each player was picked, and then what that means in terms of availability at the Panthers pick positions:

Center:

Ryan Kelly is most often being picked in rounds 2 & 3.  We can't get him in 3 without trading, and only have a slim chance to get him in round 2.  We have a modest chance of getting Glasgow in round 4.

OT/OG:

I was surprised at Conklin falling to our pick in round 1 in four of the 14 drafts.  He was BPA on the board 3 times, and so I picked him on those occasions.  In real life I'm less convinced this is realistic.

Spriggs & Ifedi look like we could get them consistently in round 1.  To get them in 2 we'd likely have to trade up.

Haeg & Beavers - looks like we have a good shot to get them in the 3rd or 4th... or even later.

If we like Shell, based on these mocks, we have a very high chance of getting him in round 5 or later.

We're not going to get an elite OT without some serious trading... but it does look like we have some options out there.

Who would you pick in these scenarios, Huddle?

[Bartin]

45 minutes ago, KB_fan said:

Ah that explains why he's been falling farther down in round 1 much more often.  thanks.

It's just rumors at this point with really nothing substantive at all so I don't know how much it has been factored into mock drafts and what not. A week or so ago there was a tweet from a somewhat reputable college reporter that a 1st round SEC CB failed his combine test(VH3 is the only one that could be) and then today a couple tweets about a possible 1st rounder failing his combine test. Apparently, teams haven't even been notified about the results from the combine drug tests yet which is really strange considering the draft is 7 days from now and that would seem like some pretty important information to know right about now.

[KB_fan]

Now for the Skill Players on Offense - part 1.  I'll post WRs separately since it's a longish list.

 

Here are the details of where the players were picked in each Mock:

 

And here's the availability analysis - the breakdown of what round players were picked, and whether they were available at our picks:

 

QB: 

If for some reason we want one?!?!  We'd probably need to aim for Prescott in round 3 or Allen in round 4.  (I think there's also another QB we've visited with, but that would be a later round selection, not relevant to rounds 1 - 5.)

 

FB:

We've not met with Baby Gronk to my knowledge.  I threw his name in here for fun and because he came up BPA in round 5 in one of the drafts.  (Earlier in the offseason he was showing up BPA for us in round 7 VERY often.  As this is only a 5 round draft analysis, I can't really project if he'd be there for us in round 7.  My sense is he has been going in round 6 or early in round 7 now.)  To my knowledge there's no fullback we'd target in rounds 1 - 5.

 

RB:

In addition to Derrick Henry, Drake and Ferguson, I looked at a few other RBs Huddlers have often been talking about...

Ok, the burning question:  What about D. Henry?!?   I got him twice at #62, and could have also gotten him a 3rd time at #62, but there was another player who was higher on the board.  If we are willing to trade up 6 spots to 56 that increases our change of getting him to 57%  (8 of 14 drafts he was available at #56).  Very interesting that he was NEVER picked in round 1.  So, I would think smallish trade up in round 2 would be needed to get him.  #56 is a lot better than trying to trade up to something like #43.

• Booker has solid availability in round 2.
• Collins & Prosise would probably be there for us in round 3.
• Drake in round 4
• Ferguson in round 5.

There are seemingly solid running back options in pretty much every round.  Depends on who we like, who fits our offense.

 

Now for the OTHER Henry.... a look at the TEs:

Hunter Henry was BPA at our pick in round 2 FOUR times in the 14 drafts and available to us in round 2 a total of 11 of the 14 drafts.  If we really like him (no evidence of that for sure since there is no reported visit with him) AND if these mocks are at all accurate, we can very possibly get him without a trade up in round 2.  It's hard to get a feel for whether there are TE-needy teams ahead of us who would claim him in round 2.  I have trouble believing he'll fall so often to #62.

To get either Hooper or Vannett, looks like we'd need to grab them in round 3.  I believe we're also looking at some late round TEs as well, but I didn't do that analysis.

 

[KB_fan]

Rounding out the Offense - the WRs.

We've visited with a lot of wideouts.  I didn't add a lot of names to flesh out the analysis.  (There are also some other WRs projected for later rounds whom we've met with and who are not included in this list.)

 

Here are the details of the WR picks from all of the 14 mock drafts.

As you can see, there's not a lot of blue showing up in the mock draft columns.  I only managed to pick a WR as true BPA on the board 4 times in the 14 drafts. .... that's not to say that one couldn't be available.  It just might require reaching a bit or trading up...

Do note however the sea of yellow in the bottom of the table... those yellow cells in the table indicate a player was not drafted in rounds 1 - 5.  This may not be an ELITE WR class, but it is a deep class....  So... if we like any of these bottom 5 guys, or a few other of the late round prospects not included in this table, we might be able to pick one in round 7 or get them as a UDFA (as we did with Corey Brown in 2014).  Of course, without doing an analysis of rounds 6 & 7, (and given that we have no pick in the 6th....) it's hard to know for sure which of these guys we might realistically be able to get.

 

Here's the availability analysis for each of the Panthers' picks:

We should assume Treadwell & Coleman are out of play.... though, I'll try to see if anything changes on this given the shake up in the draft order given the Eagles trade yesterday.

I added Doctson & Thomas out of curiosity.  Based on this analysis, both could be available to us at the end of round 1 (11 of 14 drafts they were on the board.)

What about Sterling Shepard, whom a lot of us, myself included, are very interested in?  Surprisingly, he was never picked in the 1st.  So, if this is reasonably accurate at predicting reality, if we like him enough, he'd almost certainly be there in round 1.  He was BPA for my picks in round 2 twice.  But I *COULD* have picked him in round 2 a total of 5 times.  (36%)  Not too bad.   If we want to up the chance of getting him, a trade up to #55 would snag him 11 of the 14 drafts.  Again, not quite as onerous as trying to trade up into the low 40s.  Possibly doable if these mocks are accurate.  That excites me!

Miller & Cooper are there most of the time in round 2, and a fair bit in round 3....  And then there all the later round WR projects available in round 5 and beyond It will be interesting to see which, if any, of these players we draft.

[KB_fan]

I have to take a break now to focus on some other task... I'll see if I can post the tables for the defensive positions tonight.

[KB_fan]

Ok, now for the tables and analysis of the defense.

We'll start with the newly-burning position of interest - Cornerback:

In addition to 7 of the CBs we've shown interest in, I also included 6 others who came up BPA at one of our picks in these mocks, or players Huddlers have expressed interest in. 

I didn't include Jalen Ramsey or Eli Apple, since both were off the board in every draft before we picked.  Apple did fall to 23 or 25 in four of the mocks (he was usually picked in the low teens).  Ramsey was off the board by pick #7 in every draft.

 

Here's the draft pick breakdown for these players for all of the mocks:

Of particular interest in the wake of the Josh Norman news, I was able to snag a corner as BPA or very close to BPA in 13 of the 14 drafts above.  (There were options in the 14th draft too - Jackson in round 1; Fuller in round 2... but there were other players above them I liked better)

These were the CBs I snagged:  Hargreaves  once  (we can dream...),  Jackson once,  Redmond once, Sanchez once, C Jones 3 times, H Miller 3 times, Russell once, Hall once, Worley twice.  

But had I been targeting a particular corner, the results could have been better:

• Hargreaves was only available once  (round 1)
• Alexander was only available once  (round 1)
• Jackson was available 7 times  (all round 1)
• Burns was available to us in round 1 (a reach?) in all 14 drafts.  Never in round 2 without a trade up.  A trade up to 53-58 could have snagged him 4 times in the 2nd.
• Fuller was available in round 1 in all 14 drafts, and round 2 in 4 of the drafts.  A trade up to 44 would have snagged him in 10 of the 14 drafts
• Redmond was available to us 6 times at pick #62.  Trading up to 58-60 would have snagged him 12 times in round 2.  He was also available on some boards in round 3 (3 times).
• Sanchez was available 11 of 14 times at our pick in round 2 (the other 3 times he was picked at #58-60, so not a big trade up needed to get him.)  He was available 4 times in round 3 at our normal pick, but a trade up to #89 would double that availability to 8 opportunities to grab him in the 3rd.  He was also even available twice in round 4.
• Cyrus Jones always available in round 2. Available 50% of the time in round 3.
• Harlan Miller - a lot of discrepancy in how different boards rank him, so he was a bit all over the place.  Available to us 11 of 14 times in round 2;   7 of 14 times in round 3.

 

Here is the summary of when players were picked and their availability to us:

 

[KB_fan]

Note: even though I didn't include all the CBs in the table above, I have my mock drafts saved in Excel, so I could look up when other CBs were picked.  So if there's some CB that's particularly of interest now in the wake of Josh's departure, post the names here and I'll try to add them to the CB summary.

Some of the guys I skipped include:

• Rashard Robinson
• DJ White
• Xavian Howard
• Eric Murray
• Leshaun Sims
• Juston Burris
• Anthony Brown
• Lloyd Carrington
• Maurice Canady
• Kevon Seymour

I believe a few of these guys are good players, but since Panthers were not reported to have met with them I skipped them in the analysis.  Who should I include now that we're all eager to know who will save us at CB?!  LOL!