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

[KB_fan]

I was checking out the PFF "Panthers draft board" article quickly this morning.  

https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2016/04/21/draft-pff-draft-board-carolina-panthers/

I'm not really sure I follow how they determine how the Panthers might rank a player. 

For what it's worth, here are the corners they list.

Player	School	"PFF Board"	"Panthers Board"
Jalen Ramsey	Florida State	3	2
William Jackson III	Houston	15	13
Vernon Hargreaves	Florida	18	15
Kalan Reed	Southern Miss	56	35
De'Vante Harris	Texas A&M	72	42
Cre'Von LeBlanc	Florida Atlantic	93	54
Cyrus Jones	Alabama	77	61
Xavien Howard	Baylor	80	64
Mackenzie Alexander	Clemson	21	66
Nick VanHoose	Northwestern	87	67
Tavon Young	Temple	116	73
Kendall Fuller	Virginia Tech	132	95
Kevin Peterson	Oklahoma State	94	97
Taveze Calhoun	Mississippi State	143	107
Will Redmond	Mississippi State	117	121
Eli Apple	Ohio State	30	134
Eric Murray	Minnesota	148	134
Terrell Chestnut	West Virginia	130	141
D.J. White	Georgia Tech	149	141
Artie Burns	Miami	141	146

[Catufb85]

Dang KB amazing work there.  First thoughts off this information is I don't see Gettleman reaching for a round 2 CB in the first. I see it going DLine in 1st and CB/WR in 2nd as the guys we like are still there. Artie Burns, Sterling, Fuller, Boyd, Braxton, etc. I say prolly 1st DL, 2nd WR, 3rd CB based on your charts.  Crossing my fingers for 1st Dodd, 2nd Sterling 3rd Best CB available. 

[KB_fan]

Packed full day today for work and get-togethers with friends today & tomorrow.  Not sure when I'll get a chance to post for Safeties, and DEs and DTs.  Maybe later tonight, but possibly not until Sat. night or Sun a.m...

[Jimmy]

I'm a stat/spreadsheet geek myself...I use them all day/everyday at work. As much as I like and appreciate everything in this thread even I'm overwhelmed with the amount of analysis. 

I'm getting that "paralysis by analysis" feeling. 

Still though, great work KB

[Daeavorn]

This is an awesome thread. Great job KB

[KB_fan]

Got a bit of time I can devote to finishing up the posts re: the remaining positions on defense.  Since I started with the CBs, let me continue in the secondary with the Safetles:

I've included Cravens here since I assume Panthers interest in him is as a potential safety.

Safeties came up as BPA in at least one round in 9 of the 14 mocks included here.  Round 2 and Round 5 were the easiest place to find safeties as BPA.

For those who are fans of Cravens, although I only picked him twice in the 2nd, he could have been picked in 10 of the drafts in round 2.  For Bell he was only there for 4 drafts in round 2.

I've read a lot of love here on the Huddle for Killebrew.  In these mocks we could get him in the 3rd in 6 of the 14 drafts without a trade.  A trade up to 87 increases that chance to 9 of 14.

In the past week or two folks have been talking about Byard.  He could be a 5th round pick, or maybe even later...

 

Here's the availability analysis

[KB_fan]

Ok, now for DEs:

Here are the players I analyzed.

I know there are other good DEs out there, but I focused on those with grades suggesting they'll be picked in rounds 1 - 5, and those with whom the Panthers have visited.  The others I included were largely because they came up as BPA in a round in one of my mocks, meaning I selected them.

 

Here's how the mocks shook out:

I snagged one of these DEs in 11 of the 14 drafts.  Six in round 1; One in round 2; Three in Round 4; One in Round 5 (discount that one... in real life Nassib would never be there in round 5).

But of course, there was greater opportunity to get some of these players.  I picked Dodd 5 times (the most of any player I picked in these 14 drafts).  But I could have picked him TWELVE times.  The other 2 times he was picked at 27.... SO for now, if these drafts are accurate, it looks like he's very much in reach.

Ogbah was much less in reach.  He was available in round 1 only SIX times, and he was picked 7 times at 24.... a much bigger trade up cost.

Here's the full availability analysis:

Note:  Lawson never fell lower than pick #24, and was usually gone in the top 12, so I think we can wave goodbye to hopes of picking him....

Based on this Dodd looks to be our guy in round 1.  (Or Bullard if we consider him a DE and worthy of a round 1 pick.... I've included him in the DT analysis that I'll post next)

[KB_fan]

OK, and lastly, DTs.  (Sorry, we've not visited with enough LBs for me to focus a draft analysis on them!)

Here are the 10 players I focused on:

Here's how the mock drafts I did ended up:

There was no one DT that kept coming up as BPA for us.  Rounds 2, 3 and 4 seemed to be where there were the best choices among DTs.  I picked a DT in 10 of 14 drafts.

Here's the availability analysis.

What I found interesting was that the players we've visited with and the players frequently available don't really match up.  In these drafts I most often could pick Bullard, Ridgeway, Day, Willie Henry (aka Henry #3) and Hargrave.  Yet we're not reported to be pursuing any of them.   Hmmmmm..... 

 

Thanks to those of you who've followed and pied these posts.  Sorry for the paralysis by analysis!  You'll all likely have a respite from my posts the next week.  We have a VIP visiting next week, and I'll be busy in meetings with him and government officials, etc...  I may get a few minutes to read the Huddle, but can't foresee doing anymore draft analysis now.

It's been fun.  We'll see come draft time if any of it served as a useful predictor for how the draft will shake out.  Probably not, but only time will tell!!!

[Norway]

A big thanx to @KB_fan for posting these statistics, it makes the draft much more fun if you have a "cheat sheet" next to you during at least the first couple of rounds. The last two years I've had KB, Shaq, Devin and Kony on my own cheat sheet of approx. 20 players I thought the panthers would would choose from in the first two rounds. This year I'm going to go for @KB_fan  thorough analysis. No need to even try to do make your own cheet sheet when you look at the quality of these

[KB_fan]

17 minutes ago, Norway said:

A big thanx to @KB_fan for posting these statistics, it makes the draft much more fun if you have a "cheat sheet" next to you during at least the first couple of rounds. The last two years I've had KB, Shaq, Devin and Kony on my own cheat sheet of approx. 20 players I thought the panthers would would choose from in the first two rounds. This year I'm going to go for @KB_fan  thorough analysis. No need to even try to do make your own cheet sheet when you look at the quality of these

Thanks Norway.  [Are you actually living in Norway?  If so, what area?  Such a beautiful country.  Had the pleasure to visit there a long time ago (1989), and I have good friends from Norway (near Trondheim) who used to work with me in Africa ]

I do hope these cheat sheats are helpful.  Do keep in mind however that they are based solely on the big boards at fanspeak, some of which are more reliable than others.

Given that this is my first year paying close attention to the draft, I'm pretty much a newbie at this and not necessarily sure what sources of data to trust.   The analysis I did may be pretty worthless if the data I used is garbage!!

I realized there was a big risk of that.... but I wanted to at least create a methodology to do a predicted availability analysis.  In the future if I know which draft analysts and mocks are most reliable, hopefully it will be even more useful.

In case it's helpful, I know it's an "inferior site" according to many here, but I do want to post the link to a helpful draft cheat sheet over at C-S-R.   Caution:  it relies very heavily on Mayock's top 100, but the layout is very helpful I think, and it's given me ideas for some things to do in the future:

http://www.derp/2016/4/26/11510476/mike-mayocks-top-100-integrated-into-my-draft-value-board

I like how it's split by offense / defense, and grouped by position.  It really shows you at a glance where one is likely to find the best values at a given position.  E.g. LOTS of CBs available in rounds 3 - 7.   DEs, pretty much gone after the 4th?!?!

 

 

[Norway]

9 minutes ago, KB_fan said:

In case it's helpful, I know it's an "inferior site" according to many here, but I do want to post the link to a helpful draft cheat sheet over at C-S-R.   Caution:  it relies very heavily on Mayock's top 100, but the layout is very helpful I think, and it's given me ideas for some things to do in the future:

http://www.derp/2016/4/26/11510476/mike-mayocks-top-100-integrated-into-my-draft-value-board

I'll take a look, thanks again. Yeah, I'm Norwegian. Lived in Oslo my whole life except for one year from 2011-2012, when I lived in Charlotte. Very happy it coincidentally was the same summer Cam came out of the draft, and that the holdout that summer never came to fruition. If that had been the case I would have never been a big Panthers fan today since I had never watched a game of football before that (maybe one SB)

[KB_fan]

Not related to draft availability per say.... but,

Speaking of draft analysis, I spent a little time this a.m. looking at that consensus ranking of players combining 40 big boards that someone linked here yesterday (apologies can't remember who linked it).

http://coldomaha.com/2016/vikings/premiering-the-2016-nfl-consensus-big-board/

While at that site, I discovered two other really interesting articles:

1) An article comparing "evaluator" boards vs. "forecaster" draft boards  and how that affects trying to compile a consensus board

http://coldomaha.com/2016/vikings/2016-nfl-consensus-board-evaluating-vs-forecasting/

This is something I've wondered about.  I've been unsure how many of the boards at fanspeak might be forecaster boards more than evaluator boards....  This is an area I need to understand better if I'm going to try and assess draft availability and a player's true value...

 

2) An article examining which position groups in the draft are deepest

http://coldomaha.com/2016/vikings/nfl-draft-2016-what-position-groups-are-the-deepest/

It looks at two metrics:  bot the total talent of all the draft prospects for each position, but also how they are spaced by round.

Here's how his analysis of depth by position shapes up.  Safeties are the position with the greatest number of top prospects over the expected number in the top 100, (but they are mostly in rounds 2 - 4, not the 1st).   Edge rushers - there's some great talent at the top, but it's shallow.  Get one early or you're likely not to get one.
 

Quote

 

In order to determine the overall class’ “strength” at a position, I used the well-known Jimmy Johnson trade-value board to give points to each player for each ranking a player was given and added up all the points for each position. The position with the most points is the strongest, but that does not mean it was the deepest.

We’ll limit our look to the Top 100, because it seems reasonable that a good litmus test for a “deep” positional class is having a high likelihood of selecting a “second-Round” talent in the fourth round. Here are the strongest positions in the Top 100 of the consensus board in the 2016 NFL draft:

Position	Top 100 Points	Rank
ID	19013.3	1
ED	13932.2	2
CB	11770.0	3
OT	11582.0	4
WR	11532.7	5
OB	10749.1	6
RB	7416.2	7
S	6271.0	8
QB	5690.1	9
OG	3545.8	10
C	2578.2	11
TE	2449.1	12

It’s not a huge surprise that the defensive interior has the majority of the talent. It increases quite a bit more if one considers Jonathan Bullard and Joey Bosa as interior players, as some analysts do. Does having that incredible strength of talent also lead to incredible depth across players?

There are two ways to measure this: the first is measuring how many players are in the top 100 at each position and comparing that to how many are “expected” based on the points chart above, and the second is to simply give points for having players in each talent tier.

So, let’s look at how many players a position group has over the expected:

Top 100 Players Over Expected
S	1.7
OG	1.1
RB	1.1
C	1.1
TE	0.7
ID	0.2
WR	0.2
CB	-0.5
QB	-0.8
OB	-1.0
ED	-1.5
OT	-1.8

In this case, the safety guard, running back and center classes are relatively deep given their talent level, while tackle, edge defender, and off-ball linebacker are top-heavy relative to how much talent they have. With this in mind, we can categorize the groups.

Position	Description
ID	Strong and Average Depth
ED	Strong and Shallow
WR	Average Strength and Average Depth
CB	Average Strength and Shallow
OT	Average Strength and Shallow
OB	Average Strength and Shallow
RB	Average Strength and Deep
S	Weak and Deep
QB	Weak and Shallow
OG	Weak and Deep
C	Weak and Deep
TE	Weak and Average Depth

 

 

 

[MHS831]

Awesome KB.  Please---never get a girlfriend or wife.

If you do have one, thank her from us.

 

[L-TownCat]

 

Awesome KB.  Please---never get a girlfriend or wife.

If you do have one, thank her from us.

 

Well KB_fan is a wife.  Lol

Ladies like football and spreadsheets too guys!