The Draft Urgency Index

[Man Strength]

the national football post has been running a series of articles by draftmetrics.com. I have found most of them to be useless, until today. The idea is to find value groups (draft pick groups) where certain positions have historically produced players that turn into 5 year starters based on draft data from 1993-2006

http://www.nationalf...ency-Index.html

• The historic probability of drafting a five-year starter at a particular playing position in a Value Group, divided by

• The historic probability of drafting a five-year starter at that same playing position in all later

Value Groups, times

• 100

For example, 64.0% of wide receivers drafted in the first 13 selections have gone on to become five-year starters while 13.0% of wide receivers drafted after that have achieved that status. So the Urgency Index is 492, calculated as 64.0%/13.0%, or 4.92, multiplied by 100.

The following table shows the Index for each playing position in the first six Value Groups. There is no Index for picks 190 and later (Value Group 7) because there are no later draft selections to consider.

A higher Index means that history suggests there is more urgency to draft a player at a given playing position in that Value Group. An index of 100 means that players drafted later have had the exact same level of success as those drafted in the current Value Group. An index of less than 100 indicates that players drafted later have actually had more success than those in the current Value Group. The Index is only used within a Value Group. That is, it is meaningless to compare the Index for selections 1-13 to the Index for selections 14-40 because the numbers are not comparable. The sole purpose of the Index is to allow comparisons WITHIN a Value Group.

As an example of how the Index would be used, consider a team that needs help at both linebacker and wide receiver and is drafting in the top 13 selections. In this example there are equally rated players available at both linebacker and wide receiver. With no other considerations in play, the wide receiver would be selected first because wide receiver has an Index of 492 versus 405 for linebacker. This means there is a greater chance of drafting a linebacker who starts for five years later in the draft than there is for a wide receiver.

The more data points there are, the more meaningful the Index. Quarterback has relatively few data points, so the Index approach may be less meaningful there. Plus, a team should never wait to draft a game changer at quarterback and a team would be unlikely to resort to the Index in that situation anyway.

our positions seem to match up well with our needs, particularly our 2nd round pick. Unfortunately 14 is right on the cusp of two groups, oh well.

.

[Razeyfingers]

Each position is its own gamble, just so we're clear here when you read these stats. When you draft a S you are comparing that to your odds of drafting a S next year or the year prior (if you're trying to analyze here). Studying the differences in value percentages when comparing different positions wont make sense because the risk to draft that otther position is still there next year and the year after. You will still need player at that spot and you will still need to gamble on it.

[Man Strength]

Just an interesting piece of the puzzle. Obviously teams would have a lot more data on each player to run their own analytics- as in current player grade rather tha just how many years they started. Nobody is saying to strictly follow this, and it depends a lot on the specific draft, but interesting data

[SCP]

Man, I'm in sales. Simplify this poo. "Give me a sales goal and let me go beat it" type of simplification.

[rodeo]

Man, I'm in sales. Simplify this poo. "Give me a sales goal and let me go beat it" type of simplification.

From what I can tell, we'll have the best luck if we draft 5 RBs.

[X-Clown]

From what I can tell, we'll have the best luck if we draft 5 RBs.

It looks like we've found Marty Hurney's strategy guide

[Man Strength]

Never said this tool positional value into consideration. Just how effective the picks have historically been per position

[Ricky Spanish]

looks like we should take a WR at 14 and a safety/DT/CB at 44 based on the data... I can live with that i suppose.