Crappy Odds

by HutHut on Mar 17, 2009 12:19 PM CDT

I have been a "Draftnik" since 1991. That's when the 'Boys had a boatload of picks and I first started to think about how great teams were built.

Out of curiosity, I decided to look at the draft year for the most recent Pro Bowlers (PB's).

18 draft classes were represented in the Pro Bowl

14 came from the 03 draft (highest number)

5.44 was the average number of players from each class

Granted, this is very unscientific... but that means only 5 of the 250 players selected in this draft are likely to become PB's (2%).

Of course this doesn't take into account career longevity, team popularity, or any of a bevy of flaws in this model. However, I think it gives a view (albeit blury) of how difficult it is to build a dominant NFL roster.

Another interesting tidbit was the distribution of PB's by class by Conference. The AFC had 15 PB's with 3 years exp or less compared to 5 for the NFC. That could mean grim years ahead for the NFC... or mean absolutely nothing.

The oldest draft class represented was 1987 (John Carney). 22 years in the NFL! That is a frickin' career!

Anyway, I found it somewhat interesting.

Another user-created commentary provided by a BTB reader.

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Interesting...

Figure a 100 or so Pro Bowlers every year go to Hawaii. If you think about 250 draftees every year plus some number of Undrafted FA’s (let’s say 20).

53 players per team * 32 teams = 1,696 player universe. About 6% of them make the pro bowl. What you then have to think about is how many times the same players continue to get picked to go.

That all said, there has to be a better way to look at draft performance than just Pro Bowls.

"Well, we didn't block real good but we made up for it by not tackling."

- John McKay, the first coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers

by 5Blings on Mar 17, 2009 5:36 PM CDT reply actions