A Pro Bowl Snapshot

The Pro Bowl is the place to see the NFL's best players. Because we are in that silly season prior to the NFL draft I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the roster of the 2009 Pro Bowl teams and look at the rounds that the players were selected. I was interested to see what, if any, draft patterns would emerge.

I looked at the offensive and defensive starters as well as the reserves from both conferences. I did not count those players elected as special teams players.  The data yielded some expected results and one very surprising piece of information.

There were a total of eighty six players that were counted . As you would expect, the Pro-bowl was dominated by first round draft choices with forty five and the number of players decreased as the rounds went on.

The big surprise was that 10% of the players were undrafted free agents (UDFA's). Nine of the eighty six players selected to play on offense and defense at the Pro Bowl were over looked during the draft. Add up the total of Pro Bowl players taken in rounds four through seven and the UDFA's  contributed as many players as the last four rounds of the draft.

So, what conclusions can you draw from this snapshot of the league? First, if you can accept that this snapshot is a microcosm of the league it confirms what we already thought about the first three rounds; this is the best place to find talent. This would also indicate that the drop off from round one to round two is significant and it continues as you move into round three. If you have late round selections in the draft your chances of finding a successful player is about the same as signing an undrafted free agent.

If the Cowboys have to count late round draft picks against their cap, I'm all for trying to unload some of our late picks. I'm sure you have thoughts, should we keep those late round picks? 

PS: HutHut recently provided another snapshot of the '09 Pro Bowl and the Draft in his FanPost called ‘Crappy Odds' - Check it out