Positional Value: A Different Way To Measure NFC East Draft Success

About a week ago, we reviewed the draft grades the draft pundits handed out for the NFC East.

I think it's probably a fair summary to say that the Giants graded out the best in the NFC East, while the Eagles, Redskins and Cowboys all graded out similarly in the low B, high C grades. Apart from the fact that grading a draft class before it has played a single snap is questionable at best, I've always felt that draft grades are heavily skewed towards the big name prospects. Draft a couple of guys whose names have dominated the pre-draft airwaves and you're virtually assured a good grade, draft a couple of less hyped prospects and your draft grade is bound to suffer.

So today I decided to take a slightly different look at the NFC East drafts. I'm going to look at the NFC East draft choices not in terms of name recognition or pedigree but in terms of positional value, or where they were taken within their position groups.

Positional Value

So how does it work? I looked at all the draft picks and determined where they were taken relative to their peers in their position groups. For example, Tyron Smith was the first offensive tackle taken while the Eagles took the second offensive guard with their first pick.

Note that I'm not claiming that this is a better way of evaluating the draft, it's just a different way of doing it that may lead to some interesting discussions. Note also that some of the later slots may be off by a spot or two, as in some cases players that are listed as, for example, LB, OLB or DE may project to different positions depending on which teams they join, which may screw a little with the positional rankings. For the most part, these rankings are based on draftsite.com's list and I've manually corrected for some first round picks that I'm more familiar with. Also, an approach as the one outlined should, in principle, favor the team that drafts higher, as they should have access to the higher ranked player within the position groups.

With all these disclaimers out of the way, here's an overview of the NFC East draft based purely on the positional value rank within the position groups.

You'll find the rookie names to go along with this table at the bottom of the post.

What immediately stands out in the table above is that the Cowboys got not one but two players who were picked first at their position in Tyron Smith and Bruce Carter. Carter projects as an ILB for the Cowboys and is the highest ILB taken in the draft. Ultimately though, the success of this draft likely rests on how good the Cowboys medical department was at evaluating Carter's knee.

The Cowboys and the Broncos are the only teams to snag two players who were taken first among their position groups. The Broncos took the first OLB in Von Miller and took the first safety in Rahim Moore. 18 teams did not get a single one of the No.1 players in their respective position groups. Here's an overview of which teams got the first pick in which position group:

Positional Top 10

Another way to look at the position ranking table at the top is to see how many players each team got that were within the top ten of their position group. By my count, the Cowboys got six, the Redskins got five, the Giants only three, and the Eagles, despite drafting last among the four teams, got seven.

The Broncos once again appear to have had a good draft, with eight top ten players (out of nine picks). The Eagles are second with their seven picks and the Patriots and Cowboys are tied with six picks each.

This is quite remarkable drafting by the Eagles given their late draft slot and warrants a closer look. The Eagles appear to have picked BPA at positions of need with their first three picks, and focused many of their late round picks on positions like OG, OC, FB, LB and even Kicker (whom they arguably picked too high) that can still have good depth in the later rounds. The Cowboys got good value, at least by this methodology, with their first four picks and added good positional value picks at FB and OC late in the draft.

By this way of counting, the Giants had a bad draft, garnering only 3 players who were drafted within the top ten at their positions. The worst in this category are the Jets (no 2nd round pick) who got only one player, Muhammad Wilkerson, who was picked within the top ten of his position group. Second worst are the Ravens who got two top ten picks with their first tow picks. All their remaining picks were outside the top 10 in the respective position groups.

Position Points

One more way of understanding positional value is to look at the position rank of the first four picks. The Cowboys picked the first OT and ILB, and the sixth RBs and OGs. If we add up those four position values, we get 14 "position points" for the Cowboys. That's the second best value behind the Bills with 12 points (1st DT, 5th CB, 2nd ILB, 4th safety). Behind the Cowboys are a number of teams whose position points look good because of multiple picks in the 1st or 2nd round (16: Denver, 2 second rounders; 16: New England, 2 second rounders; 18: New Orleans, 2 first rounders) as well as Arizona with 18 points without multiple picks.

The Eagles rank 12th with 22 position points, the Redskins 19th with 26 and the Giants 24th with 32.

I realize of course that positional value is not the be-all and end-all of evaluating a draft class, far from it. And I'm certainly not advocating filling up your roster with a bunch of late round Fullbacks and Kickers just to improve your positional value. But I think it does provide food for thought.