OTC- Maximizing Roster Construction by Valuing Positions- JD Gets It

[#27TheDominator]

9 hours ago, Doggin94it said:

Sure it is; the Jets picked AVT with the expectation that he'd be a top 5-7 guard in the league, which is what he needs to be to make the deal worthwhile. If he becomes what they expect, the deal is fine. If he doesn't, the deal is terrible. The extent to which it's a "bad decision" depends on the level of confidence in his upside outcome, which isn't something any of us are ever going to know.

So what you're saying is they traded the equivalent of the 12.5 pick and got back 14?

Yes.  The value chart isn't perfect, but usually when teams are going over it is for something like a QB.  Not a guard.  This was fairly close, so it may be inconsequential.  I didn't think what I said was hard to follow.  The Jets gave up value greater than the 13th pick in the draft to get AVT.

[JohnnyLV]

13 hours ago, #27TheDominator said:

You literally did the math for me.  They traded the value of pick #13 for AVT.  That is what I said and that is what happened.  Pick #114 + #114 = #13.  I think 13 is worth 1150 so maybe between 12 and 13  but I gave them the benefit of the doubt. 

Yeah but you seem to be missing the point that they got pick 14 so they got approximate value for the pick. And the values of the pick are based on essentially likelihood to be a good player and guard is one of the safest positions to draft so the whole concept of never trading for a guard is just nonsensical.

[#27TheDominator]

3 minutes ago, johnnysd said:

Yeah but you seem to be missing the point that they got pick 14 so they got approximate value for the pick. And the values of the pick are based on essentially likelihood to be a good player and guard is one of the safest positions to draft so the whole concept of never trading for a guard is just nonsensical.

How am I missing the point?  I am pretty sure you are the one missing the point. 

One of the main points of the article was that you should not use a first round pick on a guard.  The OP said that "Joe D gets it" as if he were following this blueprint.  All I did was point out that maybe he wasn't.  Not only did we use a first round pick, we used the equivalent of pick #13.  You actually did the math and showed it was actually MORE than the point value of pick #13.  You are arguing with the article, not me.  That is fine.  You think guard is safe?  Okay.  We can discuss that, but it does not change the FACT that Douglas is not exactly using the same blueprint as this article. 

I did not say it was a horrible move, I said it did not coincide with the article.  I was not a huge fan of the move, but I understood it.  The GM has to make his own choices and at the end of the day, these are kids, not numbers.  IMO he staked a lot on that pick.  I prefer a GM with the balls to do that and not go with the consensus pick.  We will see how it works out.

[JohnnyLV]

17 minutes ago, #27TheDominator said:

How am I missing the point?  I am pretty sure you are the one missing the point. 

One of the main points of the article was that you should not use a first round pick on a guard.  The OP said that "Joe D gets it" as if he were following this blueprint.  All I did was point out that maybe he wasn't.  Not only did we use a first round pick, we used the equivalent of pick #13.  You actually did the math and showed it was actually MORE than the point value of pick #13.  You are arguing with the article, not me.  That is fine.  You think guard is safe?  Okay.  We can discuss that, but it does not change the FACT that Douglas is not exactly using the same blueprint as this article. 

I did not say it was a horrible move, I said it did not coincide with the article.  I was not a huge fan of the move, but I understood it.  The GM has to make his own choices and at the end of the day, these are kids, not numbers.  IMO he staked a lot on that pick.  I prefer a GM with the balls to do that and not go with the consensus pick.  We will see how it works out.

Fair enough I did misunderstand your point and yes I would agree that JD is not really following the process that Jason thinks is valid which is the same theory that PFF uses and they crucified us for the AVT trade.

In terms of guards being safe here are the numbers from 2000-2010 (looking for more recent). So if this is just roughly true it seems that if you grade out a G as a Top 15 talent than it is incredibly safe and you are likely to get a Pro Bowl level player which really invalidates the concept of not using a pick on a guard because of phantom opportunity cost because the elite positions they say you should draft bust around 30 to 40% of the time.

[#27TheDominator]

I think there are a few reasons to pay Jason's point more mind than simply bust rate. 

• First of all, as your chart shows, far fewer centers and guards are taken in the first round. That means that the selections are more likely to be "generational" talents at their position. It should not be a huge surprise that the top 8 drafted players at a position over 10 years would not bust.
• Making a pro bowl at G will probably be far less significant to a team's success than say WR, LT or pass rusher. 
• That shows zero busts at G.  In 2013 Cooper went 7th and Warmack went 10th.  I am pretty sure the board would consider both "busts" by their definition.  Neither had their option picked up.  OTOH, both hung around in the NFL for quite some time.  I'm not sure anybody would sign up for a Brian Winters career, even if he was not technically a bust. 
• I think that the point of the article related to the availability and contracts  of those available.  The charts he has show the salary cap benefit of having a player on their rookie contract and G is right near the bottom.  Doggin did some analysis on the contracts and I think he determined if they feel AVT is top 5-7 it is probably worth it, but even at top 10 it probably isn't.
• You can traditionally get solid guards later in the draft.  The year Cooper and Warmack went, I think Warford went in the 4th and probably had a better career.  Another guy I like recently was Damien Lewis and he went in the third.  OTOH, Cooper and Warmack being "eh" probably pushed DeCastro down into the later first when he deserved to go higher.  These GMs are reactionary.

[Doggin94it]

Yes, 2010-2020 is actually much worse for guards, with some high profile busts. Also, pro-bowls are a terrible metric IMO; so much depends on name recognition, which 1st rounders tend to have an advantage in.

[Doggin94it]

On 7/5/2022 at 12:10 PM, Doggin94it said:

I think that the conclusion on OG (never take one in the first) is actually wrong, because it's based on a lagging indicator (OG salaries are just starting to jump) and also the wrong indicator (top 10). Take a look at the top OG contracts the last several offseasons:

Bitonio (Nov. 21) 16M per

Thuney (Mar. 21) 16M per

Scherff (Mar. 22) 16.5 per

Teller (Nov. 21) 14.5M per

Laken (Mar. 22) 13.3M per

And that's with Zach Martin doing his extension early (2018, 14M per), and Quenton Nelson about to break the bank but not currently in the top 10. The issue at OG is that the fall-off from there is quick; after Tomlinson it drops down to 11.5M (Peat), then 10.2 (Whitehair) and 9 (Shaq Mason & Vaitai). That's about a 33% drop from 6th-highest paid to 10th-highest paid. At QB, the drop from 6 (Dak) to 10 (Goff) is 16%; you need to go all the way down to 14 to get a 33% drop (15, really, with Brady playing on a deliberately and vastly undermarket deal). At WR, the drop from 6 (Diggs, 24M) to 10 (Williams, Godwin, Cooper, 20M) is also 16%; you need to go all the way to 18 (Woods, 16.25M) to get a 33% drop. At LT, the drop from 6 (Kolton Miller, 18M) to 10 (Lewan and Mailata, 16M) is 11%; you need to get all the way down to 19 (Tyron Smith, 12.5) to get a 33% drop.

In other words, the reason the salary cap benefit of drafting an OG in the first is so small isn't because the top-end is dramatically lower - it's because the top end is a small group and the middle class is packed tight enough that the difference in value from "elite" to "10th best" is a much steeper cliff than at other positions.

AVT's APY is about 4M. If you expect him to be a top 7 OG in the league, the salary cap benefit is 9-10M, or on par with IDL. Top 5 is 12M, or about the same as LT or Edge.

Bottom line, if you're taking an OG in the first round, you better be doing it with the expectation that you're getting a top-5-7 player at the position, not top 10 - and those guys either don't hit FA (Bitonio, Teller, Martin, Nelson) or get huge deals when they do. And that tells you what the Jets expected to be getting in AVT when they drafted him. 

Update: Nelson just signed a 20M/yr extension, with 60M guaranteed.