DawgTalkers.net Forums The Archives 2017 NFL Season 2017 NFL Draft Drafting for talent, not for need

I don't know who said it, or in what thread, but they were talking about NE having traded away so many of their draft picks. As I recall their point was that trading for JG (so probably in one of the many JG threads) seems likely because BB loves draft picks. Whoever also made the point that NE had filled most of their needs in FA, so they really didn't need the picks to address needs.

That got me to thinking. I don't have the data to back it up, but I've always had the impression that NE doesn't draft for needs, they draft for future starters. They already have good players throughout the roster. They don't need their draft picks to be starters. They are continually drafting near the bottom, and the instant starters rarely fall to them. They draft players to develop in 1-2 years. So when a starter hits FA, they aren't desperate to resign them. If they go, the replacement is already on the roster. Or they can bring in a FA for less, cause who doesn't want to play for NE in their prime?

I say this because that should be the goal of this organization, to reach a level where we don't have to draft for need, we don't have to decide between that really good DE and a lesser QB cause we desperately need a QB. And it doesn't matter if we don't draft high, because we don't need our draft picks to start right away. If the organization can reach that level, we would rarely have to draft because we need a LB, CB, or RB. Like NE, we just draft the BPA and develop them til we need them.

NFL teams have their own boards. They have a vertical board and horizontal board.

I bring this up because you mentioned Belichick and NE. The best article I ever read was about Bill's Vertical and Horizontal boards. It's an old article and I haven't been able to find it when I've searched for it the last couple of years. I wish I would have saved the thing.

I always refer to that article when I talk about Vertical and Horizontal boards because Belichick did such a great job of explaining it. He began using it in Cleveland and guys like Ozzie and Dimitroff use the same board w/their new teams.

Simply put..........the Vertical board is the one where they assign a grade to each player in the draft and rank them in order regardless of position.

The Horizontal board is positional. Let's use LBers for example. They have the draft eligible player's ranking and then compare it to the players they already have on the roster in an attempt to address the chance of that player playing for them. They also use the Horizontal board for trades because they might move up or down a spot, maybe 2, and sometimes 3....but, never really more than that for a particular guy based on need.

So, as you can see, the Vertical board is strictly BPA and Horizontal board addresses need. There are other variations on the Vertical and Horizontal boards, but I threw this out there to show how NFL teams address both talent and need.

One thing that needs recapitulation is that teams will address need, but it is secondary to BPA.

j/c

I'd say 90% of mock drafts are people that just open an article with each teams "Top 3 Needs" and pick the highest guy at one of those positions.

And that's why I'd say we see guys mocked in the 1st or 2nd round that drop to the 4th or 5th. (The OT from Ole Miss, Massie? Comes to mind)

The flip of that is when someone goes way earlier than everyone thought they would.

And then there seems to be almost a "panic" drafting at the position right after it.

Here's one, though a simpler version.

Stacking the Patriots' draft board - New England Patriots Blog- ESPN
http://www.espn.com/blog/boston/new-england-patriots/post/_/id/4694437/stacking-the-draft-board

"We all know that the Patriots generally try to use "value" as a barometer in their drafting decisions. Do you have any idea how they approach trying to quantify value. For instance do they give each prospect a number grade then simply select the highest number when it is their selection? Or do they have some sort of formula that says certain positional groupings are more valuable if the players available relatively equal? If you don't draft for need how do you decide between good players at different positions?"

This hits at one of the fundamentals of the scouting/draft process -- how teams "stack" their board.

Bill Belichick enters his 12th season in charge of the Patriots' draft. Over the years, he's detailed how the team executes its "stack", with one of the most detailed explanations coming back in 2003.

There is the vertical stack and the horizonal stack.

"When you stack your board, you're going to look vertically ... The way we do it, we look vertically by positions. Here's all the quarterbacks, here's all the tight ends, here's all the running backs," Belichick said at the time.

"[Then] horizontally across the board, you try to get some kind of value of ... This cornerback and this guard, and this linebacker and this tight end would have about the same value. They'd come in and they'd be role players for us. They're never going to be starters. Or whatever their value is.

"And so when you're sitting there trying to make your picks, you may be looking at three or four guys and they're all kind of about the same. You're five or six picks away and whichever one of these guys we end up with, we take them in this order, but we could live with any of them."

But Belichick also detailed how sometimes there is one player who is far and away above the remaining players on the board. That could spark the team to seek a trade.

"Sometimes you're sitting there and you have three or four guys in that category and you have one guy that you feel like is sitting up there and is significantly higher and you're not saying, 'Well, he's just going to come in and be a role player and he'll never be a starter.' You're saying, 'Well, this guy could come in and he's going to be a starter for us, now it might take a year and he has a little developing he has to do, but we feel like this guy can come in and he can be a starter for us.' That's when you sit there and think about, 'All right, do we want to try to jump up and get this guy if we don't think he's going to fall to us and give up whatever we have to give up to move up and get him, or do we want to stay here and hope he's on the board -- he probably won't be -- and we'll end up with one of these other guys.'

"It just comes down to draft management. Sometimes you try to trade up and get him, and [sometimes] nobody wants to trade with you and you sit there and let it come to you. That's basically the process."

Excellent article. Thanks.