Reviewing the NFL Draft 2000-09

Last month I wrote about the NFL draft, looking at the years from 2009-19 and determining that the New Orleans Saints were the best at picking players during that time. But many of the players drafted are still active and so that ranking may change over the next decade.

So I decided to go another 10 years back and analyze the NFL drafts from 2000-2009. During that time, 2,551 players were drafted, with 2,265 (88.8%) playing at least one game in the league. Of those, only 67 are still active as I write this, so the rankings will not change much, if at all. One interesting statistic: the average career length of those players who did play at least one game and are now retired is 72 games, or 4.5 seasons. That does not include undrafted players, of which there were 1,350 who played their first game between 2000 and 2009.

I also decided to switch to Pro Football Reference's total Career Approximate Value (tCAV) instead of the weighted version (wCAV) that I referenced in previous posts. As I have stated before, tCAV is an approximation of the value a player provides over his career and is the best statistic I have found at measuring value between positions, so that linemen, who have few easily available stats to determine their value, do not get overlooked.

The average tCAV for players drafted during that decade is 20.63. Of course, the best tCAV belongs to Tom Brady, whose total of 280 is 13 points better than Drew Brees. Third is Phillip Rivers at 204, but again, tCAV depends on career longevity and Brady and Brees have enjoyed a few extra seasons.

If you want to figure out the most effective player, you need to divide tCAV by the number of games played (tCAV/G). In a mild surprise, Aaron Rodgers is the champ, with 184 tCAV in just 181 games for a tCAV/G of 1.017. He is the only player to be over 1. Brady is second at .982, with 49ers linebacker Patrick Willis, who played only 8 seasons, third at .973. The average is .324. Again, two caveats: playoffs are not included and don't take this too seriously.

Here is a summary of each draft:

Year  Picks  NFL  Pct     Top tCAV     Worst tCAV   Avg tCAV   tCAV/G
2000   254   219  86.2%   NYJ (46.4)   Dal (6.8)      21.11     0.332
2001   246   220  89.4%   SDG (58.0)   Oak (6.0)      23.43     0.347
2002   261   227  87.0%   Pit (37.8)   TB  (5.1)      19.35     0.305
2003   262   237  90.5%   Ari (45.9)   Den (6.0)      21.47     0.328
2004   255   228  89.4%   Ari (62.9)   Phi (6.5)      21.04     0.329
2005   255   221  86.7%   Dal (49.6)   Buf (5.0)      20.88     0.343
2006   255   227  89.0%   NO  (61.0)   Stl (4.1)      23.57     0.337
2007   255   226  88.6%   NYJ (55.0)   NE  (5.3)      18.83     0.310
2008   252   230  91.3%   Atl (35.6)   Pit (7.4)      19.23     0.319
2009   256   230  89.8%   NYJ (37.7)   Dal (1.3)      17.55     0.301

The percentage of players making the NFL is reasonably consistent year to year. The tCAV for the latter years is lower because there are still a few players competing and those numbers should go up a bit, but not enough to alter the fact that 2009 was the worst year, confirmed by tCAV/G.

Overall, what you will notice is that there is no consistency from year to year. The Jets were the top team in three years, but in two of those they had few picks (4 in 2007, 3 in 2009).  Arizona did well in back-to-back years and got to the Super Bowl in 2008. Dallas was the worst team twice and the top team once (they picked up DeMarcus Ware 11th overall that year and snagged Jay Ratliff in the 7th round). The Steelers had a terrible draft in 2008, but still won the Super Bowl over the Cardinals, helped by their 2002 draft when they picked Antwaan Randle El, Larry Foote, and Brett Keisel among others (not to mention 2004, when they got Ben Roethlisberger).

In order to find the best drafting team of the decade, you need to calculate the average tCAV for that period, and surprise, surprise, the Jets top the list. Yes, the team that has not reached a Super Bowl since 1969 managed to choose the best players between 2000 and 2009. The next three teams were San Diego, Arizona, and Carolina - all of them without a Super Bowl as well. Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Green Bay come next, and they all did win Super Bowls this century. Tampa Bay, who won it all in 2002, finished last.

If you look at tCAV/G, the Chargers were top at 0.399. They would have been even higher if they had actually drafted Phillip Rivers, who is a much more effective regular season QB than Eli Manning. In fact, if I switch those two to their actual teams, the Chargers average tCAV jumps to 28.71, just above the Jets. Of course, the Chargers also drafted Brees and get credit for that pick despite letting him go to give the job to Rivers. Meanwhile, New England jumps to second thanks to Tom Terrific. The Raiders were worst in this category, making that 2002 Super Bowl a battle between two terrible drafting teams, neither who have returned since.

Here is the whole table:

Rk  Team   Picks   Avg   tCAV/G (Rk)
 1  NYJ     67    28.70   0.351 (6)
 2  SDG     77    28.21   0.399 (1)
 3  ARI     74    26.54   0.356 (4)
 4  CAR     80    25.26   0.343 (9)
 5  BAL     81    25.16   0.348 (8)
 6  PIT     78    23.99   0.361 (3)
 7  GNB     91    23.16   0.355 (5)
 8  CIN     83    22.94   0.334 (16) 
 9  NOR     70    22.63   0.336 (13)
10  ATL     80    22.39   0.351 (7)   
11  SFO     88    22.25   0.305 (23)
12  NYG     74    22.24   0.324 (19)
13  NWE     89    22.19   0.381 (2)
14  IND     82    21.72   0.339 (10)
15  MIN     71    20.54   0.331 (18)
16  HOU*    66    20.52   0.336 (14)
17  JAX     88    20.38   0.335 (15)
18  PHI     82    20.34   0.331 (17)
19  DAL     80    20.26   0.305 (22)
20  CHI     87    19.91   0.336 (12)
21  BUF     84    19.14   0.312 (20)
22  SEA     84    18.98   0.285 (27)
23  DEN     80    18.93   0.336 (11)
24  DET     78    18.15   0.311 (21)
25  TEN     95    18.13   0.284 (29)
26  KAN     80    17.16   0.300 (24)
27  CLE     80    16.76   0.289 (26) 
28  MIA     75    16.69   0.278 (30)
29  OAK     77    16.03   0.249 (32)
30  STL     86    15.91   0.285 (28)
31  WAS     63    13.65   0.291 (25)
32  TAM     81    12.26   0.254 (31)
* Houston did not draft until 2002

There is a substantial difference between the top and bottom teams that you can't see when looking year to year. You might wonder if there is correlation between success on draft day and wins on game day, and the answer is yes. The correlation coefficient between the average number of wins from 2000-09 and tCAV/G is 0.41, which implies a moderate correlation between the two, as you can see below.

Of course, correlation does not equal causation. General managers and scouts that do well on draft day are probably going to do well in finding undrafted players, making trades, and signing free agents and those impact wins as well. And there is also the fact that for the first couple of seasons in this chart, most of the players contributing to wins were drafted before 2000. There is a lag between drafting a player and having him reach his peak and that would have to be studied next, but such a project would take far more time that I have at the moment. For now, you can rest easy knowing that drafting well helps you win, but as Jets fans have found out, there is a lot more to NFL success than just that.

I'll continue my NFL draft series with a post on positional rankings as well as one listing the best, worst, and most surprising players from each draft in the first ten years of this century. Check back for those shortly.

Best,

Sean