Scorecasting (30 page)

To the credit of the Chargers organization, they learned from their costly mistake. In 2000, still recovering from the Leaf fiasco, the Chargers finished 1–15 and were “rewarded” with the top pick in the 2001 NFL draft. They traded the pick to Atlanta for the Falcons’ number five as well as a third-round pick, a second-round pick in 2002, and
Tim Dwight, a wide receiver and kick return specialist. The Falcons used the top pick to select
Michael Vick; the Chargers used that fifth selection on LaDainian Tomlinson, who would become the most decorated running back of his generation. To satisfy their quarterback needs, they waited until the first pick of the second round and tapped
Drew Brees, who would go on to become the 2010 Super Bowl MVP, albeit for a different team, the New Orleans Saints. Remember, too, the Chargers were willing to give up Eli Manning in 2004 for what was effectively Shawne Merriman and Philip Rivers. Add up the values from both trades and they follow McCoy’s chart almost exactly. Imagine how much better the Chargers could have done if they’d known the chart was flawed.

Beyond the money, overinvestment in high draft picks can have other real costs. Pampering the first-round pick—treating him differently from the sixth-rounders who’d be put on waivers for a comparably dismal performance—exacts a price on team performance and morale. It also forestalls taking a chance on another athlete. The more chances given Ryan Leaf, the fewer chances afforded his backup. And it’s not just the team that has drafted the player that’s prone to this fallacy. Even after Leaf’s miserable performance and behavior in San Diego, three other teams gave him another shot. They recalled the player he was in college. They still coveted his size, strength, and athleticism and believed the hype. Never mind the clear evidence that he was a bust. “It’ll be different here,” they told themselves. Only, of course, it wasn’t.

How do teams know when they’re getting the next Peyton Manning and when they’re getting the next Ryan Leaf? They don’t. There are simply too many unknowns and too much uncertainty to know whether you’ve drafted a great player or a bust. The only certainty is that you will pay dearly for both. Manning and Leaf were both very expensive, but only one of them was able to perform. Also, the uncertainty regarding whether Manning was better than Leaf is not uncommon. Take a look at the following table and compare the number one picks over the last decade with the players voted offensive and defensive rookies of the year in the subsequent year as well as other players at the same position available in that draft who made the Pro Bowl.

Still think it’s easy to pick the best players? If you look at the top picks in the NFL draft from 1999 to 2009, not a single one was named rookie of the year on either side of the ball. More damning, many of the top picks have turned out to be busts. Of the last 11 number-one-picked players, eight have been quarterbacks. Four of them—Tim Couch,
David Carr,
Alex Smith, and the beleaguered
JaMarcus Russell—came nowhere close to justifying the selection. Of the four remaining quarterbacks, it’s too early to tell what will become of
Matthew Stafford in Detroit,
and though
Carson Palmer and Michael Vick have each been to the Pro Bowl, both have also spent considerable time on the sidelines, Palmer because of a gruesome knee injury and Vick because he was incarcerated for nearly two years and suspended from the league for his involvement in an illegal dog-fighting scheme. That leaves only one number one quarterback pick, Eli Manning, who has started the majority of games for his team since his debut.

But again, divergent as their careers have been, all the number one picks were paid handsomely. So for the teams selecting at number one, the best-case scenario is that you get a good player for an expensive price. You buy a Camry at Porsche prices. Worst-case scenario, you pay a lot of money and get nothing in return. You pay the price of a Porsche for a clunker. What you will never get is a great player at a cheap price. You never get the Porsche at the clunker price in the early rounds.

In the 2010 draft, the trend continued as the
St. Louis Rams selected quarterback
Sam Bradford with the number one overall pick (making 9 of the last 12 first picks QBs) and promptly signed him to the richest contract in history—five years at $86 million with $50 million guaranteed.

Even with successful high picks on the order of Manning and Palmer, the question isn’t how much they cost in terms of salary but also how much they cost in terms of the draft picks you could have taken instead. In 2005, the
San Francisco 49ers drafted quarterback Alex Smith with the first pick; the only quarterbacks from the 2005 draft to have made a Pro Bowl are
Aaron Rodgers (number 24 pick), who made it for the first time in 2009, and
Derek Anderson, the eleventh quarterback taken that year. In 2000, defensive end
Courtney Brown was chosen as the number one pick. He never made a Pro Bowl. But
Shaun Ellis and
John Abraham, the second and third defensive ends taken in that draft, did make numerous Pro Bowls. As did
Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila, the twelfth defensive end taken that year with the 149th pick, and
Adewale Ogunleye, who wasn’t even drafted that year, meaning at least 24 defensive ends were chosen before him. Bottom line: In football, it’s very hard to tell who is going to be great, mediocre, or awful.

So what should a team do if it’s blessed (which is to say, cursed) with a top pick? Trade it, as the San Diego Chargers learned to do. Drafting number 10 and number 11 instead of number 1 is a much better proposition. The Dallas chart shows that the value of these players should be the same, but the reality is quite different. Teams get far more value from having picks at number 10 and number 11 than they do by taking a chance on one pick at number one. With two “draws,” the chance of having at least one of the two picks succeed is much higher, and the cost is the same or less. Factor in the potential for injuries and off-the-field trouble and it becomes even more apparent that having two chances to find a future starter is a much better proposition than having only one. Also, the team avoids the potential of a colossal and public bust like Ryan Leaf. Even if the later picks flop, fans won’t care nearly so much as they will when the top pick is a bust.

Perhaps NFL owners have different objectives, but it’s safe to assume they want to win or make money, and probably both. Following the chart meant that they lost on both counts. They overvalued top talent and, even when a pick happened to pan out, paid dearly.

For a franchise willing to ignore convention and depart from the chart (or improve it), the payoff can be huge. A team that discovered the chart was flawed—that it overvalued top draft picks—could trade its high picks for many more lower picks. It wouldn’t be taking the sexy picks and exciting fans by drafting Heisman Trophy winners and standouts at the NFL combine, but as Massey and Thaler’s research shows, it would field better teams and win more games. If you look at the teams that did trade down in the draft or traded current picks for a greater number of future picks, the researchers showed that those teams improved their winning percentages significantly over the four years after each trade.

Over the last decade, two teams in particular went “off the chart,” as it were, and created a new model, placing less value on the top picks: the New England Patriots and the
Philadelphia Eagles. Not surprisingly, those two teams have two of the top
winning percentages and five Super Bowl appearances between them since 2000. Tom Brady, one of the few quarterbacks hailed as Peyton Manning’s equal, a former MVP and three-time Super Bowl winner? He was drafted in the sixth round of the 2000 draft with the 199th pick and thus was obtained cheaply, providing the Patriots extra cash to collect and keep other talent to surround him. Teams that traded current draft picks for future ones benefited in subsequent years, too, and again, the Patriots and Eagles were at the forefront. (Not coincidentally, their coaches, Bill Belichick and
Andy Reid, have enough job security to afford the luxury of a long-term focus. Reid even has the additional title of executive vice president of football operations.)
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Which teams are on the other end of the spectrum, routinely trading up in the draft to get higher picks and overpaying for them? The answer is unlikely to surprise you: the Oakland Raiders and the Washington Redskins, who collectively have the fewest number of wins per dollar spent.
^†

As for the Cowboys, as we write this, their quarterback is All-Pro
Tony Romo, who currently owns one of the highest passing ratings of all time. Never mind the Cowboys fleecing other teams with a pricing system for draft picks. After starring at tiny Eastern Illinois University, Romo wasn’t selected at all in the draft, so Dallas simply acquired him as a rookie free agent in 2003 and nourished him. One of Romo’s favorite targets, wide receiver
Miles Austin, was also undrafted when he left tiny Monmouth University. He, too, was spotted by the Cowboys and signed as a rookie free agent. It seems the Cowboys may have found other ways to find value among new players outside the draft, deviating from the system they created.

HOW A COIN TOSS TRUMPS ALL