NFL Positional Success Rate (Rounds 1-2)

The goal of this analysis is to understand if certain positions in the draft have been more/less successful relative to other positions and relative to where they were selected.

As an example, I’ve often heard 1st Round quarterbacks are 50% hit/miss. I wanted to find out how true this is, and what is the hit/miss rate of other positions. But I also wanted to adjust the hit/miss threshold based on where the players were selected.

This project is riddled with subjectivity and arbitrary scoring and thresholds. Many people would define “success” many different ways. I settled on the following criteria: number of seasons as a primary starter, Pro Bowl selections, 1st Team All-Pro selections and total seasons. Using players' stats, could get tricky because my data goes back to 1980 and comparing across eras is problematic. Also, I have a job and a family and limited time, and to be honest the information that I used was easy to extract along with the draft data using pro-football-reference.com.

This is how I calculated career score which is used in the success rate %:

- 1 point for every season as the primary starter
- 1 point for every season they make the Pro Bowl
- 1 point for every 1st team All-Pro (the assumption is they were also a Pro Bowler, so they would accumulate 2 points)
- 1/3 point for any season as a non-starter

Very simple, and again…arbitrary. You might think my weights and scoring are wrong, and that’s ok, directionally the results would be similar using a number of different metrics and point values. I still consider this project a WIP and will likely tweak over time.

So, what determines if a pick is a hit or a miss? It depends on when they were drafted. I decided not to get too granular. I have three sets of thresholds.

If a player is selected in the Top 10, the threshold is 7.5 points

Selected in Round 1, picks 11+, 5.5 points

Selected in Round 2, 3.5 points

I wanted the thresholds to give me a relatively similar success rate on aggregate across the three draft ranges. The success rates across all positions for picks 1-10 with a 7.5 threshold was 56%, the rest of Round 1 at 5.5 was 54%, Round 2 with a 3.5 threshold was 57%.

Here are some examples of a hit and miss from each draft range:

Picks 1-10

LB Carl Banks: 10 years as a primary starter, 1 Pro Bowl, 1 All-Pro and 12 Total Seasons - Success with a score of 12.7

LB Rolando McClain: 5 years as a primary starter, 0 Pro Bowls, 0 All-Pros and 6 Total Seasons - Miss with a score of 5.3

The Rest of Round 1 (picks 11+)

QB Daunte Culpepper: 5 years as a primary starter, 3 Pro Bowls, 0 All-Pros and 11 Total Seasons - Success with a score of X.X

QB Josh Freeman: 4 years as a primary starter, 0 Pro Bowls, 0 All-Pros and 7 Total Seasons - Miss with a score of 5.0

Round 2

RB Errict Rhett: 4 years as a primary starter, 0 Pro Bowls, 0 All-Pros and 7 Total Seasons - Success with a score of 5.0

RB DeShaun Foster: 2 years as a primary starter, 0 Pro Bowls, 0 All-Pros and 6 Total Seasons - Miss with a score of 3.3

I’m not interested in individual players and their scores. The focus is to look at the success of the entire sample of each position. When looking at individual players, you will find some outliers that don’t belong in the success group or the failed group (Like Billy Sims who was clearly on track but was derailed by an injury). The way I use individual players is to look at players close to the threshold on both sides to see if the threshold value seems to make sense.

Here is my analysis using draft data spanning 1,921 picks across rounds 1 and 2 from 1980 to present. For now, Active players are excluded from this analysis.

Notes:

-QBs, WRs, LBs had a very consistent success rate at each of the three selection ranges.

-Centers have by far the highest success rate. Perhaps something in my scoring is missing some nuance related to centers, or Centers may be underrated in the draft and tend to slide causing them to over-perform relative to where they were selected. Hopefully, this is because their performance in college is the most predictive of performance in the NFL.

-RBs in Round 1 (11+) and Round 2 have the lowest success rate of all positions.

-On aggregate, Defense has a higher success rate then offense at each of the pick ranges. Overall Defense has a success rate of 58%, with Offense at 53%.

I think it's selection bias. Center a position that's picked in the later rounds or even picked up as UDFAs, so if you're a center that went in the top 60 then you have to be an amazing prospect.

RustNeverSleeps77:

I'd be interested to know what the success rate is for lower-round centers. I have heard the GM of the Vikings, Rick Spielman, say that he doesn't like picking centers in higher rounds because it's a very easy position to develop.

Robotsaur:

In the past 20 seasons, there have been 111 players listed at center that have started at least 50 games (arbitrary number, but just about 3 seasons worth of games).

Of that group, 12 (11%) have been selected in the first round, 20 (18%) have been selected in the second round, 17 (15%) have been selected in the third round, and 62 (56%) have been selected in the 4th round and after, or gone undrafted.

In the past 20 seasons, there have been 212 players listed at tackle that have started at least 50 games.

Of that group, 78 (37%) have been selected in the first round, 38 (18%) have been selected in the second round, 23 (11%) have been selected in the third round, and 73 (34%) have been selected in the 4th round and after, or gone undrafted.

In the past 20 seasons, there have been 237 players listed at guard that have started at least 50 games.

Of that group, 40 (17%) have been selected in the first round, 40 (17%) have been selected in the second round, 37 (16%) have been selected in the third round, and 120 (51%) have been selected in the 4th round and after, or gone undrafted.