Drafting against consensus, Part 1 (probably)

It’s a complicated story

I can’t tell if this is something that’s been going on for years now, or if it’s something I just started paying attention to this year, but in the lead up to the 2024 draft, I started seeing a lot of “draft deviation from the consensus” look-backs coming across my timeline on Twitter.

I thought a bit about them and I found them interesting, but also a little irritating, if I’m being honest. I felt that way because there’s an impulse to want to derive more from them than they are capable of providing. That is to say, they’re actually quite interesting, in that they very clearly document the extent to which teams tend to either hew to consensus or regularly vary from it, but they don’t appear to provide a signal about whether that’s a “good” or “bad” thing.

These deviation charts can’t tell you that because, truth be told, there is no singular answer to that question. So I wanted to do a little digging and see if these charts – in concert with other information – might actually be able to tell us something quite important: Which front offices in the NFL are actually the most talented?

We’ll start with the figure above, “deviation from consensus in the top 3 rounds since 2019” as a starting point for our “deviation” variable, and look around for a bit for ways to get at relative draft class performance. Let’s start by looking at team performance at each end of the “deviation” spectrum.

Poster Pengusagustus suggested calling this deviation from consensus the “Maverick Index,” and I like that, as it seems relatively neutral, rather than being laden with positive or negative connotations.

Team Performance Since 2019

Let’s begin by looking at the overall winning percentage of the most and least “Maverick-y” teams over the past five years.

We’re a long way from being able to say that having highly deviant drafts cause NFL success – though it does appear that there’s a general, positive correlation between the two things – but what I think we can, probably, say is that it doesn’t, necessarily, cause teams to be unsuccessful.

After all, four of the top five biggest mavericks have records well over .500 during the past five years. Meanwhile, three of the least deviant teams have winning percentages under .400 during that timeframe.

That said, it also has to be mentioned that the best team in the league in that window – the Chiefs – is also one of the least maverick-y.

Evaluating Recent “Reaches”

After the 2023 draft, The Athletic examined the “reachiness” of all 32 draft classes. The top 5 “reachiest” drafts – as determined by difference in draft slot and big board ranking weighted by draft round – were as follows:

• Lions (Average pick value: -24.0)

Reachiest pick: LB Jack Campbell – First round, No. 18 overall | -106

• Panthers (Average pick value: -17.5)

Reachiest pick: WR Jonathan Mingo – Second round, No. 39 overall | -82

• Commanders (Average pick value: -12.6)

Reachiest pick: CB Emmanuel Forbes – First round, No. 16 overall | -63

• Texans (Average pick value: -12.1)

Reachiest pick: C Juice Scruggs – Second round, No. 62 overall | -123

• Jets (Average pick value: -11.4)

Reachiest pick: Edge Will McDonald IV – First round, No. 15 overall | -113

Now let’s look at how each of those reaches performed compared to their peers taken in the 16 draft slots after them, in terms of “approximate value.”

So, in four of five of these cases, the “reach” pick failed to match the production of the average of the 16 picks taken after him in the draft. There was one instance that wasn’t the case: the Lions’ Jack Campbell, who was right in line with his peers. One year in, it looks like Campbell was taken exactly where he should have been. The others, not so much.

But these five teams don’t line up with the five “maverick” teams at the top of the article – presumably, at least in part, because the mavericks were drawn from a five-year pattern of behavior. So let’s take a look at what the five mavericks did last year:

• 49ers (Average pick value: +1.1)

Reachiest pick: TE Cameron Latu – Third round, No. 101 overall | -19

• Cowboys (Average pick value: -6.2)

Reachiest pick: TE Luke Schoonmaker – Second round, No. 58 overall | -31

• Raiders (Average pick value: +2.4)

Reachiest pick: DT Byron Young – Third round, No. 70 overall | -31

• Rams (Average pick value: +2.8)

Reachiest pick: Edge Byron Young – Third round, No. 77 overall | -21

• Seahawks (Average pick value: -2.1)

Reachiest pick: Edge Derick Hall – Second round, No. 37 overall | -34

Again, four of these players fell way below the performance of their peers during their rookie seasons, with at least two providing almost no value so far. Even so, one player – the Rams Byron Young, taken in the third round provided amazing (“first round”) value, more than doubling the output of his peer group.

This is consistent with something that I’ve noticed before, which is that even without much early draft capital for the past several years, the Rams have been absolutely masterful at extracting value from the middle of the draft.

As much as I would love to do this analysis for the “reachiest” picks of these top 5 teams for the past few years, I haven’t been able to isolate the specific data points (i.e. players), except in one case. The good news is, for our purposes, it’s probably the most important case.

A Deep Dive on the 49ers

Unfortunately, there’s also bad news. Going into this exercise, and knowing that the 49ers had been both one of the most successful teams in the league over the study period, as well as one of the “reachiest,” I expected – and quietly hoped – their aggressiveness in the draft had been one of the foundational piece of their team success.

The information in the tweet above allowed me to compile the same sort of information I have previously for the 2023 “reaches,” but this time, for the past seven San Francisco drafts, going back to when John Lynch (and Adam Peters) first arrived in town.

That information is below, and it’s not good:

49ers “Reaches” Against Peer Performance

Of the 20 picks above, only six have outperformed their peer group thus far. Two of those “overperformers” are special teamers, a kicker and a punter. Only one – Dre Greenlaw – appears to have been a great pick at his position in the draft.

There are seven Day 2 disappointments, including at least a couple massive busts – Trey Lance and Jalen Hurd.

Mike McGlinchey has slightly overperformed his near draft peers, but even as the top tackle taken in the draft, is arguably no better than the fourth best tackle in the class, behind players like Orlando Brown, Brian O’Neill, and Kolton Miller.

How many of these “reaches” could be deemed integral to the 49ers recent success? Probably only Greenlaw, in my opinion, which would constitute a 5% success rate overall.

Based on this information, it appears – almost – as though the 49ers have succeeded in spite of their draft reachiness, not because of it.

Next Steps

This is the point at which I ask you, dear reader, for suggestions on how better to get at this “reachiness” and “team performance” connection – if one actually exists. If I can gather enough good suggestions, and actually gather the information recommended in those suggestions, I’ll gladly pursue a part 2 in this series.