The Value of Things: Texans drafts by the numbers part three

The third of a three-part series.

We finally get to the end of the draft series the week of the draft. A large part of this process is a way to help manage all of our expectations. Sometimes we expect way too much. It’s really about shiny examples of stars found in every round of the draft. Tom Brady, Jason Kelce, and Stefon Diggs are not the norm. The question is what is reasonable to expect given the industry standard.

In order to do that, we are taking the entire NFL and the drafts between 2010 and 2019. We stopped there because we wanted to give everyone at least five seasons to fully flesh out how good they would be. Even still, many players from those later drafts are still active. I ran the Houston Texans players from those same seasons through the exact same process to compare the Texans overall grades with the league.

Simply put: four-star players have attended two or more Pro Bowls over the course of their career. Three-star players were labeled as starters for three or more seasons. Two-star players were labeled as starters in one or two seasons. One-star players never made it as a starter. All of this information was accessed at Pro football reference and is easily accessed. Obviously, whether someone is a good starter or not is a different question. No system is perfect, but we will go with this one for now.

League Wide Standard

Round One: 3.04 average, 111 four-stars, 130 three-stars, 60 two-stars, 19 one-stars
Round Two: 2.11 average, 35 four-stars, 130 three-stars, 89 two-stars, 66 one-stars
Round Three: 2.13 average, 28 four-stars, 114 three-stars, 100 two-stars, 122 one-stars
Round Four: 1.82 average, 11 four-stars, 79 three-stars, 97 two-stars, 166 one-stars
Round Five: 1.64 average, 9 four-stars, 62 three-stars, 76 two-stars, 210 one-stars
Round Six: 1.36 average, 5 four-stars, 30 three-stars, 62 two-stars, 289 one-stars
Round Seven: 1.25 average, 0 four-stars, 24 three-stars, 52 two-stars, 332 one-stars

Keep in mind that this is over the course of a decade. So, once you exit the first round, expecting a Pro Bowl performer is a fool’s errand. We notice the same thing between rounds two and three that we noticed with the Texans in part two of this series. Maybe the additional picks through compensatory selections gives teams an extra opportunity to hit on a good player. Maybe it is just blind dumb luck.

As I mentioned last week, the reason why we do this is to gain some understanding in how and why teams value picks the way they do. The point system might be somewhat outdated. Maybe teams should be valuing third round picks more than even second round picks. Meanwhile, the sixth and seventh rounders weren’t really worth a ton.

Texans 2010-2019

Round One: 3.22
Round Two: 2.75
Round Three: 1.79
Round Four: 2.00
Round Five: 1.44
Round Six: 1.50
Round Seven: 1.25

You can compare these numbers with the above for yourself. It makes perfect sense when you think about it. The Texans won more AFC South championships than any other team in the division during the decade. So, they outpaced the league in the first, second, fourth, and sixth rounds. They were exactly league average in the 7th round.

When you are a better than average team, you should perform better than average in the draft. Ultimately, that is what we see here. We obviously saw some issues with the third round that probably could be blamed on guys like Louis Nix and Sam Montgomery. It was a rough few seasons there.

Final Thoughts

This whole series is about managing expectations. Most drafts aren’t going to be like the 2023 draft. The club got as many as three Pro Bowl type performers if we assume that Tank Dell will continue to emerge. You might be lucky to get one out of this draft. They might get one additional regular starter as well.

The key will be who that guy is and what position he plays. If it happens to be at a spot where the Texans are particularly weak then it could help propel the team forward in their hunt for their first AFC Championship game. Without a first rounder, it is highly possible they don’t get that Pro Bowl performer. Hopefully, they can at least get a few rotational performers and improve their depth.