Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Green Bay are the Best at Drafting the Best Player Available Over Last Decade
By Jason Lisk
Well, today, I’m taking a look back at the last decade to see what organizations have been the best at hitting on the best player available. Not everyone has a crack at the top pick. Teams picking near the end of the first round can only pick the players available to them, and should be evaluated on whether they make the right choice among what is still left.
To measure this, I used the “approximate value” (AV) numbers at pro-football-reference.com. Approximate value is calculated based on a formula that accounts for game started, awards, statistics (where applicable for skill positions), and then divides up an offense or defense’s pie based on shares. The size of the pie is determined by the quality of the unit in preventing or scoring points.
At the top, there are plenty of good players in most drafts, so plenty of good picks will not end up being the “best player available” despite the team having no issue with the pick. For example, the 2007 draft featured great players in Calvin Johnson, Joe Thomas, and Adrian Peterson being selected. Patrick Willis was on the board and shows up with the highest value to date based on 4 first team all pro selections and 5 pro bowls. Thus, San Francisco gets the checkmark for taking “the best player available” when they were on the clock at #11.
To come up with the list, I used career AV, called it a tie that went to the selecting team if they were within a point either way, and credited a team with taking the “best player available” if no one else in the next 31 picks selected a player who has had a better career. I did not use the 2010 and 2011 draft classes yet, with too few years to compare. I also required that a player averaged over 4 AV per season to qualify (didn’t want career backups or short term starters showing up late in the draft).
The results? Not surprising, but the best organizations at selecting the best players when on the clock have been Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Green Bay. New England–and perhaps surprisingly considering they just made their first playoff appearance last year–San Francisco, are next.
If you drew randomly from among the next 32 players selected, you should hit 3.1% of the time. The three best teams are the only ones to hit on “best player available” more than twice as frequently as random chance. Pittsburgh’s six “best players available” were Ben Roethlisberger, Troy Polamalu, Lamar Woodley, Mike Wallace, William Gay, and Brett Keisel. Baltimore’s were Haloti Ngata, Ed Reed, Ray Rice, Marshall Yanda, Dawan Landry, and Chester Taylor. Green Bay maxed out with Aaron Rodgers, Clay Matthews, Jermichael Finley, Aaron Kampman, Corey Williams, and Scott Wells.
Washington under Vinny Cerrato, meanwhile, did not draft any best players available, but they almost did. Here is the complete list of how frequently teams ended up drafting the “best available player” compared to the 31 selected players that followed in the draft.
[photo via Getty Images]