Conclusion

I can wrap all this up with one sentence. Draft as many top NFL draft picks as possible. #analysis. I’m sure no one has come up with that strategy to date. You don’t really need to read all the position breakdowns unless that information is really interesting to you. The two tables in this post compile all the necessary information.

This table shows the Startable Rate of every position by their NFL draft stock. It only shows the positions/draft stock that have a Startable Rate over 15%. It also shows an average of how many players are drafted per year that fall within the criteria and when the latest you can expect them to be available in a rookie draft. Keep in mind, this will change depending on the league setup.

NFL Draft Position	Startable Rate	Ave. Drafted by NFL	Rookie Draft
1st Round Off-Ball LB	84.2%	2.1	2nd
1st Round TE	80.0%	1.0	2nd
1st Round RB	77.8%	2.7	1st
1st Round S	71.4%	1.6	5th
1st Round WR	65.8%	3.8	1st
1st Round CB	64.7%	3.8	8th
2nd Round Off-Ball LB	53.8%	3.8	4th
2nd Round TE	47.1%	1.7	8th
1st Round QB	46.4%	2.8	2nd
1st Round DE	45.0%	4.1	5th
2nd Round S	42.9%	2.8	6th
1st Round DT	37.5%	3.1	7th
2nd Round RB	35.7%	2.7	2nd
3rd Round DE	35.7%	2.6	7th
2nd Round WR	31.7%	4.0	3rd
3rd Round RB	28.6%	2.0	3rd
2nd Round CB	27.3%	4.0	8th
3rd Round S	25.0%	2.1	7th
3rd Round TE	23.8%	2.2	8th
4th Round TE	21.1%	2.2	8th
2nd Round DE	19.2%	3.4	6th
4th Round DE	18.8%	3.7	8th
3rd Round Off-Ball LB	15.8%	4.5	5th
3rd Round QB	15.4%	1.3	4th
3rd Round WR	15.4%	5.1	5th

This list ignores average ADP, career length, etc. So don’t actually follow it. But these are definitely the guys to chase while available. After the guys on this list are gone, it boils down to scouting the players, understanding the depth chart and knowing the overall situation. Or you can trade away any picks that come after this list is gone.

From a scouting standpoint, the guys who have the best chance off this list to be productive are guys who dropped in the draft because of injury or character concerns, but eventually earn a chance. Tyreek Hill dropped to the 5th round last year because of domestic violence issues in his past. His teammate, Spencer Ware lasted until the 6th round in 2013 because of multiple DWI arrests. Both have become useful fantasy starters, maybe it’s a KC thing… Depending on the infraction and your conscience, you can try to sell high the first chance you get, which everyone has said this offseason about Hill.

Looking at depth charts, I’m probably looking for players with the shortest climb up the depth chart to playing time. An injury or two can make the opportune LB or S productive. That said, if those guys become productive at some point in the year, I’ll probably look to trade them away for whatever profit I can because the chances of them being fully startable for multiple years is just too low. If I draft a mid-to-late round LB in the 5th round and he’s able to play during the season, I’ll probably be willing to trade him away for a future 4th rounder or use him as a chip to move from the 5th to the 4th or some similar move.

De’Vondre Campbell was drafted in the 4th round in the NFL draft last year. It was easy to see by looking at the depth chart ahead of him that he had an easy chance to start, yet he was going really late in early rookie drafts last year. I got him in the 6th round of one rookie draft. I could’ve easily flipped him for a future 4th at the start of the season. Who knows if he’s going to be productive, but flipping a 6th to a 4th is a sure increase in value. Last year I drafted Kentrell Brothers in a few places. I had heard good things about him and knew Chad Greenway would retire soon. But Brothers was a 5th round pick. Greenway has retired but there hasn’t been a market for Brothers yet. When there is, I’m probably selling.

Realistically, I won’t draft another QB who wasn’t drafted in the 1st round of the NFL draft. If you draft a 3rd round QB every year, you’d potentially end up with 1.5 starters in a decade and 8.5 roster cloggers. Those are wasted draft picks. Someone else will get the next Russell Wilson and I’m fine with that. If I want the next Russell Wilson, I will generate enough additional value in my rookie drafts that I’ll have the pieces to trade for him when he starts producing.

The one possible exception to this rule is when the Patriots draft a QB. Time and time again, the Patriots backup QB is given a chance to start somewhere else, just by learning from Belicheck. The QB has rarely been good (7th Round Matt Cassel, UDFA Brian Hoyer, 3rd Round Ryan Mallett) but their value will spike when they relocate, which is probably the time to sell. Jimmy Garoppolo may well confirm this hypothesis either this offseason or next year.

RBs drafted after the 3rd round are probably off my draft board. They would either have to fall significantly in my rookie draft or I would need to fall in love with them. That’s not great news for Kenneth Dixon. 4th and 5th round RBs need to fall into the perfect situation and still need a little luck. Jordan Howard had an amazing year last year as a 5th round rookie, but he was only given a chance once Jeremy Langford was banged up. Michael Turner was a 5th round pick in 2004. He didn’t produce a startable season until he got out from behind LT and signed with the Falcons.

The one possible exception to the 3rd Round RB rule would be Kyle Shanahan late-round RBs. Shanahan Sr made 6th round Terrell Davis into a Hall of Famer. Shanahan and son made 6th round Alfred Morris into a legit fantasy starter and Pro Bowler. Fourth Round Devonta Freeman was one of the best RBs in the league under Shanahan. When the 49ers draft an RB this year, take notice and keep him on your draft board.

WRs drafted after the 2nd round are very low on my board. Again, they would need to drop but also they would need to potentially be able to develop. Most are drafted more to fill a specific need or role or have a trait the team is currently missing. A team may see a WR that can return kicks and punts and draft them in the 5th round. They aren’t looking for WRs that can eventually be their starting WR. These late round WRs also take the longest to develop, so they’ll be on your roster for awhile.

TEs drafted after the 4th round are definitely low on my draft board. That said, TE is similar to CB and DT. There weren’t enough drafted over the course of a decade to provide a decent sample size.

DEs require a little more attention. They’re such a difficult position to predict. I think anyone drafted after the 3rd round is probably off my board. Also, I would rather wait and draft a 3rd round NFL DE than reach for a 2nd round NFL DE as the 3rd rounders seem to be more successful. It would be interesting to study that with a little more depth.

I’ve never had Edge LBs on my board. 1st and 2nd Round Off-ball LBs will be on my board, but I won’t want to reach for 1st Rounders. I’ll still look at 3rd Round off-ball LBs. They had a 15% startable rate, but they’ll probably be taken before the rest of my board is clear.

I’m only drafting top 3 round NFL safeties going forward, which turns out to be really easy considering they fall the furthest in rookies drafts, other than CBs and DTs.

DTs and CBs simply weren’t drafted enough to produce comprehensive analysis. If I have time this summer, I may put together more information based on NFL draft trends for CB- and DT-required leagues.

These guidelines carry through the peaks and valleys of talent. I looked for ways to diagnose one of the position peaks but I couldn’t find a correlation. There was no connection between the number of players for a position drafted per year or drafted in a specific round per year and the peaks of startability rate for that position.

The next issue to tackle is how long to hold onto players, both players that have produced and player who haven’t. Thus the following table.

The fluke rate represents the percentage of players who have only one startable year vs the players who have multiple startable seasons. Again with the disclaimer that there wasn’t enough data to be sure on CBs and DTs, which represent the lowest and highest fluke rates.

LB and RB had the 2nd lowest fluke rate, meaning, if a player put up a startable season, they’re the most likely to put up another startable season. QB, TE, DE and S all had relatively high fluke rates meaning if you’ve got a guy who has produced one strong season, don’t be afraid to trade him away as there’s a legit chance it won’t be followed up by another startable season. Basically, Yannick Ngakoue has a 30% chance of never producing another startable season.

Position	Multi-year Starters	1 Year Starters	Fluke Rate	Rookie Startable Rate	2nd Year Startable Rate	3rd Year Startable Rate
QB	19	8	29.6%	26.3%	52.6%	68.4%
RB	51	16	23.9%	52.9%	74.5%	88.2%
WR	60	23	27.7%	40.0%	70.0%	88.3%
TE	25	11	30.6%	24.0%	72.0%	92.0%
DT*	11	8	42.1%	36.4%	72.7%	81.8%
DE	34	14	29.2%	29.4%	52.9%	85.3%
LB	52	16	23.5%	46.2%	76.9%	94.2%
CB*	25	7	21.9%	40.0%	88.0%	100.0%
S	32	15	31.9%	53.1%	87.5%	96.9%

The other thing this chart tries to explain is how long to be patient with each position, by listing the percentage of multi-year starters who had had their first startable year by year 1, year 2 or year 3. Of all multi-year startable RBs, 52.9% had their first startable year as rookies. 74.5% had their first startable year in one of their first two years. And 88.2% had their first startable year in one of their first three years. This doesn’t take into account when they had their second startable year and it doesn’t include 1 year starters.

RBs and Ss both have rookie startable rates over 50%. So they should be the first players dropped if they don’t produce early.

We’ve known forever that rookie TEs don’t produce well. Rookie QBs and DEs produce at similar levels. But startable TEs are almost all startable by year 3 at the latest. Startable QBs need the most patience as only 68.4% of them are startable any time within their first three seasons.

I’ll put together another post following the NFL draft sharing most of my draft board for upcoming rookie drafts. Stay tuned.