Brandon Marshall anyone

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by ethat001

So by the numbers above, you'd be wasting a potential $30 million guaranteed money on a QB, RB or WR who only has a 50 PERCENT chance of making it in the NFL. Makes someone proven like Marshall seem worth it.

Signing a YOUNG vet like Haynesworth to $40 mil guaranteed, Hall to $20 mil guaranteed -- I think these make more sense for young proven stars. I don't disagree with the front office with this strategy. It's more expensive, but maybe more worth it. It seems like the draft is a better deal for low round picks if you can pick a gem like Horton.

Well, $30 million isn't exactly the average amount of guaranteed money for a first round player. It's like, the average of the top three picks. But the bust rate in the top three is, obviously, significantly lower than in the rest of the round.

I've also found, in the past, that the way you need to define a bust to make the overall rate 50%+, seems to be more heavily based on expectations than actual results. The true bust rate in the first round seems to be closer to 20% over the last five years or so, (5-6 players per round), although, admittedly much higher at the WR position. I'm just not of the mind that a 1st round pick that produces at a 3rd round level [like Robert Gallery] for 7-8 seasons deserves the same tag as a guy who is out of the league [pick your favorite Mike Williams] in two seasons.

And then of course, the study does label guys like Koren Robinson and Peter Warrick busts, though they do meet the non-bust criteria. Still, a 40% bust rate on WRs means you do always risk drafting a non-player in the draft.

Still, unless 100 receptions is a magical, automatic sort of figure, I'd say that a guy like Marshall could still find himself on the wrong side of that 45%. Not that it's likely that a guy with consecutive 100 reception seasons can't hold his own, but nothing he's done would make it a certainty that he's going to stay near the top of the league in receiving.

The draft is an excellent value from picks 9 and on. For teams picking in the top 8...you just have to do your homework and make sure you draft a contributor. The bust rate is pretty low in the top 8 picks, and the signing bonuses are obscenely high, and this combination makes it crippling for teams to draft a bust in the top quarter of the first round. Not that I'm suggesting anything that isn't already obvious.