I understand that draft grades are often seen as a waste of time and not indicative of a team’s potential in the years to come. I don’t particularly care. I just think the draft grades are fun, and I like to see what people think and why. I plan to continue making these posts, and I will do rolling 3 year and 5 year averages for the teams in the years to come.
A few observations for this year’s data:
1) The overall average negligibly went up from 2.95 to 3.06. It is such a minor increase that is within error margin, that there is essentially no change in the average at all. Last year’s grades and this year’s grades are centered around a B average.
2) The Cardinals data is unique, and to a lesser extent so are the Lions. I very, very nearly excluded all of Sporting News’s data, or just their Cardinals grade where they gave the team a D (1.0). For reference, the Cardinals next lowest grade was a B- (2.67). This D is the biggest outlier within all the collected data, it single-handedly brought the team’s average down from a 3.74 to 3.54, and their standard deviation up from 0.529 to 0.892. I did not exclude this analyst’s data, but decided to inform those interested of the effect this single opinion has on the results. Meanwhile McDonald of Yahoo gave the Lions an F, which is also the only F given by all evaluated graders. This had a similar impact on the team’s average by bringing it down from 2.92 to 2.71. But had a smaller impact on the Lion’s deviation, bringing it up from 0.829 to 1.112. The Cardinals “D” was harsh and seemed to come out of nowhere. The Lions “F” was harsh, but less of an anomaly compared to the rest of the Lions already scattered grades.
4) For those unfamiliar with standard deviation, this is basically how far to the left and right of the average you need to go in order to capture 65% of the data. So the Detroit Lions have an average of 2.71 (about a B-) and standard deviation of 1.116 (a bit more than a full letter grade). This means that if you were to pull some NFL analyst and ask them to grade the Detroit Lion’s 2023 draft, then based off this data they would likely pick a grade of somewhere between a C- or A. So opinions wildly vary. Compare this to the LA Rams who had a similar average of 2.79, but a standard deviation of only 0.548. If you were to ask a draft analyst about how the Rams draft went, then based off this data they would likely pick a grade between a B+ and a C+. The same principles apply to the draft grader’s and their standard deviation. Kiper, for example had an average grade of 3.148 but he gave almost entirely grades hovering in the B- to B+ range which is represented by the lowest standard deviation for the second year of evaluated analysts. Meanwhile Maddi had a similar average of 3.062, but his grades ranged across the grade scale almost twice as much. I’d argue that a low standard deviation for a draft grader is a bad thing, because they really aren’t stating a firm opinion or showing differences when comparing one team to another.
5) The NFC West is hilarious, with the Seahawks and the Cardinals carrying the division. While the 49ers drag the division down and the Rams are fairly below average.
6) The Raiders are on-top of the AFC West. I don’t care that this is for a meaningless average of draft grades, and that overall the Raiders are just above the NFL average. The Raiders are on top of the world. Suck it, Chiefs. Suck it, bolts. Broncos, we all know why you are in this mess.
Raiders above average? Zeigler might actually have been a good hire by Mark? I think I felt it move…
Please don’t let the Lion’s fans know they are “Divisive” – it’ll go to their heads
3 comments
2023’s data can be found in [this Google doc.](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Hww8pEBd6_y_EGpgRcKQkylmXiM_WqDcAuMy8o5t1ks/edit?usp=sharing)
My post from 2022 can be found [here,](https://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/ujc2lz/compiled_data_from_12_graders_of_the_2022_nfl/) with the data included in the comments.
I understand that draft grades are often seen as a waste of time and not indicative of a team’s potential in the years to come. I don’t particularly care. I just think the draft grades are fun, and I like to see what people think and why. I plan to continue making these posts, and I will do rolling 3 year and 5 year averages for the teams in the years to come.
A few observations for this year’s data:
1) The overall average negligibly went up from 2.95 to 3.06. It is such a minor increase that is within error margin, that there is essentially no change in the average at all. Last year’s grades and this year’s grades are centered around a B average.
2) The Cardinals data is unique, and to a lesser extent so are the Lions. I very, very nearly excluded all of Sporting News’s data, or just their Cardinals grade where they gave the team a D (1.0). For reference, the Cardinals next lowest grade was a B- (2.67). This D is the biggest outlier within all the collected data, it single-handedly brought the team’s average down from a 3.74 to 3.54, and their standard deviation up from 0.529 to 0.892. I did not exclude this analyst’s data, but decided to inform those interested of the effect this single opinion has on the results. Meanwhile McDonald of Yahoo gave the Lions an F, which is also the only F given by all evaluated graders. This had a similar impact on the team’s average by bringing it down from 2.92 to 2.71. But had a smaller impact on the Lion’s deviation, bringing it up from 0.829 to 1.112. The Cardinals “D” was harsh and seemed to come out of nowhere. The Lions “F” was harsh, but less of an anomaly compared to the rest of the Lions already scattered grades.
4) For those unfamiliar with standard deviation, this is basically how far to the left and right of the average you need to go in order to capture 65% of the data. So the Detroit Lions have an average of 2.71 (about a B-) and standard deviation of 1.116 (a bit more than a full letter grade). This means that if you were to pull some NFL analyst and ask them to grade the Detroit Lion’s 2023 draft, then based off this data they would likely pick a grade of somewhere between a C- or A. So opinions wildly vary. Compare this to the LA Rams who had a similar average of 2.79, but a standard deviation of only 0.548. If you were to ask a draft analyst about how the Rams draft went, then based off this data they would likely pick a grade between a B+ and a C+. The same principles apply to the draft grader’s and their standard deviation. Kiper, for example had an average grade of 3.148 but he gave almost entirely grades hovering in the B- to B+ range which is represented by the lowest standard deviation for the second year of evaluated analysts. Meanwhile Maddi had a similar average of 3.062, but his grades ranged across the grade scale almost twice as much. I’d argue that a low standard deviation for a draft grader is a bad thing, because they really aren’t stating a firm opinion or showing differences when comparing one team to another.
5) The NFC West is hilarious, with the Seahawks and the Cardinals carrying the division. While the 49ers drag the division down and the Rams are fairly below average.
6) The Raiders are on-top of the AFC West. I don’t care that this is for a meaningless average of draft grades, and that overall the Raiders are just above the NFL average. The Raiders are on top of the world. Suck it, Chiefs. Suck it, bolts. Broncos, we all know why you are in this mess.
Raiders above average? Zeigler might actually have been a good hire by Mark? I think I felt it move…
Please don’t let the Lion’s fans know they are “Divisive” – it’ll go to their heads