AjunCajun

I have done an exhaustive computer program inputting every scouting report from every site I could find and after weighing all the 116 reports, I came up with my top 264 players in the draft. Meacham's overall ranking was 19, which made him the second highest reciever in the draft. His highest ranking was by a scouting service was 14, his lowest was 31. His mean ranking was 19.74. When the Saints picked, he was the highest rated player on the board. He was a +7.26 value at his selection point at 27. That is so good.

Usama Young was the fastest moving player on the board for the last several weeks. He started at being ranked 200th, but by draft day, had moved to the a mean of 52.45. He was ranked as high as 42 and as low as 200. The 200, however was a ranking that never changed rankings after it made changes from the combines of which he did not participate. He is the player that NFL network claims is the top non-combine invitee. NFL network proclaimed this pick as the steal of the third round. His pick at 66 is a +13.5.

Andy Alleman has been a consistent proformer, neither raising or failing on most of the services. His ranking has been been between 56 and 72 and was considered a 2-3 guy by every service. His mean was 68.14. His pick at 88 makes his a +9.86. He was the fourth highest rated guard in the draft on 72.43% of the services I surveyed. By the way, he was one of the workout freaks on NFL network.

Antonio Pittman was the third or fourth highest rate back on most boards. He was ranked from 42 to a low of 57. His mean is 51.38. Being drafted at 107 that is a +55.62, which is spectacular.

Jermon Bushrod was like Young not invited to the combine and was rated the second best non-combine player in the draft. He was ranked from a low of 82 to high of 122. There is a large variation on reported times due to some problems on his pro day and because of a general lack of information. The tapes of this guy are phenomial. His mean was 95.44. Since he was drafted at 125, which makes his a +29.56 pick. That's special.

David Jones at 145, this pick I had a little trouble getting information, some services had him rated with safeties and the numbers on this kid are contridictary. His only times are by the school. Some services didn't have him rated. His ranking are from 151 to 214, where I could find them. I hope the coaching staff know more than the "experts" on this pick. His mean was 194.01. That is -49.01

At 220, Marvin Mitchell, was almost universal rated the 11th highest mlb prospect. That's good for a mean of 192.56, which is better than Jones in the 5th round. That's a +27.44.

Without much fanfare, the Saints compiled a +95.01 that to me is a very good draft. What you have to remember is three things:

1. The Saints were picking at the end of each round. Everyone is talking about Carolina's and Atlanta's draft. Look where they were picking. They should have had a better draft. I have not analyzed the quality of their picks, but I will.

2. The Saints address their real needs in free agency. They picked up veterans, not rookies to fill their holes, unlike both Atlanta and Carolina, who were almost no shows in free agency.

3. The Saints are trying to maintain a dominant offense and shore up their defense. The Saints are relying on scoring to win games and get home field in the dome. It is a proven fact, the best offense win more games during the regular season. Oakland, Tampa, Carolina, Atlanta all had excellent defenses, where were they in the playoffs. You have to score to win.

The Saints were looking to upgrade their depth in the draft and pick players with potential in one or two years. They have their starters for 2007/08, they were selecting starters for 2008 to 2010. This strategy is the same they have been using in New England for about 8 years now. It's working there.

ssmitty

not everyone....................

ScottF

yep, very obvious, how did I miss that?

Euphoria

At least someone else gets it.

SoulStar

Given those numbers, and the massive amount of words in your post, I have to say that you sir have done your homework, and I tip my hat to you.

AjunCajun

The Saints were going for value at the pick they had and were drafting for the future.

DrGari

I love your numbers. Of course, they don't tell the whole story, because they don't address key issues like positional need, but they do show quite clearly the value we got for our picks. I'd like to propose a variation of your metric: using the draft value chart as weightings on your picks.
Clearly, in drafting a ranked 51.3 player at 107 you're getting a lot more value than you're giving up by drafting a #194 player at #145. To put this example at an extreme, I'd argue that the difference between drafting a ranked #220 player at 220 and drafting a #264 ranked player at 220 is relatively small, but under your metric it'd offset the entire rest of the draft, in sum.

So instead:
Predraft pick locations:
27, 58, 88, 123, 135, 163, 220
Corresponding "chart" values:
680, 320, 150, 49, 47, 26.2, 3.4
Total Value:
1275.6

Draft picks "True Position":
19.74, 52.45 (I think this numbered is skewed high, based on the reports I'd seen, but I'll trust your numbers here. They make this analysis look good. ), 68.14, 55.62, 95.44, 194.01, 192.56

Corresponding "chart values" of draft picks:
856.4, 375.5, 249.3, 343.8, 122.2, 13.8, 14.4
Total Value:
1975.4

Difference:
+699.8

That's a huge huge difference (more than half again the value of the original picks). To put this in perspective, the difference in draft value is approximately equal to a late first round pick (#26). If we'd traded away the original draft for a pick, our draft would be worth a bit more than the #11 pick (According to chart value, of course! No one would ever be that stupid to trade away an entire draft for one pick, right?.... Right?). If your numbers are accurate, we should be able to trade our realized draft for the #3 or #4 pick.

Not that this is entirely illuminating, but I like playing with numbers..

AjunCajun

There is one small thing I left out in my numbers. The standard deviation, which on Young and Jones was very high... There is not a lot of data on either one of them. So, I had to use what I had. :

BiggPoppaFro4

Nice work on this one. I think our draft is exactly what we wanted to see. Drafting for depth, not a home run. each one of these guys is a hard worker with a good head about them it seems. Havent ever met them, but those terms seem to come up often in the reporting. I know of one other team that seems to have a history of drafting players that make other folks go "what the f***?"... we should be so lucky.

blacksaint

You can have all the numbers in the world and it don't mean crap. In the NFL it's about the mental strength of these kids, and the talent level, but most importantly it's the coaching if you don't have great coaching than the numbers don't mean anything. Fortunantly we have GREAT coaching, so you might have something there with all those numbers. Nice job!