The Only Losers Of Draft Weekend Are The Losers Who Read Draft Grades
The annual tradition of grading drafts will never stop - but that doesn't mean Aaron's giving up the crusade.
By PackerAaron
As sure as the sun sets in the west and the sure as the swallows come back to Capistrano, the NFL media is knee deep in draft grades and dolling out Winners and Losers.
Longtime readers of this site and my longtime followers on Twitter know how I feel about draft grades and Winners and Losers columns.
The only losers of draft weekend are the suckers who read draft grades.
I understand - it's football. We are programmed to expect a winner and a loser. We want to know our team improved over the course of the last three days.
But there simply is no way of knowing how any of these guys are going to pan out until we let the next few years unfold. Draft classes that look weak now could end up being gold mines of talent. Draft day hauls being praised by Mel Kiper today can turn out to be the worst class a team has ever had.
The grading of the draft is simply an exercise in futility.
My buddy Steve over at Pro Football Focus had a good take this morning regarding draft evaluation:
All I ask is that you judge a team's draft by the players selected, not by "needs met"
— Steve Palazzolo (@PFF_Steve) May 4, 2015
Of course, everyone knows the old axiom of needing to wait three years before being able to properly judge a draft class. And of course, no one does it. Which leads to moments like this from our Draft Livestream this past weekend. (Apologies for the swearing. I was in a mood...)
Draft grades and Winners and Losers are pure click bait. You're better than that.
Rather than resort to superficiality and assign a letter grade on this draft overall, let's dig into the Packers' choices.
What a lovely idea Bob. Thank you for doing so.
It's time to evolve people.
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Comments (25)
HankScorpio
May 04, 2015 at 08:38 am
Grading the 2015 NFL draft now is a little like declaring the winner of a game based on who won the coin flip. All that happened this weekend is we set the starting parameters of the discussion. We're utterly clueless about how those parameters will evolve from here.
Grading the 2015 NFL draft 12 months from now is a little like calling a game over at halftime. To borrow a phrase from Mr. Nagler, there will still be a lotta ballgame left on determining how much this draft class helps the Packers.
24 months from now, the picture will begin to come in to focus. To continue the single game analogy, we're starting the fourth quarter at this point. Some games are over by that time. We may be able to make some broad generalizations that have some meaning.
Pack12
May 04, 2015 at 10:28 am
Back in 1975 my brother's ex teammate on his high school football team when off to college and on one of his return trips told my brother, "We have a guy that is much better than Archie Griffin". Let's remember that Archie Griffin won two consecutive Heisman's. The college his friend went to was Jackson State and the player was Walter Payton. I wonder what the draft nerds would have said about the Bears picking Payton. I bet you that he was not even on their radar because Payton did not go to a big school like Ohio State and that most Bear fans were asking themselves Walter Who?. My point is that you cannot grade a player based on how much you know about him and that it does take time to see how well a team did in the draft.
RCPackerFan
May 04, 2015 at 10:49 am
I agree and disagree with this statement. Grading NFL drafts should be based on how the players were evaluated and where they were ranked, and where the teams drafted them. The grades should give you an idea of where that expert thought the player should have gone, and whether they feel its a good fit and whatnot.
If its left at that and that only, grades are fine.
But for some of these experts that say this or that person will be great or horrible and deserve grade ___ for it. That is worthless.. No one knows how a player will be 2-3 years from now. That's why a true draft grade will be 2-3 years down the road.
Koostyroosty
May 04, 2015 at 11:27 am
I'm waiting for August to see what these guys look like on the field. I am going to spend some time at training camp this year, so I'll play GM in the stands (with all of the other GM's!) and evaluate the talent at that time! Its fun to do with family, and some times you can see the talent right away. ie: Corey Lindsey. He looked real good from day 1 of TC last year.
Samson
May 04, 2015 at 11:27 am
No doubt draft grades are useless but ....
So are blogs declaring this obvious fact.
PackerAaron
May 04, 2015 at 01:07 pm
Which, of course, makes comments on said blog post even more worthless.
Amanofthenorth
May 04, 2015 at 06:19 pm
Life is empty and meaningless. This has no meaning too
EdsLaces
May 04, 2015 at 11:28 am
Haha epic rant. I don't care about draft grades. What I am curious about is ....why am I most excited about a 1 year starter from Miami Ohio and an undrafted guy from Bethune-Cookman haha?
Thegreatreynoldo
May 04, 2015 at 02:00 pm
Might be a straight line in there, EdsLaces, but you tickled my funny bone. Oops, that might have some potential for being a straight line.
Crackerpacker
May 04, 2015 at 03:37 pm
imo the only reason we have draft grades straight after the draft is for the so called draft experts to justify there jobs obviously they can't admit being wrong so they give an A to teams that have evaluated the players the same as them and a bad grade to the teams that haven't .
jeremyjjbrown
May 04, 2015 at 05:47 pm
In the spirit of draft grades I give this article a B+ before I've even read it.
TKWorldWide
May 04, 2015 at 06:12 pm
Well done, sir.
Bearmeat
May 04, 2015 at 06:09 pm
Yep. That comment was from me on Friday night. I'll own it.
And I am extremely proud that the my panicked comment based on "why the heck have they taken two slot CBs??" regarding the Vikings and the Bears got such international attention due to Nagler's EPIC rant.
I wish I was a troll. Because that would have been the ultimate GOAL ACHIEVED. ;)
Amanofthenorth
May 04, 2015 at 06:22 pm
If someone would go back and grade drafts three years prior and then compare them to what grades the experts gave them after the draft, you might find some pundits that are grading well.
canadapacker
May 04, 2015 at 08:05 pm
Great call - I would like to see a log of the comparisons of all of the Draft prognoticators and how good they were for their final mock draft. I would also like to see the 3rd or 4th year evaluations /draft grades for each team and compare those against what these supposed experts had said immediately post draft. Those who can do those that cant write about it ( or in some cases go on the TV and talk about it).
Icebowler
May 04, 2015 at 08:11 pm
I noticed this year that in most pre-draft CB rankings by the media draft gurus, the 6'1' guys were all at the top of the rankings. I believe this to be an overreaction to the recent success of Seattle's Legion of Boom. I think TT and his scouts were wise to go with the more "average sized" athletic CB's with a higher ceiling long term. By the start of the playoffs, Randall and Rollins will be looking like excellent draft picks.
jeremyjjbrown
May 05, 2015 at 06:13 am
The Hilarious part is that the Seahawks drafted those guys because they were undervalued. Now they are overvalued, so TT drafted some highly athletic, slightly shorter guys. Darrelle Revis is 5'11" tall, I'd take him over Richard Sherman any day.
ben
May 08, 2015 at 01:08 am
"Higher ceilings"?
"Highly athletic"?
U know, outside of homerville these things are based on real things like hight, speed, quickness, & strength. Not because of the color their new uniform or cause the most overrated GM of our time drafted him.
& at the same time the seahawks are over-rated.
Wake-up Homerville
4thand1
May 08, 2015 at 02:37 pm
Wake up and welcome to the salary cap era Seachickens. Russel Wilson and the chickens are 10's of millions apart in contract negotiations.
DrealynWilliams
May 08, 2015 at 08:03 am
I agree @IceBowler
Thegreatreynoldo
May 07, 2015 at 03:24 am
Football is a game. It is supposed to be fun and to provide entertainment. As such, I see no harm in giving grades to a team's draft right after it is done. As long as the person realizes that no one really knows how it will turn out for a year or 4, as long as they're civil (no ad hominem attacks, or name calling), as long as they are not haters, relentless negative, or complete homers, slavishly adhering to the party line being meted out, or otherwise annoying, I think looking at draft grades and commenting on individual picks is fine. If Cheeseheadtv doesn't want to write such articles, that is of course its prerogative, and the authors here write many fine articles for us, which I appreciate.
HankScorpio
May 07, 2015 at 07:24 am
I agree. Nothing wrong with people voicing their opinions. The draft is a something of an industry so it's only natural that it gets over-covered by media, pundits and fans. I don't get much into ranking or grading the prospects but I enjoy reading from people that do.
But in the end, that's all it is...entertaining opinions.
ben
May 08, 2015 at 12:44 am
Get some stones and an educated opinion. These guys have 3-4 years worth of tape to evaluate. They're interviewed, worked out, & tested to the gills. Just cause you don't know doesn't mean nobody knows. I know. The Packers have had 2 straight bad drafts.
Pussies.
4thand1
May 08, 2015 at 02:34 pm
You suck. You know nothing about football.
HankScorpio
May 08, 2015 at 06:51 pm
I've read an awful lot of draft stuff that didn't really pan out the way it was expected. The only thing that anyone really knows is that they really don't know. Heck, some people can't even get it right with the benefit of hindsight. Which leads me to the last 2 Packer drafts...
The last two drafts have produced 6 starters, the nickel DB and 3rd WR. Barrington or Bradford earning a starting job inside would make it 7 starters, 2 guys that play a lot and a DL contributor. One of those guys was Offensive Rookie of the Year. That's pretty good. If you know this draft class is gonna be as "bad" those two, I am very encouraged.