The purpose of this post is to examine:
How much draft capital has been invested in different position groups over the last 10 years? Are there trends in investment? Sources:
Draft history Draft pick values Here I looked at results for the 2010-2019 drafts, covering the last 10 years. To value draft capital, I focused on the Chase Stuart model, but I report the Jimmy Johnson model results below as well.
What I’ve been reading:
On predicting individual offensive line play
Winning leads to rushing attempts, not the other way around
early in games, it is more important to gain yards than just to run the ball for the heck of it, but at the end of the game the number of runs is more important than how many yards they gain.
What the nerds mean when the say running backs don’t matter…and other great bits.
With the Seahawks season over, I was curious to look at the current 2020 NFL draft capital of the Seahawks vs the rest of the NFL. The final draft order will not be set until after the Superbowl, but most of it is set as of today.
Here I looked at draft capital in two ways: Chase Stuart’s numbers the the older Jimmy Johnson numbers.
The Seahawks GM, John Schneider, has often traded down and generated additional picks (and surplus capital), so it would not be surprising to find him doing so again.
The view from my seats
The Seahawks are known as a run first team. The numbers strongly suggest that passing more would lead to a more successful offense.
It’s well known in the analytics community that passing is generally better than rushing. See here for some examples:
https://thepowerrank.com/2018/09/24/the-surprising-truth-about-passing-and-rushing-in-the-nfl/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/for-a-passing-league-the-nfl-still-doesnt-pass-enough/ https://www.cmusportsanalytics.com/nfl-expected-points-nflscrapr-part-1-introduction-expected-points/ Here I’ll review some basic analyses to make that point in general and for the Seahawks in particular for the 2019 regular season.
