Grading the 2010 NFL Draft – Final

Congratulations if you’ve made it with me this far. If you’re new to the myopic that is the grading of the 2010 NFL Draft here is what you missed…

Please check out this link for an explanation on how I came about these numbers and what they mean.

Here is the AFC East breakdown.
Here is the AFC North breakdown.
Here is the AFC South breakdown.
Here is the AFC West breakdown.
Here is the NFC East breakdown.
Here is the NFC North breakdown.
Here is the NFC South breakdown.
Here is the NFC West breakdown.

This is the final part…

So when I started crunching all of this I wondered where the proverbial “cream” that rose to the top would come from.  Because of the flaws that I knew would come up there were a few surprises in the system.  Coming up with the simplest numbers was my overall “draft value”.  This draft value is simply taking the raw data numbers and re-ordering the draft-able players with where they “should have” been picked in this system.  The first thing I crunched was really for my own “I wonder…” type of questions.  I simply took a look at which positions fared the best in comparison to their draft value.  I broke down every player being drafted and averaged their draft value number with the rest of their position-mates.  I threw out a few positions because of too small of a sample size (fullback, punter, etc.).    What I found that was in the 2010 draft a team would get the best value by selecting a center.  On average a center was worth 44 picks higher than where he was selected.  The worst value?  Running backs provided the worst value by nearly 28 picks of value.  Looking at team by team breakdowns, this was not surprising.  Here is a list of positions.

1. Center → +44.00
2. Tight End → +28.25
3. Safety → +23.05
4. Linebacker → + 15.83
5. Offensive Tackle → +2.22
6. Wide Receiver → +0.19
7. Defensive Tackle → -2.32
8. Defensive End → -13.60
9. Cornerback → -14.33
10. Quarterback → -18.43
11. Offensive Guard → -22.00
12. Running Back → -27.38

Some of this can be explained by the adage to not draft certain positions high (safety, tight end, center, etc.).  But then again some of it may be just chalked up to reaching a premium positions such as running back, pass rusher, quarterback, and cornerback.