NFL Draft: Is BPA really the best policy?

Roster Needs

Mandatory Credit: Byron Hetzler-USA TODAY Sports

Let’s face it, if you’re a general manager or a head coach drafting for need in today’s NFL, you’re on the wrong side of history. You’re depriving your franchise of top-tier talent, failing to get the best value from your draft picks, and ostensibly reaching on less talented players to plug holes. Drafting for need is a quick way to load the roster with players who won’t play to their draft/contract expectations–or so they say. What dissenters of a dual approach (that considers the “best player available” at a position of need) won’t tell you is that using free agency to fill those gaps can do the very same thing.

What happens when you ignore a glaring hole on your roster, take the top-rated player on your board, and he doesn’t pan out? There’s a good chance you’ll have wasted cap dollars/time and have a need at both spots three years later. A pure BPA strategy assumes “getting it right” in free agency, and we all know it’s as big a gamble as the annual draft. Rolling the dice on free agent players, who in many cases failed elsewhere, often means keeping the cupboard bare at the team’s weakest positions.

Every war room general claims to follow their board, but how can we know that the pre-draft work, to create that board, didn’t include a thorough inspection of the current roster? If John Dorsey selects UCLA standout Eric Kendricks at 18, can we be sure a perceived need at inside linebacker didn’t factor into the big board formula in the months leading up to April? There’s far too much gray area to know exactly how a team constructed their draft board.

Positional Value

Mandatory Credit: Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports

If we’re being honest, it’s easier to identify talent at certain positions. Take center, for instance. Over the past 25 years, only 30 centers have been drafted in rounds one and two. Since 2005, only 53 centers have been drafted in any round. Compare that number to 109 quarterbacks selected over the same stretch. In fact, only three positions have had fewer draft selections over the past decade (fullback, punter and kicker). Think that has a bearing on how the Chiefs will evaluate a player like Cameron Erving?

Running backs are also relatively easy to find in the NFL. What do Arian Foster and LeGarrette Blount have in common? Each formerly undrafted player has posted a 1,000-yard rushing season in the past five years (Foster’s had three). Alfred Morris, a sixth-round pick by the Washington Redskins in 2012, has had three straight. Zac Stacy, Vick Ballard, Ahmad Bradshaw, and Ryan Grant have also had recent success and they were all either late-rounders or undrafted altogether. Some positions don’t require teams to spend high draft picks.

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