by Chase Stuart
on May 1, 2019
The Alabama Crimson Tide once again dominated the draft, as did the entire Southeastern Conference. Three Alabama players — defensive tackle Quinnen Williams, guard Jonah Williams, and running back Josh Jacobs — went in the first round, and the school had 10 players selected in the 2019 Draft, the most of any school this year. And based on the Football Perspective Draft Value Chart, Alabama also had the most draft value of any school, followed by Ohio State, Clemson, and Oklahoma.
The table below shows the draft value each school produced in 2019:
Alabama’s dominance in the draft was part of an even more impressive showing by the conference as a whole. Eight of the top 18 teams in draft value came from the SEC, including 5 teams from the SEC West. The graph below shows how much draft value each conference produced in 2019:
And here’s the same data in table form:
Some other draft notes:
- Tennessee was the only SEC school that did not produce a draft pick in 2019.
- In the Big 10, Purdue and Nebraska were the only two schools that did not have a player drafted. For Nebraska, this ended a steak of having at least one player drafted in every year since 1963.
- Kansas was the only Big 12 school without a draft pick in 2019.
- In the Pac 12, California and Oregon State were the two schools shut out from the Draft.
- Louisville, Georgia Tech, and Virginia Tech were ACC schools without a player selected in the 2019 Draft.
- Houston, Temple, and Central Michigan were the three non-Power 5 schools with the most draft value.
- Three schools went 1-11 and still produced at least one draft pick: Rutgers, San Jose State, and Central Michigan.
- Just two first round picks did not go to a Power 5 school, and both have Houston ties. With the 9th pick, the Bills selected Houston DT Ed Oliver, and with the 23rd pick, the Texans drafted Alabama State OT Tytus Howard.
Tagged as:
2019 Draft
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by Chase Stuart
on April 30, 2019
The 2019 Draft was another good one for quarterbacks. Oklahoma QB Kyler Murray was the first overall pick to the Cardinals, Duke passer Daniel Jones was taken by the Giants with sixth pick, and Ohio State’s Dwayne Haskins was the 15th pick to Washington. The Broncos took Missouri Tiger Drew Lock with the 42nd pick, rounding out the class of top prospects.
Over the last 20 years, there were 56 quarterbacks selected in the first round, or just under three per year; there were also 68 quarterbacks taken in the first 50 picks, so the 2019 class was slightly more quarterback-heavy than normal. It was also the 14th time in the last 20 drafts that a quarterback went first overall.
The draft below shows the draft capital — using the Football Perspective Draft Value Chart to assign draft capital to each pick — used on quarterbacks in all drafts since 1967. As you can see, 2019 was not as quarterback-heavy as 2018, but it was still a draft that saw more draft capital used on quarterbacks than average.
[continue reading…]
Tagged as:
2019 Draft
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by Chase Stuart
on April 29, 2019
The NFL Draft is a good way to measure how the league values particular positions. Last year, it seemed as though the running game was back in vogue: after quarterback, running back was perhaps the most highly valued position in the 2018 Draft, and a lot of draft capital was used on non-pass rushing linebackers.
Which positions did NFL teams focus on in the 2019 NFL Draft? We can use the Football Perspective Draft Value Chart to answer that question pretty easily for the first 224 picks (all picks after that have been excluded, since they have a draft value of zero). This was a draft for interior defensive linemen and edge rushers, but even more notable was the absence of draft capital spent on interior offensive linemen.
Consider that 3 out of every 22 players on a football field, at all times, is a guard or center. All else being equal, you would expect 14% of all draft picks and all draft capital to be spent on interior offensive linemen. That means 1 out of every 7.3 draft picks should be an offensive guard or center, but in the first 73 draft picks, there were just 5 interior offensive linemen selected. Just 8% of the first 100 picks were guards or centers, and overall, only 8.4% of all draft capital was spent on guards and centers. Here’s the full list of draftees. [continue reading…]
Tagged as:
2019 Draft,
Draft
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