Ketch's 10 Thoughts From the Weekend (NFL Draft data more revealing than ever)
- Thread starter Ketchum
- Start date
I'm with you on being very worn out that Jerry thinks each year the draft is his chance to prove to the world that he is just as smart as Jimmy Johnson when it comes to building a team.
But I'm not nearly ready to lay the blame of our mediocrity solely at the feet of Tony Romo.
It's a classic case of the QB gets too much credit for the good and too much blame for the bad. Saying the Cowboys can't win a championship with Romo is like blaming him for not being a better pass-rusher, cover guy, and blocker. When Romo has been healthy the QB position has been the most consistent part of the Cowboys team the last 8 years (except for maybe placekicking but that doesn't count.) The list of QB's who are consistently better than Romo is a short one. Ask Cleveland (or Houston, or Philly, or SF, or Buffalo, or StL, or NYJ, etc) how tough it is to find a franchise QB. And there are a bunch of franchise QB's who aren't bringing home trophies every year either. Ask Atlanta, Cincy, Miami, KC, SD, Detroit, etc.
I'm not saying Tony Romo is Aaron Rodgers. But I'll say that before 3 years ago our O-Line was terrible, 2 years ago our secondary was porous, last year was a complete throw away year.
Jerry should have kept DeMarco and tossed Dez (nobody has needed a high paid WR to reach the SB the last 3 years), stockpiled pass rushers and cornerbacks in the draft, and acquired some Jeremy Maclin level talent through free agency.
But I'm always 3rd in my fantasy league so really... what the hell do I know?
gone against the trend in what way? I think I know what you're asking, but want to make sure.
My favorite part-
"C. People mentioning West Virginia’s Karl Joseph in the same breath with Earl Thomas. Child, please."
"C. People mentioning West Virginia’s Karl Joseph in the same breath with Earl Thomas. Child, please."
Best I can tell skimming those numbers, if you are a 5-star you either get drafted inside first 3 rounds or you don't get drafted at all. Pretty interesting. Because most of the other rankings are much more consistent in getting guys drafted throughout the entire draft.
Multi-year sample size doesn't reflect that completely, but there's no question that there's a flood of 5-stars that get selected every year in the first three rounds and then it slows considerably, which is the opposite of the two-star players and unranked guys.
Agreed that Dallas' team depth is....er.......not great.
Would add, however, that contributing to last season's utter meltdown, IN ADDITION to Romo's absence, were:
- Loss of team's best CB for all 16 games
- Effective loss (missed time + hobbling injury) of team's best WR for essentially entire season
- Loss of emerging RB (see Dunbar's contributions before his injury)
Injuries happen in the NFL, of course - but I'd be willing to bet that few teams have successfully overcome the loss of their starting QB, #1 WR, # 1 CB, and a key RB - all for essentially the entire season.
WAS the defense "among the worst in the league"?
Per ESPN, rankings:
- Total team defense: 17th
- Passing defense: 5th
- Rush defense: 22nd (tied with Chicago)
- Scoring defense: 6th
http://espn.go.com/nfl/statistics/team/_/stat/total/sort/netTotalYards/position/defense
The 2015 Cowboys' defense was not good - not even close to a championship level defense.
It was not, however, "among the worst in the league" in terms of yards allowed, points allowed, rushing, or passing.....which one can reasonably argue are meaningful measures of overall defensive performance.
1st Jalen Ramsey DB FSU
2nd Noah Spence DE Western Kentucky
3rd Braxton Miller WR Ohio State
4th Andrew Billings DT Waco
4th Ronald Blair DT Appalachian St.[/QUOTE]
Ok, that's interesting. Mine:
Pick 1-4: DeForest Buckner, DL Oregon
Pick 2-3: Reggie Ragland, LB Alabama
3rd: Braxton Miller (I liked this one)
4th: Andrew Billings (liked this one too)
4th: Devontae Booker, RB Utah
This is the question that I have about Kevin Durant... Through 9 years in the league, he has been unable to get a single even halfway decent free agent to join him in OKC. The best free agent signing OKC has had in the Durant era is Anthony Morrow, a guy who wouldn't even see the court for the Spurs or Warriors outside of mop up duty. Durant couldn't even talk James Harden into staying in OKC long term after he was already there and after they had just made a run to the finals.
You look at guys like LeBron, Kobe, Shaq, Duncan, Dirk, Wade, and Garnett, and every one of those guys have had success in their career in convincing not only star free agents to join them, but also convincing solid role players to take pay cuts to get to play on their team and chase a ring. Nobody even likes Kobe, but he still convinced free agents to come play with him during their run to championships post-Shaq.
Durant has to figure out this issue, and the answer very well may be as simple as separating himself from Westbrook, because maybe it's Westbrook that nobody wants to play with rather than Durant.
OKC has done as good a job as anyone else at building the team through the draft and making reasonably good trades outside of the Harden disaster trade, but it's amazing how much they have struck out in free agency every single year, and Durant and Westbrook have to take some ownership of that for their inability to talk even decent role players into joining them.
Injuries will happen again this season. Being as prepared as possible to deal with them is part of the gig.
NOBODY wants to move to OKC on purpose.
And that is exactly how he is treating it, as a toy, not the NFL team it is and once was great.
He believes that he is the most qualified to run the team. That right there is a huge part of the problem.
Well, without doing a study to verify, anecdotally it seems that many of his first round (or other early round selections that he recruited to Louisville) selections were three star rival recruits. That type of result doesn't seem to be consistent with your study, again assuming I am reading it correctly. Does that seem true to you and what would explain such a variance from the fairly consistent norm your study demonstrates?
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Dallas should have taken Baltimores offer of a 4th rounder to trade back to the 6th overall pick. Then they should have traded back with Tennessee (getting a 3rd this year, swapping 2nd's and getting a 2nd next year).
Could have taken Doctson, Dodd, Darian Thompson, Fuller, Booker, Billings, Prescott, or some variation thereof in the first 4 rounds. They really a blew a chance to take advantage of that 4th overall pick
Could have taken Doctson, Dodd, Darian Thompson, Fuller, Booker, Billings, Prescott, or some variation thereof in the first 4 rounds. They really a blew a chance to take advantage of that 4th overall pick
I totally agree, and have for years. He has ruined my Cowboys. I grew up watching that team. Have clear memories of Staubach and many many others and now I could really care less how they do, and That is a shame. Thank you Jerry Jones for taking that away from me!
- Feb 23, 2013
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Not sure they would have helped at the level we need them too. There just didn't seem to be any instant impact defenders for this year. I wish there would have been a top end true corner worthy of that pick or another DE with Bosa talent. With that said a trade back would have been the best thing to do in the first round to acquire another pick. Hopefully Elliot will help keep the defense on the sideline like Murray did in 2014. Time will tell.
- Feb 23, 2013
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No disagreements there. He is too concentrated on the high risk and reward players. He needs to get back to the safe picks from the last few years. Although a case can be made there were several of those in this draft including Elliot and the DT out of Nebraska
@Ketchum
I really appreciate the effort you've put into compiling the draft data over the years.
Two minor suggestion:
1.) I'd represent the data in terms of percentages (5%) rather than ratios (1:20)... "1 out of every 1.63 players" is not very intuitive.
Ex.: 61.3% (1/1.63) of five-star prospects was drafted in seven rounds
2.) I'd recruit @Alex Dunlap to help you graph/plot the data so the reader can digest some of the information visually. There's a lot of information there... Some visual aids would really put this massive data crunch over the top.
Just my $0.02. Overall fantastic work.
I really appreciate the effort you've put into compiling the draft data over the years.
Two minor suggestion:
1.) I'd represent the data in terms of percentages (5%) rather than ratios (1:20)... "1 out of every 1.63 players" is not very intuitive.
Ex.: 61.3% (1/1.63) of five-star prospects was drafted in seven rounds
2.) I'd recruit @Alex Dunlap to help you graph/plot the data so the reader can digest some of the information visually. There's a lot of information there... Some visual aids would really put this massive data crunch over the top.
Just my $0.02. Overall fantastic work.
Ah Jerry. The price we Cowboys fan have to keep paying for your never ending buffoonery.
The essential question is why the hell would anyone expect anything more or different from this delusional clown.
The essential question is why the hell would anyone expect anything more or different from this delusional clown.
I haven't. I don't think anyone from those networks has ever crunched the numbers like I have.
I wrote about this last year, but he develops three-stars into NFL prospects at the rate the rest of the nation develops four stars.
Thanks for the link...I had forgotten about that. Development has got to be part of it, but I'm starting to think his evaluation process may simply be superior to some others, especially with regard to lower ranked prospects. The numbers seem to be fairly strong in support of that.
