Huh? Wasn't he asking me with 100% past omniscience, how much would I give up to I guess go from drafting 10th in 1998 to first? I would trade something but Manning had a ton of hoopla so I don't know if the Colts would have let him go. I'd put some decent package together but if not just sign Kurt Warner and draft Brady in the 5th in 2000 and roll the dice.

I guess what you are getting at is that if Brady were simulated on 31 different teams, he wouldn't have turned out to be "Tom Brady" on nearly all of them? I'm not sure about that.

PHB,

I think you're being too results-oriented / binary in your thinking. If a player makes it, he's "can't-miss"; otherwise he's a bust. But going into the draft it's still a very inexact science.

Assuming you could quantify these things, would you consider a prospect with an 80% chance to become elite more valuable than one with a 50% chance? Or 30% chance? Of course you would.

I gather that's how teams evaluate prospects (although with more options-- if I really broke it down it would be like % chance of HoF / all-pro / pro-bowl / solid starter / average starter / backup / bust), and I doubt even they can quantify it, and they're basically the best in the world at it.

When people say Andrew Luck is a can't miss prospect, I assume that comes from some combination of evaluating his ceiling, the likelihood of him ending up in one of the other tiers, and the likelihood of him busting. I'm pulling these numbers out of my ass for a hypothetical, but let's look at it like this

QB A
Pro Bowl + : 30%
Solid / Average starter: 50%
Backup or bust: 20%

QB B
Pro Bowl + : 60%
Solid / Average starter: 30%
Backup or bust: 10%

You'd agree that QB B is a better prospect than QB A, right? Since you can't know their careers in advance, this is really the best you can do.

Players who aren't can't-miss do pan out-- some of them would have to, after all-- but the likelihood of them panning out is still smaller, unless teams have grossly misevaluated a prospect, which I don't think happens often anymore.

p.s. I wish you'd answer the Manning hypothetical honestly, as I think it will help you see the other side of the argument.

Did Epip hack your account?

You can look back a little and say "Manning was a good pick" because he was expected to be. He was projected as "can't miss" so you can say it's not all hindsight. Brady was a late-round after thought, so you can't claim to have any reason other than hindsight there.

I'm asking you to look at it as if you know Manning's career, not that you know what's going to happen with those other guys. Knowing that you'll get a high-INT rookie year followed by 12 years of GOAT-level QB play. What would you trade for that?

Basically, yeah. Remember Brady wasn't even the sure starter in college; he spent his last two years battling Drew Henson for the job. Teams obviously didn't see the Tom Brady we know now in there or they would have drafted him much sooner. If he goes to another team, especially one dysfunctional enough that they don't develop him well, he might face a fate more similar to most 6th-round QBs.

Yeah, when we ran the little mock draft before the real thing earlier this year, I kept saying Patrick Peterson was the top prospect in the draft; I watched alot of him at LSU he was pretty amazing.

Anyone know how he's panning out so far? I know he was getting abused early in the season, but I'm curious to know if he's gotten more comfortable and has started playing better.

That punt return TD he had last week vs Baltimore was disgusting, here's the replay of it in case anyone missed it: http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-cant-m...through-Ravens

See this is where I disagree. How can you say someone like Kurt Warner's likelihood of panning out was small? How do you know? You're basing this on scout groupthink from 17 years ago? Really? My facts about Kurt Warner are much more reliable than anybody's pre-draft projections about Kurt Warner. You are assigning way too much value to pre-draft ranking and not giving guys like Brady and Warner enough credit for just straight-up being really good. What's more likely?

Tom Brady was destined to be a mega elite QB?
Pre-draft evaluators of Tom Brady's talent were accurate?

I don't see how it's possible to pick the latter.

And what do you mean answer it honestly? WHy would I put some huge package deal together to trade up 9 spots (a huge cost, esp. with Manning as the top prospect) when I can sign Warner and draft Brady late within the next 2 years? I don't get it. As I said, I would offer something for Manning but wouldn't break the bank. And also as I said earlier, plenty of people consider Brady the best QB of his generation, though Manning was the one dubbed so. (I think Manning is, though).



Manning was a good pick because he had what it took to be a good QB at this level, irrespective of anybody's understanding of his skills back in 1998. That's the point. Our knowledge of guys like Brees, Rodgers, Brady, Warner, etc. is significantly more accurate than any scout's prior to their respective draft. And if you want to chalk their success up to finding the right teacher/system then you have to go back and include guys like Palmer, Carr, and Smith, who were all drafted #1 (and may have sucked based much more on a crappy situation) How do you not see this?

I still don't know how else to answer it. You're asking me to have a 13 year knowledge base about Manning, but to disregard my knowledge of Warner and Brady? Why would I do that? I can't just ignore opportunity cost when answering this question.



I mean we could go back and forth on this obviously. I tend to think guys like Brady and Warner had it in them and it just needed to be found and cultivated. I don't think they accidentally became mega elite QBs. And again, if you argue this you have to include guys who were highly-touted but didn't pan out so well (Palmer, Carr, Smith, etc.). How do you know if they found another sytem they wouldn't be top 5 QBs right now? You don't.

I feel like we're at an impasse. I don't know how to explain any better that you don't actually know what a player's career is going to be in advance. And just because we know what did happen, does not mean what did happen is 100% guaranteed to happen at the time of the draft.

Obviously they weren't accurate, but it's an inexact science. Brady is an extreme exception. Can you name the last QB drafted in the sixth round or later that was as good or better than Brady?

Sigh. Because if you knew Brady was going to be so good, you'd pick him in the first round. Do you think thirty other teams passed on him five or six times because they knew he'd be a HoF QB with three Super Bowl wins? Do you think Bill Belichick would have passed on him repeatedly if he knew what Brady would develop into?

I mean "answer it honestly" as in "play by the rules of the hypothetical instead of finding a way around it". I'm asking you how many draft picks you consider a QB who is 100% guaranteed to have Peyton Manning's career worth. You keep avoiding it by assuming you have perfect knowledge of all future picks and that no other GM does, so you can just pick up the best bargains.

My point is that scouts and teams make the best decisions they can based on the knowledge they have. I don't know how you don't see that.

Yes, everyone has some magical "ability" rating that may or may not be apparent to scouts who are watching and ranking them, but what does that have to do with anything?

You seem to be saying two things:
1) Giving up a ton of picks for Luck is dumb because you can win a SB with the non-QB players those picks would've provided
2) QBs are hard to evaluate so it's not worth putting a ton of stock into Luck's "Can't miss" projection.

Re: #1, yeah, obviously the other cogs are important, but if you can add a player with a significant chance of being a mega-elite star at the game's most valuable position, you do it. Mega-Elite QBs greatly improve their teams' odds of SB wins (see: Manning, Brady, ARod, etc.). Teams can win without them (see: Dilfer, Rape) but it's rarer.

Re: #2, It's fine to doubt that ability of scouts to assess talent, but you're being too narrow here. Saying Brady is elite ergo 6th round picks have value is the same as retro-actively judging a multi-player and pick trade for one team because one of the insignificant, late-round picks turned into a great player.* 6th Round QBs don't have a huge success rate, so you can't pick and choose the bright spots and use them to ascribe the value of those picks.

*To be more clear:
Team A gives: A+ QB, A WR, 6thR pick
Team B gives: A QB, A+ WR, 6thR pick

You'd probably call this a pretty even deal, but if Team B takes that pick and picks another A+ QB with it, you don't get to retro-actively say it was a master-stroke. You evaluate decisions based on the (admittedly imperfect) info you had at the time.

Just use relative values. Instead of knowing that pick #199 in 2000 would be Brady, assume it could be a QB with a <1% chance of becoming elite.

Because that's what a hypothetical is. It's an intellectual exercise. If you skirt the rules, it's pointless.

But you don't know they would either. The whole point of Andrew Luck is that teams think of him as very, very likely to have that level of success. Obviously Brady and Warner had it in them to become elite QBs. And if teams had realized that at the time, they would have taken them. But it's also possible that they only had a 5-10% chance to develop the way they did, and they got lucky for whatever reason and it worked out.

Also this

I hate to use a poker analogy, phb, but your position is like saying "AK is a better hand all-in preflop than a pair of tens because this time a king flopped."

My points in all this are:

1)Prospects are seen to have varying levels of success and teams draft based on that perceived level of success
2)Scouts are generally pretty good at what they do but nothing is an exact science
3)An elite QB is extremely valuable and worth serious compensation

jfc at least epi was funny when he derailed threads with nonsense

Seriously

Pretty low standards for humor imo

at least phb isn't being completely intellectually dishonest and only engaging the debate to piss people off (presumably)

and he's doing it in a side-discussion thread about the topic he's discussing, not in a weekly NFL thread that everyone reads

Why would I do that when I have knowledge that he won't be taken until the 6th? How much should I have given up for Leaf? You're asking me to put a package together knowing Peyton Manning becomes Peyton Manning 100% of the time (because scouts expected him to be ldo) but ignore Brady because scouts didn't expect him to be? WTF? That's a horrible hypothetical and you have no idea how many teams Brady would have failed on. YOu are basing your knowlege of Brady on what scouts thought about him 12 years ago, and I'm basing it off of stuff like "what has happened the last 12 years." I'm using better info. than you. Even if Brady doesn't become mega elite on all 31 teams, I'm still using better info. than you are.

Play by what rules? Know the last 13 years about Peyton Manning and ignore the last 11 about Brady? Why? And I can turn your argument around and say "nobody knew Manning was 100% to be Manning" (because if he found an awful system maybe he fails amirite? Or ... no... because everyone expected him to succeed I guess... Those scouts, they're always so correct!)


And my point is that instead of looking at what scouts expect to happen, let's instead look back at what does happen.

Exercise for you. Starting in 1998, please list all prospects who were thought to be "can't miss". When you're done with that short list, create a list of guys who ended up "not missing". Your second list will be significantly more full than your first. Why? Because they found the right system? Or because they were really good and scouts couldn't recognize it in advance?

The problem here is you are assigning a value on Brady that was given to him by scouts. I'm gonna go ahead an use a value that is a bit more accurate imho.

Good call.
Let's chart the careers of all QBs taken in the first round (where legions of scouts said they'd go), then will compare that to all QBs taken in the 6th round (where the same legions said they'd go). What do you suppose we'll find?

That's not the point of Nath's hypothetical though. (also, I'm not assigning a value to Brady, just to pick #199 in any given draft).

The point is that when you put yourself in the shoes of a GM that doesn't know the future, the guy with the 40% chance of being elite is >>>>>>> a bunch of late-round flyers who are 2% likely to be elite.

We do the best we can with the projection abilities and tools available to us.

Play the odds, friend-o

The answer is yes and its not that close for about 1/3 of the teams in the league.

Miami
Jacksonville
Washington
Minnesota
Cleveland
Denver
Arizona
Seattle
Maybe KC
Oakland (ohh wait what draft)
Maybe Cincy but probably not

Indy is in a really weird spot with Manning and his viability from a physical performance standpoint going forward.

Fine Nath, I'll follow your crazy rules. I'd trade 5 entire drafts for Manning because nobody close to his ability will come along within 2 years.

Let's ignore historical fact here and play a fun, crazy game. Because that's productive to the discussion.

PHB, in order to save time, is this basically your position:

"Scouts suck at their job and sometimes 6th round picks turn into HoFers, so **** it!"

First round picks (especially when you trade 2 entire drafts for them) cost a lot more than 6th round picks. But fun game.

All right. I give up. This is my last response, because I'm not getting through to you. Maybe RT can; more power to him if he keeps trying.

I'm trying to get you to evaluate the draft-pick value of a Hall of Fame quarterback. You refuse because you think that because exactly one time since the merger a 6th round QB has because a Hall of Famer, that you can pick up a Hall of Famer with a sixth-round pick. ****ing pretend you can't get an elite QB for the next three years if you have to. I don't get your unwillingness to engage what I'm trying to get you to engage.

How about "Because sometimes something that is not 100% to happen happens?" Do you really not get that?

For those that have seen the show, does the above not sound perfect if you imagine it coming from his mouth: