Was Mike Shanahan that bad of a drafter, lets look at the crap shoot that is the NFL Draft

Success = Total Number of players in a round who made pro-bowls in the time span 95-2002/(32 pics*years)

I agree, can be somehwat difficult since there is a difference as you said from a 1 time guy versus a 5 time guy but I wanted a simple metric to measure by. I didn’t want to get into if he was a quality player or not (very subjective), I figured if he made a pro-bowl, then he has talent (1 year or not) and that is really what we need to see, was Shanahann drafting the same or better or worse versus his peers in talent.

I think HoF credentials should be included in there somehow as well. A guy like a Jonathon Ogden comes up as pro-bowler, when he was in fact in the pro-bowl for a decade. All GM’s have some misses in the draft, but another metric I’ve seen used is how many players that you draft are on your roster year on year. This gauges misses that develop into solid pro’s versus outright busts. Living in San Diego, which is a notoriously cheap (team owners) city, I’ve watched our guaranteed two wins a year become serious thorn in our side, and they’ve done it all through the draft.

I just wanted a relative comparison to the rest of the league.

I think that overall Shanahan had early success and late success in the draft, it seems like the combination of the 01-05 drafts and the FA signings that killed his credibility as a GM.

In all reality, one of our pro-bowl players was Detron Smith who was a very good ST but marginal offensive player

rather than drafting badly seems to be the emerging consensus about what went wrong with Shanny as GM. Hixon is only the most recent example. That’s the value of the player’s still with the team kind of analysis. It automatically takes into account not just how well a team drafts but how effectively it develops and retains players. Perhaps an even better approach would be to see how many draftees and
free agent signees from each year are still with the team.

When we passed on Maroney in favor of Clarett I about jumped through my tv. Marcus Thomas was another one where good players were available but Shanny was trying to show how clever he was. I think Shanahan did a good job of drafting offensive players (Lelie excepted), but he came up short finding good Defensive players, especially in the lower rounds.

A draft that does not produce NFL players is a failure. A draft filled with middling players is more helpful than a lackluster draft featuring one star. Depth is the name of the game in the NFL. You can fill in the blanks through free agency, but you cannot fill a team that way.

Must point out though…letting Bert Berry go was a poor decision. However, he was not a Broncos draft choice. We picked him up as a street free agent after the Colts dumped him.

While the percentages may be true you also have to look at 2 things; the non-pro bowlers and what position the pro bowlers played.

That really doesn’t matter – Broncoman never says he investigates the defensive side specifically.

Also you have to look at the non-pro bowlers. While not every player contributes at a pro bowl level, many stick around and are still solid players. The Broncos main problem is that they lacked those solid players. The Broncos always rank near the bottom in drafted players retained.

Agreed!

For example did you realize the Broncos 2003 draft may be the worst in NFL history? Not only are none of the players still on the team, only one of the players is still in the NFL (Nick Easton backup DL for Pitt).

I have a little piece comming up, and a lot points towards 2003 being the absolute worst draft class ever. No production is still unacceptable but is more understandable in the bigger picture.

Or how about 2004? Sure we got D.J. Williams, but other then Tatum Bell every other player the Broncos drafted is out of the league! That’s 3 players out of 20 that are still in the NFL just 4-5 years later! That’s ABSURD!!!

I’m studying the USC draftclasses in this century, and I think I can say that the most pro-like college has ca. 5/20 players staying in the league 3-4 years after drafting. 3/20 is obviously low, but we might not be that far off.

Also did you count players like Bertrand Berry, who became a pro bowler immediately after leaving Denver? Because they shouldn’t count, seeing as they failed to help the Broncos.

If he counted Berry, he must also’ve counted Portis who netted os Champ Bailey – value through trades is also value!

Trevor Pryce, Al Wilson, Deltha O’Neil, Ian Gold, John Mobley, (you could throw Betrand Berry in there also although technically drafted by the Colts), I agree that we generally have had more offensive players drafted that made the pro-bowl.

I won’t quite call him a bust, because he has played for several years. But you do bring up a great point. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, the Pro Bowl is a popularity contest and not an indicator of a great player. Deltha is a perfect example. He was voted in because he had a bunch of interceptions – in 2001 with the Broncos thanks to his 9 INT’s, but the Denver pass defense was 16th in the league. In 2005 with the Bengals, he again made it thanks to 10 INT’s, but the Bengals were 26th in pass defense that season. Others have pointed out – Deltha was projected as a risky corner who would make a great play on one and then get toasted on the next defensive snap, and he has certainly lived up to that billing.

I think games played and started would be much more valuable and indicative than Pro Bowls made when it comes to evaluating draft success.

Like I said I could not discriminate based on personnnel reflections of a player, but be remineded O’Neal has gone to two pro bowls, so he has talent, but there are plenty of other guys that you could say the same thing about on other teams. The point being that you generally don’t make a pro-bowl by “luck”, you generally have to have played exceptionally well and have enough talent to start, O’Neal included.

Think of how things might have been different if Mike had hired a Free Agency Director/Analyst, lol.