The draft day is coming (the 1st round is on Thursday, April 26th) and I finally got enough time to finish this research I began several weeks ago. My idea is to realize how the Denver Broncos used their draft picks since our foundation and compare it to the other NFL franchises.
HALL OF FAMErs
My first thought was to know in which rounds the major part of the Hall Of Fame players were drafted, according to each position. The result is quite clear: the first rounders (especially the first round) have the major percentage of success, as expected. Here is the complete chart:
| POSITION | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | +7th | 0 | TOTAL / POS |
| Quarterback | 15 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 3 | 30 |
| Halfback | 24 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 13 | 45 |
| Wide Receiver | 9 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 23 |
| Tight End | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 14 |
| Tackle | 7 | 4 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 30 |
| Guard | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 14 |
| Center | 4 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 13 |
| Defensive End | 7 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 16 |
| Defensive Tackle | 9 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 16 |
| Linebacker | 4 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 19 |
| Defensive Back | 8 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 25 |
| Kicker | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Punter | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| TOTAL / ROUND | 99 | 30 | 20 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 9 | 30 | 45 | 246 |
| % / ROUND | 40,2 | 12,2 | 8,1 | 2,4 | 2,4 | 0,4 | 3,7 | 12,2 | 18,3 | 100,0 % |
When we think about it, we can conclude that in general the idea of trading down to load the draft with more later picks is not a good overall strategy. Maybe this year it could work, because the lack of great talents at #25, but just like an exception to the rule. Not even the mid/late HBs have a good margin of great success, so I consider the Terrell Davis pick (6th round in 1995) even more impressive than I did before this post.
As nowadays the drafts are composed of only seven rounds, the importance of the UDFAs became much larger than it was early in the NFL. The stats here prove it and, in my opinion, our front-office is doing a terrific job scouting and making workouts with several of these players with potential. The search must be constant for us to find the next hidden gem.
THE DENVER BRONCOS
Now it’s time to see how our beloved Broncos chose their players throught our entire history. We are a franchise with a lot of tradition and we built a great and strong organization. Certainly, our draft picks have a very important role to do with this. Let’s see how we made all our drafts:
| POSITION | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | +7th | TOTAL / POS | % DEN | TOTAL NFL | % NFL |
| Quarterback | 3 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 13 | 26 | 5,3 | 929 | 4,0 |
| Halfback | 8 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 26 | 65 | 13,4 | 5114 | 21,8 |
| Wide Receiver | 4 | 6 | 4 | 6 | 6 | 8 | 5 | 21 | 60 | 12,3 | 1900 | 8,1 |
| Tight End | 1 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 8 | 7 | 29 | 6,0 | 2263 | 9,6 |
| Tackle | 6 | 3 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 8 | 33 | 6,8 | 3164 | 13,5 |
| Guard | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 10 | 28 | 5,8 | 1810 | 7,7 |
| Center | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 9 | 22 | 4,5 | 1073 | 4,6 |
| Defensive End | 5 | 11 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 11 | 43 | 8,8 | 1167 | 5,0 |
| Defensive Tackle | 2 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 13 | 28 | 5,8 | 1118 | 4,8 |
| Linebacker | 6 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 23 | 58 | 11,9 | 2034 | 8,7 |
| Defensive Back | 5 | 11 | 9 | 15 | 10 | 3 | 5 | 25 | 83 | 17,1 | 2576 | 11,0 |
| Kicker | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 1,2 | 213 | 0,9 |
| Punter | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 1,0 | 138 | 0,6 |
| TOTAL / ROUND | 42 | 48 | 40 | 55 | 40 | 35 | 55 | 171 | 486 | 100 | 23499 | 100,0 % |
As we can see, we selected near 54% for the offense, 44% for the defense and 2% for the ST. My surprise here was to see that we drafted much less HBs than the NFL average. Most of them were drafted in the beginning of the league, where the rushing attack was the major part of any offense.
And you buddies, what do you think of our numbers, stats and picks over the history? What is the best strategy for the next draft to have a Super Bowl team? Are you confident on our current roster?
GO BRONCOS!
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