Forbes Magazine Says Patriots Are The NFL's Worst Drafters

by Skeller on Apr 11, 2009 8:00 AM EDT in Football

An interesting (though somewhat bizarre) article in Forbes Magazine rating the drafting success of each of the NFL's 32 teams.

Here's a thought: Instead of looking at how many draftees make the team's active roster, a better barometer of success might be a survey of the last three years of drafts for all 32 NFL teams.

To judge them, we looked at the percentage of players from those three draft classes who were still listed as active members of the team. The results were surprising.

Yeah, I'll say they were surprising. The top three teams were the Texans (who needed to keep the guys they drafted since they didn't have anybody on the roster), the Colts and the Giants. Hmmm. I guess I can't argue with the success of the Colts and Giants.

The worst team in the NFL? The New England Patriots.

I immediately thought the reason the Pats came in last was that they don't usually need to draft starters. Guys they draft tend to be for depth, not because there's a gaping hole. I'll give them credit, there really haven't been any gaping holes in the Pats' lineup the past three years.

But then I decided to look back at their draft history. For fantasy-related purposes, I'm only looking at QB, RB, WR, TE and K. If you want to argue that they've been masters of the defensive draft, I'm not arguing with you here.

2006

Round 1 - RB Laurence Maroney (passed on DeAngelo Williams and Joseph Addai)

Round 2 - WR Chad Jackson (passed on Greg Jennings)

Round 3 - TE David Thomas (passed on Owen Daniels)

Round 4 - RB Garrett Mills (passed on Leon Washington)

Round 4 - K Stephen Gostkowski

2007

Round 6 - RB Justise Hairson (passed on Ahmad Bradshaw)

2008

Round 3 - QB Kevin O'Connell

Round 5 - WR Matthew Slater

It's too early to decide how the 2008 guys will turn out. O'Connell might be a great QB -- in fact, he may be starting this year depending on how Brady is doing. But the previous two draft years, quite frankly, stunk.

Yeah, yeah, I know, the Patriots are a great team, I'm not arguing that. They have a regular season record of 39-9 over those three seasons so they're usually drafting at the end of the round and they're not looking to draft stars. I get it, I really do.

But still....man, that's not good. How many 16-0 seasons would the Patriots have put together with Joseph Addai, Greg Jennings and Leon Washington on their team the past three years? That's freaking scary.

So while I think the Forbes article is flawed in a lot of ways, they do make a good point. The Patriots have not done well drafting the fantasy positions (except for kicker) the past three years. Like most people, I had assumed that the Patriots had been draft geniuses.

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Silly Article

Any article about the worst drafting teams in the NFL that doesn’t include the Detroit Lions somewhere in it is seriously flawed. Not to mention the multiple errors. They mention the eight round draft? It hasn’t been eight rounds since 1993. They call Kareem Brown a Patriots 2007 second round pick? He was their second pick alright, but he was taken in the fourth round. They say the Colts average drafting position is 40. They do realize the draft is only 32 picks per round right?

They could have given you a really nice story about roster construction and resource management in the NFL and what do they give you? A flawed story about how well teams draft.

They claim the Colts are one of the best teams because they hold on to a majority of their picks? Maybe they have no other choice. According to this ESPN story one of the reasons for the Colts differing roster construction is economics.

Taken from that linked story: “Certainly part of the reason for the different approaches of the Colts and the Patriots is economics. New England is a big-market team that owner Bob Kraft has turned into a money machine. The Colts are decidedly small market, with more limited resources, a franchise where owner Jim Irsay has had to dig into his family funds several times in recent years to retain key players.”

In 2006 the Colts had the highest payroll in the NFL. Since the Colts can’t afford to spend like that every year, what else can they do? Draft and keep cheap cost controlled players. The Colts are good drafters. Forbes just reached that conclusion for the wrong reason.

With all that being said, the Patriots had a bad draft in 2006 except for Gostkowski, in 2007 they only drafted 1 player in the first 3 rounds. 2008 is still too early to tell, which is another flaw with the story. How can you judge a draft after only one year?

So does two bad drafts (if you even count 2007 when they traded draft picks for Moss and Welker) make you one of the worst draft teams? In the Patriots case, I say no.

All I have to do is look at their O and D lines to see that they do a decent enough job of drafting. 4 out of 5 starters on the offensive line. 3 of them all-pros. All 3 starters on the d-line. 2 of them all-pros. I’d also argue drafting a HOF QB in the 6th round should keep them out of any conversation of worst draft teams in the first place.

Same guy, new name.

by stillredsoxfan on Apr 11, 2009 2:44 PM EDT reply actions