Breaking Down the First Round

I want to highlight how 1st rounds go in the NFL. 

All information was found from PFR (draft picks/players) and Mike Mayok’s Big Boards (rankings).

I decided to see how it broke down into position in top ten and full 1st round along with the prospects big board ranking. I looked at the drafts going back to 2012 for position by year. I counted up the number of the position selected and found the 5 year average. ProFootballFocus only started recently differentiating CB and S and DE OLB and ILB. This was a time consuming project so I used my knowledge to determine which players played which position. I pretty much broke it down in CB and S with the majority of their playing time in either position and for DE and OLB I used only EDGE players and ILB were ILB or OLBs in 4-3 defenses.

I then used Mike Mayoks big boards to find the rank of the players and averaged them as well. I knew there was going to be a huge spread from year to year. His data only went back to 2013.

*Disclaimer: The 2013 draft was crazy not only with the picks but the fact that it was a terrible draft. It took a lot of these players a number of years to finally get on track.

Top Ten Positional Breakdown by Year

Position	2016	2015	2014	2013	2012	AVG
QB	2	2	1	0	3	1.6
RB	1	1	0	0	1	0.6
WR	0	2	2	1	1	1.2
TE	0	0	1	0	0	0.2
OT	2	2	2	3	1	2
OG	0	0	0	2	0	0.4
C	0	0	0	0	0	0
DE	2	1	1	2	0	1.2
DT	0	0	0	0	0	0
OLB	1	2	1	1	0	1
ILB	0	0	1	0	1	0.4
CB	2	0	1	1	2	1.2
S	0	0	0	0	1	0.2

This is the top 10 picks in every round form 2012-2016. There is clearly an emphasis on QB (1.6) and OT (2) in the top 10 picks. WR, CB, and DE (all 1.2) all have emphasis as well. It is a safe bet to predict that a QB will go top ten along with a pass rusher and tackle.

Here is the rest of each years picks broken down:

Position	2016	2015	2014	2013	2012	AVG
QB	4	2	3	1	4	2.8
RB	1	2	0	0	3	1.2
WR	4	6	5	3	4	4.4
TE	0	0	1	1	0	0.4
OT	4	4	4	5	2	3.8
OG	2	2	1	3	2	2
C	1	1	0	1	0	0.6
DE/OLB	5	6	5	5	7	5.6
DT	4	3	2	4	3	3.2
ILB	0	1	2	2	2	1.4
CB	5	3	5	4	5	4.4
S	2	2	4	3	0	2.2

We get a better idea of the positions as well as which are still important 1st round picks but not top ten. WR more than doubles from top 10 pick (1.2-4.4) to full 32 pick round same increase with corners. Edge players are the most pick position in the first round sitting at 5.6/32 picks. In each of the last three years we have seen 4 tackles go 1st round. Tight ends and centers are both under 1 player/32 picks.

Below is my favorite graphic. It gives a breakdown of the big board rank (Mike Mayocks top 100) of the players selected in that spot. I used his most recent big board each year.

Pick	2013	2014	2015	2016	AVG
1	1	2	6	10	4.75
2	3	3	5	1	3
3	5	15	2	8	7.5
4	6	4	4	6	5
5	9	1	8	2	5
6	10	5	1	4	5
7	8	7	3	7	6.25
8	12	23	13	14	15.5
9	16	14	21	11	15.5
10	4	8	19	22	13.25
11	15	6	7	9	9.25
12	14	17	12	12	13.75
13	7	12	28	3	12.5
14	11	13	9	19	13
15	17	18	10	25	17.5
16	41	9	22	18	22.5
17	19	11	14	58	25.5
18	28	22	24	15	22.25
19	24	60	26	13	30.75
20	29	21	23	33	26.5
21	13	16	52	34	28.75
22	35	10	11	27	20.75
23	2	37	18	23	20
24	26	19	25	16	21.5
25	20	29	43	47	34.75
26	27	53	15	20	28.75
27	42	43	37	39	40.25
28	22	26	53	46	36.75
29	30	64	34	21	37.25
30	44	54	30	31	39.75
31	92	25	50	28	48.75
32	25	42	20		29

This really shows how much draft experts know, which is pretty much the same as you. Besides the top 7 it is pretty much tossing darts at a HUGE board. You can see some outliers that raise the average but for the most part this illustrates the point. A few picks here and there are pretty close such as 22 with a 20.75 ranking. The fifth pick is the only one that is right on.

 

Hopefully this helps you with your own mock draft.

January 31, 2017January 31, 2017 by Tom Miller Categories: NFL, NFL Mock Draft, Tom 1 Comment