Foundation For the Future
As we get ready to kickoff the 2016 season, I thought I would take a look back at the last three drafts. I want to see if we appear to be building a solid or sandy foundation for the future. While I understand this can be analyzed in many ways and the only real measure will be in hindsight, I thought it would be fun to try and categorize the players drafted. I am going to group them into Winning Picks, Promising Picks, Last Chance/Too Soon To Tell Picks, and Failed Experiments.
To kick this off, I’d like to summarize the drafts. The following is a summary by round and pick.
| 2014 | 86% On Team / 29% Starting | ||
| 1 | 23 | LB | Dee Ford |
| 2 | Trade | Alex Smith | |
| 3 | 87 | CB | Phillip Gaines |
| 4 | 124 | RB | De’Anthony Thomas |
| 5 | 163 | QB | Aaron Murray |
| 6 | 193 | G | Zach Fulton |
| 6 | 200 | OT | Laurent Duvernay-Tardif |
| 2015 | 70% On Team / 30% Starting | ||
| 1 | 18 | CB | Marcus Peters |
| 2 | 49 | OL | Mitch Morse |
| 3 | 76 | WR | Chris Conley (Traded Up) |
| 3 | 98 | DB | Steven Nelson |
| 4 | 118 | ILB | Ramik Wilson |
| 5 | Trade | Ben Grubbs | |
| 5 | 172 | LB | DJ Alexander |
| 5 | 173 | TE | James O’Shaugnessy |
| 6 | Trade Up | ||
| 6 | 217 | DT | Rakeem Nunez-Roches |
| 7 | 233 | WR | Da’Ron Brown |
| 2016 | 89% On Team / 11% Starting | ||
| 1 | 28 | No Pick | Traded this and 249th |
| 2 | 37 | DT | Chris Jones |
| 3 | 74 | CB | KeiVarae Russell |
| 4 | 105 | OG | Parker Ehringer |
| 4 | 106 | CB | Eric Murray |
| 4 | 126 | WR | Demarcus Robinson |
| 5 | 162 | QB | Kevin Hogan |
| 5 | 165 | WR | Tyreek Hill |
| 6 | 178 | CB | DJ White |
| 6 | 203 | DE | Dadi Nicholas |
When I reviewed these names, I was a little surprised by how many were still on the team. I thought we had turned over quite a bit of these draft picks, but apparently not.
Overall we still have 81% (21/26) of the players drafted in the last 3 drafts on the team and 23% (6/26) of them are starting. Depending on your perspective, this could be a good or bad thing. I am pretty happy with the starting team talent and even most of the depth. There are still some spots that need work, but I think every NFL team can say that is the case.
Looking at the 22 starting positions (putting Special Teams aside), there are 6 (27%) from the 2014-2016 drafts. Looking at 28 backups (putting the 3 specialists aside), there are 15 (54%) from the 2014-2016 drafts. Considering the 2016 draft class is just kicking off their careers, we may see another couple starters from that group.
If you tie in the longevity of most NFL careers (3-6 years), this rate of drafting should put us in a good position for the future.
Moving on to my assessment of which players were in each category, here are my groupings.
Winning Picks
Any pick that is starting will fall into this group. Simplistic, but anyone that starts on an NFL team is doing something at an elite level.
Marcus Peters, Mitch Morse, Chris Conley, Phillip Gaines, Zach Fulton, Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, Alex Smith
Promising Picks
Any pick that has shown strong play and possibly backs up an NFL elite level player (Poe, Charles, Berry, etc.) can be considered here.
Steven Nelson, Chris Jones, KeiVarae Russell, Parker Ehringer (Update: Projected to start), Tyreek Hill, Dadi Nicholas, Rakeem Nunez-Roches, De’Anthony Thomas
Last Chance/Too Soon To Tell Picks
Any pick that seems to be hanging around despite top notch play or players that have very little play yet (as in the rookies):
Eric Murray, Demarcus Robinson, DJ White, James O’Shaugnessy, DJ Alexander, Dee Ford
Failed Experiments
Draft picks or draft positions traded for players that have been released will fall into this category.
Kevin Hogan, Ramik Wilson, Da’Ron Brown, Aaron Murray, Ben Grubbs
Whether the “Winning Picks” remain starters, drop to a backup, or get traded for an upgrade, I would consider them to be good picks by Dorsey. Hopefully, this group is fairly uncontested.
For the “Promising Picks”, I think all of these guys have shown the ability to play in the NFL and hit a home run at their position. Steven Nelson and these rookies are looking pretty good so far and showing lots of upside. Parker Ehringer is probably on the lower end of this group, but I am giving him the benefit of the doubt for now. Gaines and Thomas have had some injury issues and I hope they can stay healthy this year. If not, I would probably slide them down a notch.
The “Last Chance/Too Soon To Tell Picks” have a few rookies that need some more NFL time to really make the call on them. After that, we have O’Shaugnessy and Alexander that don’t seem to be doing much one way or the other. This needs to change or they need to go. Dee Ford has been discussed many times over and I am at the point where what he has shown isn’t Round 1 quality. So, if he can’t be on the field, during game time, without looking lost, then it is time to promote him to the player pool.
The “Failed Experiments” are obviously gone, so they are deemed such. Although I can see the Murray and Grubbs cuts, perhaps even Brown, I am a little surprised by the other 2. Wilson seemed to be playing well enough at a position where we were weak. Why draft Hogan and then cut him. Did the scouting team miss completely on him? I find it strange that we drafted him when we already had 3 QBs. I would have thought he would have been given some more time. I guess the writing was on the wall for the QB group when Foles was picked up.
Of the 26 drafted (or traded for our picks) players, we have only moved on from 5 (19%). That doesn’t seem like an awful success rate, at this point (a B), but could get worse if Shag, Alexander, and Ford don’t step up this season.
If Dorsey keeps this up, I think we can build a solid foundation for the future. We will still need to fill in with some Free Agents and trades for specific roles as specific times, but the core will be filled with stable drafted players.
What do you guys think? Did you realize we still have 81% of the last 3 drafts on the team? What is your take on these draft classes?
And there’s The Rub.