@Goalline posted:Yes. I question the honesty of that methodology.
Why?
Obviously, at the very top it's easier to distinguish, say, Jordan Morgan being a hell of a lot better than, say, Cooper DeJean. But distinguishing between the 118th and 119th best players?
Of course, nobody here has ever worked in a real draft room. Not even the people Boris steals material from.
@Fedya posted:Why?
Obviously, at the very top it's easier to distinguish, say, Jordan Morgan being a hell of a lot better than, say, Cooper DeJean. But distinguishing between the 118th and 119th best players?
Of course, nobody here has ever worked in a real draft room. Not even the people Boris steals material from.
Yeah, it is nothing but a suspicion based on the fact that they always seem to draft players at the positions of greatest need. Too much of a coincidence for me to buy into it that somehow magically the players the judge to be the best players also meet their greatest need.
It's all tiers, many players are graded about equal in any tier, whether it be 10 around your pick in whatever round your in. Obviously, a team will pick a position of need from available players in the tier available at the time. The problem is guessing correctly.
@Goalline posted:BPA is a lip service process. No one does it.
Well....they definitely needed OL and at that spot in the draft (#25) they took the BPA on the OL. Clearly the Cowboys liked him too.
In the 2nd round, they needed LB and they got the consensus #1 BPA at the LB spot in EdgeCoop.
The Niners took Pearsall & Renardo Green earlier than the consensus boards had them. Aka "reaches" but those 2 guys were clearly BPA to the Niners.
It's all in the eye of the beholder.
Is it possible, or even likely, teams use some kind of software that allows them to track the draft in real time?
I've always thought they have to prepare for various scenarios (who gets picked where, etc.) and how that affects the team's board, but trades are bound to be so unpredictable that an instant update is needed when they happen. Even the later-round draft picks can/will be affected.
I can't imagine that happening 'manually' under the time limits for the picks. Again, especially in the last 2-3 rounds when the pace is fast & furious.
FWIW, I think "BPA" is a generic term that requires a modifier.
Does it mean best value, best at his position, best available for a team need, or what?
Hopefully, a draft pick has combinations of these 'bests', obviously, the more the better.
@Boris posted:Well....they definitely needed OL and at that spot in the draft (#25) they took the BPA on the OL. Clearly the Cowboys liked him too.
In the 2nd round, they needed LB and they got the consensus #1 BPA at the LB spot in EdgeCoop.
The Niners took Pearsall & Renardo Green earlier than the consensus boards had them. Aka "reaches" but those 2 guys were clearly BPA to the Niners.
It's all in the eye of the beholder.
You may be right. Not sure we will ever know.
@Fedya posted:Don't GMs below the first few rounds put players in groups of more or less equal BPA, and then take a player who's both in that group and fits a position the team can use?
This is literally what Gute said they do. They have values on players which put them into groups with the same value. When it's there time to pick they will pick the player from that group that makes the most sense for whatever reason. Usually need, but sometimes its the only player left from a high tier group still on their board, or they trade back because they know there will still be multiple options in that tier later, etc.
Gute has also said many times that you can't fall in love with specific players. The young scouts fall into that trap. It's only after a while that you just see players as certain grades and any player at that grade is the same talent-wise. Basically you have to take your emotions out of it.
"Best player available who fills a need" has always been the way I think about it. For example, no need to draft your board's BPA if it's a CB and your current CBs are in the prime of their careers and all-pros. Or, in GB's case, no need to draft a QB even if the kid is BPA on your board. You look around for other players of near value in your team's areas of need.
The "pros" like Kiper and so on, are guessing just like we are because they don't know what's on a team's board. Their guesses are just a little more informed than ours.
@Fandame posted:"Best player available who fills a need" has always been the way I think about it. For example, no need to draft your board's BPA if it's a CB and your current CBs are in the prime of their careers and all-pros. Or, in GB's case, no need to draft a QB even if the kid is BPA on your board. You look around for other players of near value in your team's areas of need.
The "pros" like Kiper and so on, are guessing just like we are because they don't know what's on a team's board. Their guesses are just a little more informed than ours.
I think this is more like the way it is.
"Best player available who fills a need" is also somewhat redundant. The player that fills a need is going to be the "best player available" vs one that doesn't.
IE, all else being equal (value), "best" is what you need most.
@vitaflo posted:"Best player available who fills a need" is also somewhat redundant. The player that fills a need is going to be the "best player available" vs one that doesn't.
IE, all else being equal (value), "best" is what you need most.
I’m taking Patrick Mahomes over any safety. QB is not a need.
@Timmy! posted:
FWIW, I think "BPA" is a generic term that requires a modifier.
Does it mean best value, best at his position, best available for a team need, or what?
Hopefully, a draft pick has combinations of these 'bests', obviously, the more the better.
The BPA discussion has been going on here since X4 was first online.
I personally think that the answer is all of the above when you mentioned best value, best at a position/need. I think that most teams like to use the BPA philosophy but I think it will morph into a hybrid approach most of the time it will be a BPA at a need position. There are of course exceptions to that for instance when Gute took Love when you always seem to have a a need for defense in GB.
The only reason we use the term is that GMs have been selling that idea to us for as long as I can remember. The term is basically meaningless.
GM's probably invented that term to get ahead of the post-pick criticism and avoid having to answer questions about who they would have preferred at a certain slot. "He was the best player available at that pick". I think media and talking heads turned it into some kind of austere high standard that GM's are lauded for if they follow 100% by the book.
I always tell my wife I married the best woman available.
You like sleeping on the couch, don't you?
Well I don't tell her what round it was in.
Well, you should tell her it was the first pick in the first round. You might score enough points to get "lucky" tonight. Your odds of a happy ending go down incrementally as you lower the draft round selection. :-)
Don't try to kill the dude.
Yeah, I'm not gonna comment on her Wonderlic score.
I've spent too much time on this board...
Yeah, but what's her RAS?
@Dr._Bob posted:I always tell my wife I married the best woman available.
Maybe you should have said you married "the best free agent woman available".
That way you can "skirt" the issues, like: which round, RAS (whatever that might mean), testing (Wonderlic & 40 time (important for kid management assessment)), and of course where you sleep. 
Seriously, I think Timmy nailed it.
@Dr._Bob posted:I always tell my wife I married the best woman available.
As long as you tell all of us she's a smoke show and you run a highly successful self owned business, then you'll have our respect.
Who was that dude? Some Viking fan correct?
@Dr._Bob posted:Well I don't tell her what round it was in.
We have good friends that have been married 40 years. He tells everyone she's his trophy wife but that it's not necessarily a first-place trophy.
@Tavis Smiley posted:Who was that dude? Some Viking fan correct?
Jaymo, if I remember correctly.
@MichiganPacker2 posted:We have good friends that have been married 40 years. He tells everyone she's his trophy wife but that it's not necessarily a first-place trophy.
There is an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond where Marie declares she was considered a trophy wife.
Frank replies "What contest in hell did I win?"
@DurangoDoug posted:Jaymo, if I remember correctly.
Along with about 15 other user names.
@MichiganPacker2 posted:We have good friends that have been married 40 years. He tells everyone she's his trophy wife but that it's not necessarily a first-place trophy.
Participation trophy?? 🤭
@Fandame posted:Yeah, but what's her RAS?
Better have a good bubble and smooth skin.
Loose hips.
@Benzene posted:
Packers have truly been exceptional in both drafting and developing OL - and that's been true from Wolf- TT- Gute. We're so spoiled. But just look around at how much other teams struggle to replicate the Packers' success.
Hell, the Chargers just gave up trying to do it on their own and signed both Bulaga and then later Corey Linsley as FAs to shore up their front.
Lang, Sitton and others all found work on lesser teams
Generally speaking, GB signs college OCs and LTs - the smartest and the most athletic guys available and then builds from there.
In 2013 for example, GB drafted (2) LTs in Tretter and Bakh. One became a starting OC, the other an elite LT. That's remarkable
I'd be curious to see how many All Pro's were drafted at spot # 109 or later 'cause that's where Bakh was selected
The development side is probably the bigger part of the equation, but I think the Packers GMs are All- Pro status when it comes to drafting & developing OL to protect their franchise QBs. I'm sure those QBs have all credited their OL's for their success at some point. Many an NFL QB was destroyed by having a shitty OL
Its no small thing, but its been a part of our fandom for a long time so sometimes we forget how good we've got it.
Enjoy it 
A few years ago it was the unsexy QB pick that pissed everyone off. Sports fans have the collective IQ of a gnat.
@Goalline posted:A few years ago it was the unsexy QB pick that pissed everyone off. Sports fans have a collective IQ of a gnat.
Sports fans have zero consequences to the their opinions, hot takes, criticisms, suggestions, etc.
