ZWK
Footballguy
A few years back, I started making generic rookie rankings based only on a player's position and draft pick. For example, this year Corey Coleman would be treated as "WR drafted with pick 15", and we can estimate his prospects by looking at the total career VBD of previous WRs who were taken around that point in the draft. Here are my generic rookie rankings for 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015, along with a spreadsheet where you can see the generic expected VBD number for all players.
If you want to skip ahead to the end of this post which has this year's rankings you can do that, but I am going to write a bunch more words here about my methodology and why this year's generic rankings are new and improved.
My original method was to take every RB drafted from 1993-2006, make a plot of career VBD vs. draft pick, and fit a curve to it. Then I repeated with each of the other positions.
There is a problem, though. RB used to be a much more valued position - just take a look at where RBs were drafted in 1993-97 and compare it to where they were drafted in 2011-15. Derrick Henry was the 2nd RB off the board at pick 45 this year, and that is fairly typical these days. Back in the mid 1990s, a RB drafted at pick 45 would be more like the 6th RB taken. But the fantasy value of the RB position as a whole hasn't changed much - the total VBD accumulated by RBs has stayed roughly the same over the past 30 years. So the expected career VBD of a RB drafted at 45 these days is probably higher than the expected career VBD of a RB drafted at 45 in the mid 1990s. If we just used the same expected VBD numbers for every draft class, then that would output an expected career VBD of 1457 for all the RBs drafted in 1993, compared with only 658 for the 2016 draft class (and 1010 or lower for every draft class since 2009). The RB draft classes may have been relatively weak recently, but they haven't been that weak.
There are two simple ways to make this adjustment. One is to just multiply each running back's value by a constant, so that the total value of all RBs in a draft will be roughly the same now as it was back then. A second way is to scrunch or stretch the curve - for example, you can multiply every recent RB's draft pick by 0.75 so that a RB drafted with pick 100 these days is treated as having the same value as a RB drafted at pick 75 in my original data set. I decided to do some of each, but mostly the second (which seems to better capture the way things have changed). For recent drafts, each RB's draft pick is multiplied by 0.75 and then his expected VBD is multiplied by 1.08. This closes about 75% of the gap in the total VBD projected for RBs in 1993-2002 vs. the total VBD projected for RBs in 2009-2016.
QBs have a similar issue, but in the opposite direction. Their NFL value has gone up, leading more and more QBs to be taken at the very top of the draft. Meanwhile, their fantasy value has stayed the same. QBs taken in the top 3 picks (especially those taken #1 overall) don't have to be as special these days as they used to be. On the other hand, the pattern of quality starters getting drafted in the early 2nd round (but almost never in the mid 2nd or later) continues to hold from Favre to Brees to Dalton & Carr. So I have adjusted QB values a little differently. I am now taking the value of a QB taken with the first pick to be the average of the historical value of QBs taken with picks 1 through 3, and similarly down the line (e.g., pick 8 now is the average of historical picks 8 through 10). I then multiply that number by 0.92. This closes about 75% of the gap in the total VBD projected for QBs in 1993-2002 vs. the total VBD projected for QBs in 2009-2016. It also brings my generic rankings (which have been unusually high on the top QBs each year) more in-line with other people's rookie rankings.
WRs do not have this issue - the average draft value spent on WRs in 2009-2016 is almost the same as it was in 1993-2002. So, for WRs, I am just using their historical value.
I have also kept TEs the same as I did in my first set of generic rookie rankings. I use the average of historical TE value and the historical WR value, since the NFL is placing much more emphasis on receiving TEs these days. All those blocking TEs who used to be drafted earlyish caused TEs to have lower expected career VBD for a given draft spot, so I shifted the fantasy value of receiving TEs to be closer to the fantasy value of WRs drafted around the same spot.
On to the rankings. These are for PPR. Here I have rankings with tier breaks, but in the spreadsheet you can see the exact career VBD estimate for each player (as well as his non-PPR VBD estimate). You can also use the spreadsheet to adjust player values - for example, if you think that Goff is really more at the level of a 10th overall pick QB, you can see the historical estimate for QBs taken with the 10th pick and use that to slot him in (answer: it would put him just ahead of Shepard).
pk pos player
4 RB Ezekiel Elliott
15 WR Corey Coleman
21 WR Will Fuller
22 WR Josh Doctson
23 WR Laquon Treadwell
1 QB Jared Goff
45 RB Derrick Henry
2 QB Carson Wentz
40 WR Sterling Shepard
73 RB Kenyan Drake
35 TE Hunter Henry
47 WR Michael Thomas
90 RB CJ Prosise
55 WR Tyler Boyd
85 WR Braxton Miller
86 WR Leonte Carroo
119 RB Tyler Ervin
26 QB Paxton Lynch
134 RB Kenneth Dixon
136 RB Devontae Booker
81 TE Austin Hooper
107 WR Chris Moore
143 RB DeAndre Washington
94 TE Nick Vannett
112 WR Malcolm Mitchell
149 RB Paul Perkins
150 RB Jordan Howard
114 WR Ricardo Louis
153 RB Wendell Smallwood
117 WR Pharoh Cooper
156 RB Jonathan Williams
110 TE Tyler Higbee
126 WR Demarcus Robinson
51 QB Christian Hackenberg
171 RB Alex Collins
138 WR Seth DeValve
182 RB Keenan Reynolds
140 WR Tajae Sharpe
If you want to skip ahead to the end of this post which has this year's rankings you can do that, but I am going to write a bunch more words here about my methodology and why this year's generic rankings are new and improved.
My original method was to take every RB drafted from 1993-2006, make a plot of career VBD vs. draft pick, and fit a curve to it. Then I repeated with each of the other positions.
There is a problem, though. RB used to be a much more valued position - just take a look at where RBs were drafted in 1993-97 and compare it to where they were drafted in 2011-15. Derrick Henry was the 2nd RB off the board at pick 45 this year, and that is fairly typical these days. Back in the mid 1990s, a RB drafted at pick 45 would be more like the 6th RB taken. But the fantasy value of the RB position as a whole hasn't changed much - the total VBD accumulated by RBs has stayed roughly the same over the past 30 years. So the expected career VBD of a RB drafted at 45 these days is probably higher than the expected career VBD of a RB drafted at 45 in the mid 1990s. If we just used the same expected VBD numbers for every draft class, then that would output an expected career VBD of 1457 for all the RBs drafted in 1993, compared with only 658 for the 2016 draft class (and 1010 or lower for every draft class since 2009). The RB draft classes may have been relatively weak recently, but they haven't been that weak.
There are two simple ways to make this adjustment. One is to just multiply each running back's value by a constant, so that the total value of all RBs in a draft will be roughly the same now as it was back then. A second way is to scrunch or stretch the curve - for example, you can multiply every recent RB's draft pick by 0.75 so that a RB drafted with pick 100 these days is treated as having the same value as a RB drafted at pick 75 in my original data set. I decided to do some of each, but mostly the second (which seems to better capture the way things have changed). For recent drafts, each RB's draft pick is multiplied by 0.75 and then his expected VBD is multiplied by 1.08. This closes about 75% of the gap in the total VBD projected for RBs in 1993-2002 vs. the total VBD projected for RBs in 2009-2016.
QBs have a similar issue, but in the opposite direction. Their NFL value has gone up, leading more and more QBs to be taken at the very top of the draft. Meanwhile, their fantasy value has stayed the same. QBs taken in the top 3 picks (especially those taken #1 overall) don't have to be as special these days as they used to be. On the other hand, the pattern of quality starters getting drafted in the early 2nd round (but almost never in the mid 2nd or later) continues to hold from Favre to Brees to Dalton & Carr. So I have adjusted QB values a little differently. I am now taking the value of a QB taken with the first pick to be the average of the historical value of QBs taken with picks 1 through 3, and similarly down the line (e.g., pick 8 now is the average of historical picks 8 through 10). I then multiply that number by 0.92. This closes about 75% of the gap in the total VBD projected for QBs in 1993-2002 vs. the total VBD projected for QBs in 2009-2016. It also brings my generic rankings (which have been unusually high on the top QBs each year) more in-line with other people's rookie rankings.
WRs do not have this issue - the average draft value spent on WRs in 2009-2016 is almost the same as it was in 1993-2002. So, for WRs, I am just using their historical value.
I have also kept TEs the same as I did in my first set of generic rookie rankings. I use the average of historical TE value and the historical WR value, since the NFL is placing much more emphasis on receiving TEs these days. All those blocking TEs who used to be drafted earlyish caused TEs to have lower expected career VBD for a given draft spot, so I shifted the fantasy value of receiving TEs to be closer to the fantasy value of WRs drafted around the same spot.
On to the rankings. These are for PPR. Here I have rankings with tier breaks, but in the spreadsheet you can see the exact career VBD estimate for each player (as well as his non-PPR VBD estimate). You can also use the spreadsheet to adjust player values - for example, if you think that Goff is really more at the level of a 10th overall pick QB, you can see the historical estimate for QBs taken with the 10th pick and use that to slot him in (answer: it would put him just ahead of Shepard).
pk pos player
4 RB Ezekiel Elliott
15 WR Corey Coleman
21 WR Will Fuller
22 WR Josh Doctson
23 WR Laquon Treadwell
1 QB Jared Goff
45 RB Derrick Henry
2 QB Carson Wentz
40 WR Sterling Shepard
73 RB Kenyan Drake
35 TE Hunter Henry
47 WR Michael Thomas
90 RB CJ Prosise
55 WR Tyler Boyd
85 WR Braxton Miller
86 WR Leonte Carroo
119 RB Tyler Ervin
26 QB Paxton Lynch
134 RB Kenneth Dixon
136 RB Devontae Booker
81 TE Austin Hooper
107 WR Chris Moore
143 RB DeAndre Washington
94 TE Nick Vannett
112 WR Malcolm Mitchell
149 RB Paul Perkins
150 RB Jordan Howard
114 WR Ricardo Louis
153 RB Wendell Smallwood
117 WR Pharoh Cooper
156 RB Jonathan Williams
110 TE Tyler Higbee
126 WR Demarcus Robinson
51 QB Christian Hackenberg
171 RB Alex Collins
138 WR Seth DeValve
182 RB Keenan Reynolds
140 WR Tajae Sharpe
