I've always had my suspicions that you couldn't identify certain teams are being in the draft. This professor's research seems to reach that same conclusion: http://www.philly.com/philly/sports...NFL_draft__NFL_folly.html#AHQH3RIcoLOcbihO.99 I'm also a big believer that luck plays a huge role not just in the draft, but in the NFL in general. Too often we overlook luck and randomness. EDIT: Here is a video of Massey providing more insight on this subject: http://www.sloansportsconference.co...he-war-room-skill-and-chance-in-the-nfl-draft
The part that is interesting to me is the part about how the draft absolutely involves evaluation skills but the problem is that most of the other evaluators are equally skilled. And what it means to me is that if you don't participate in this arms race amongst evaluators, if you take a step backward in evaluation skill, you're left in the dust very quickly. There's nothing inherently surprising about draft success being statistically inconsistent, short-lived or fleeting. SUCCESS is inconsistent, short-lived and fleeting in the NFL. It's a parity-driven league where everyone has talent and everyone is looking for an edge. But that does not, nor should it stop teams from continuing to try to find that edge at every cost.
Problem is the mix of skills being evaluated. Now, Parcells was banged on here, by me, for his preference for 3-4 yr starters from big conferences as #1 picks..however...he did not have a pure bust of a #1 pick. Later in the draft as the talent pool becomes shallow but larger, such metrics are actually hurtful as it just means the player was in that conference but not good enough to excel particularly well.
