So once in a while I like to play around with NFL stats. So I decided to take a look at Pro Bowl QBs taken top 10 vs. Pro Bowl QBs not taken top 10. I know I'm opening myself up to criticism as anyone that comes up with some analysis has experienced but I guess I'll have to live with that, haha.
Here's my methodology:
I took a look at all QBs drafted from 93-2017 that made the Pro Bowl. I chose 1993 because 1992 and prior there was significant difference in the amount of players drafted. I chose the Pro Bowl because I figure that's the most objective, albeit not a perfect way to see if a QB is good. In order to filter out flukes, I further filtered out QBs that have only had 1 Pro Bowl. Now that creates a problem for someone like Carson Wentz who has 1 Pro Bowl in 2 years who will get plenty more Pro Bowls (unfortunately for Giants fans) but is just young. So I looked at the average amount of Pro Bowls per seasons played for all of the QBs with 2 or more Pro Bowls and saw that these QBs on (weighted) average had Pro Bowls in 37% of their seasons. I originally thought to include anyone that had 1 Pro Bowl in 3 seasons even though 33% is less than 37%, I figured it was close enough. In the end I felt like the talent didn't warrant it and I made the cutoff 37%, so 1 Pro Bowl in 1 or 2 seasons. It's worth noting that my filtering process isn't perfect since guys like Matt Schaub who somehow made 2 Pro Bowls got included. I decided to keep those guys anyway.
I then broke down the data into years and looked up how many draft picks there were per year. I further broke down the data by top 10 and not top 10. Not top 10 included undrafted free agents like Tony Romo. I counted them as if they were drafted withing the non-top 10 picks to keep consistency. I then divided non-top 10 picks by top 10 picks to get the actual ratio. I adjusted for any year where there were 0 QBs in the pro bowl from the top 10 and more than 0 afterwards (to avoid dividing by 0). All I did was just add both numbers by 1 and do the same ratio (e.g. 94 had 0 Pro Bowlers in the top 10 but 2 after, I changed it to 1 and 3 and the ratio became 3/1=3). Then I calculated an expected value which was basically the amount of non-top 10 draft picks divided by the top 10 draft picks. This is the ratio of QBs we would expect to see if the rate of Pro Bowl QBs kept constant after the top 10. Finally, I created an index by dividing the actual to expected ratios calculating the rate as a certain percentage of the expected rate. In other words, if in a world where we expect the rate of Pro Bowlers to stay consistent throughout the draft we expect there to be 20 times the Pro Bowlers in the non-top 10 picks (210 picks) but we actually see 2 times the Pro Bowlers, the rate is 10%. The actual average per year is even smaller, 5%.
I figured that it's a bit unfair to do the whole draft since you can have non-premium picks as early as the 2nd round. So I decided to look at the earliest round with all non-premium picks and where most if not all teams will get a chance to pick a QB with a non-premium pick. I followed the same process but instead of including all non-top 10 picks+undrafted FAs, I included non-top 10 picks in the first two rounds (usually nowadays it would be 54 picks). The index to my surprise only doubled to 10%.
I also looked at a graph to see if there's any upward trend. I read a hypothesis on this board that it's easier to draft a QB nowadays due to it being easier to play QB in today's game. I thought it might manifest itself with a higher rate of Pro Bowl QBs coming from later rounds compared to top 10 picks than before. Meaning the highly touted QBs will still be good, but it's easier for the less highly touted guys to become pro bowlers. The eyeball test showed no such pattern. I had trouble quantifying it because I frankly am not sure how to set up a regression with year as a variable.
Finally, from 93-17 there are 33 Pro Bowl QBs that fit my criteria, 16 from the top 10, 17 not from the top 10, and a mere 6 from the top 2 rounds not in the top 10. It's entirely possible that the sample sizes are too small to come to any conclusions.
tl/dr: The actual rate of Pro Bowl QBs that are non-top 10 picks to top 10 picks compared to expected is 5% and 10% if you only look at the non-top 10 picks in the first two rounds. There doesn't appear to be any pattern to this over time.
Sorry for the long post, flame away...
😂😂
Not sure if that was a joke or not. The Pro Bowl is just a proxy for "good quarterback".
Conclusion is that it's hard to find a good QB in a non-top 10 spot.
I chose QBs because of the board's discussion on QBs. QBs are supposed to be harder to find in non-premium positions. But you're right I could validate that if the other picks can be had at a higher rate. If not then QBs aren't special and it's hard to find good players in later draft picks in general.
To each his own but as was mentions. All Pro first or even second team is a much better indication of success in the NFL.
To each his own but as was mentions. All Pro first or even second team is a much better indication of success in the NFL.
I haven't looked at All Pro. It may well be easy to find stats for it too. I just checked back and pro-football-reference where I looked at the stats (fantastic site, btw) does have 1st team All Pro, I think that's a bit restrictive to be honest. Either way, I tried to mitigate some of the Pro Bowl issues by filtering out most guys that only made 1 Pro Bowl. Guys like Matt Schaub through a wrench into my analysis a bit but I figured that will happen.
BTW, here's how restrictive first team All Pro is. Eli has never had one selection.
It was something to the effect he (roy williams - cowboys safety) fell down and he's going to the pro bowl
That is the epitome of the probowl. It is a joke. It is nothing like it was in the 80's or early 90's. Back then the pro bowl meant something and a lot of contracts had pro bowl bonuses. Now the only real barometer is the all pro selections.
BTW, here's how restrictive first team All Pro is. Eli has never had one selection.
Now that's funny.
You did mean that to be a joke, right?
Quote:
BTW, here's how restrictive first team All Pro is. Eli has never had one selection.
Now that's funny.
You did mean that to be a joke, right?
No because if I don't look at QBs the caliber of Eli who everyone would take for another 15 years in a heartbeat then that defeats the point of the analysis.
When the hell do you think Eli would have ever been considered within the top 2 in any year in his career? Knowing that Brady, Peyton, Favre, Rodgers, Brees, Big Ben, Ryan, Wilson are just some of the guys that have been in his way over his respective career....
When the hell do you think Eli would have ever been considered within the top 2 in any year in his career? Knowing that Brady, Peyton, Favre, Rodgers, Brees, Big Ben, Ryan, Wilson are just some of the guys that have been in his way over his respective career....
Ok, the point of the analysis was not to figure out who the ultra elite QBs are in the NFL. The point of the analysis was to see if you need to pick top 10 to get a good QB. Eli is a good QB that you can win with. I think most people would take him in the next QB they draft. This is why I said that All Pro is too restrictive. The posters here seem to have misunderstood the point of the analysis. That's why I said 1st team All Pro (or even 2nd team All Pro) is too restrictive because the point is not seeing how helpful it'll be to have a top 10 pick to get the next Brady. The point is seeing if helpful it'll be a top 10 to get a good QB that you can win with. That's why I chose Pro Bowl as an imperfect proxy. SB winners is also too restrictive. I wanted a large enough sample size and good but not necessarily ultra elite QBs. Some people are not seeing the forest from the trees because they hate the Pro Bowl and/or didn't read my post. I'm getting all this sass from you about something that's completely irrelevant to the thread.
Seconded. I will read every word just like I did for this post.