An idea I had

[Matt McGuire]

Here is all the work I plan to do post-combine:

1. 4 round mock draft (no trades)
2. Article: ESPN vs. NFLN ... I rate the network's Draft coverage.
3. "Shocker" Mock
4. Blogging
5. Top 100 update
6. Q&A Part III
7. Player Trade Projections
8. Team Trade Projections
9. Anything else I think of

*My next blog post after the McShay bash is the specific way to approach the combine for certain types of players.

[Leo Fender]

Sounds good to me!

How about the draft competition? When will it start?

[bulldog0123]

we should have a mock draft competition and see who gets the most picks right in their mock and they get like a prize of something

[49ersfan]

we should have a mock draft competition and see who gets the most picks right in their mock and they get like a prize of something

I'm in.

[animal52]

Me too. Won't be the first competition I lost.

[Matt McGuire]

The mock draft contest you can start on in early April. You can edit your entry as many times up to 15 minutes until Miami is on the clock or something of that nature (whether 15, 10 or 5 I haven't decided)

[Adam Mac]

I look forward to reading these. You have some work ahead of you my man

[Joey_Potter]

I look forward to reading that Matt.

[NoNonsenseCoach]

2. Article: ESPN vs. NFLN ... I rate the network's Draft coverage.

NFLN >>>>>>> ESPN

Lol can't wait for #9 though.

[Matt McGuire]

lol

I'm going to type up my 2008 mock update today (1 round only)

Start on my shocker mock and next blog update (which will be about combine....great read I promise and a very different opinion than what you hear from anywhere else)

[Matt McGuire]

My most anticipated thing I forgot to mention is an extremely (I mean really good) breakdown of the QBs. This is going to be something I just think you won't read anywhere else. I get down, dirty, and honest with my analysis.

I make my case for Woodson as the #2 QB in the Draft, and I make that very well.

I'm going to get it all started on it tonight. Really looking forward to writing all this stuff up.

Walter when you putting my 2009 mock update up?

[Joey_Potter]

Matt I would draft Woodson around #10 if I had a team that needed it and he wouldn't be around in the early Second Round.

[Lab]

Matt, here's a suggestion for something I'd be interested in seeing, if you have the time/desire to do it: An analysis of how accurate or inaccurate NFL teams have been in their picks in the first few rounds (let's say just rounds 1 & 2 for sake of discussion). I think it would involve making a list of players at each position that have been picked in the first two rounds, making an assessment of whether they are "hits" or "busts" or something in between (maybe a 1-10 rank scale), and then looking at the results. With this sort of analysis, you could make some good judgments on how good NFL teams are at predicting the future success of NCAA players. You might find (for example) that they get it right about 80% of the time for DBs, but only 50% of the time for RBs, and only 30% of the time for WRs.

Doing this right requires someone who really understands and can accurately evaluate the NFL success of lots of individuals at different positions (which would be really hard for positions like lineman).

Once this first step is done, another really interesting analysis would be to look at who different draft "experts" picked as the top prospects in each class, and check their accuracy. Here, I am not talking about who the draft experts thought would get selected in the first couple of rounds, but rather who they predicted would be a top talent. I get the sense that a lot of draft experts will make questionable predictions about players that are future stars or future busts, and only brag about it when they're right ("I always knew that Tom Brady was going to be a star!"). I suspect most do not admit it when they were really wrong. (For example, I just ran a search for "Carson Palmer overrated draft", and found a 2003 ESPN article from Stewart Mandel arguing that Palmer is overrated and other QBs like Byron Leftwich and Jason Gesser (!) are better NFL prospects.) Doing something like this would provide good data to decide which "experts" deserve the most (or least) respect.

This might be more work than you want to bite off, but I'd suggest it for the wish list.

[NoNonsenseCoach]

Without any research I can help you a little bit.
Jaguars WR success: 0%
Broncos RB success: 115% (would have been 120% but Maurice Clarett was on the roster at one time)

That should get you started.

[Matt McGuire]

Thanks Leo, that is really a great suggestion. I'm not going to far back because just until recently has scouting really become more accurate and teams are investing more money in their scouting departments.

The longer the NFL goes on the more accurate scouting becomes because they learn from busts and how to look for them as prospects.

I will definately to an article in the next month or two on what teams recently have had the best and worst drafts. It will be a really good read so thanks for submitting this idea...it's a very good one. I'm not going to get mathematical I'm just going to do some homework and come away with like a top 5 best/worst drafting teams lately.