What are the odds of success for a Top 10 pick?
April 3, 2020
by Steve Thomas
Have you ever wondered what position group has the best odds of success in the NFL draft?[1] Yeah, I have too. We all have our suspicions and guesses about it, but because I’m me, I did a little bit of data mining to find out, at least as related to the top of the draft. Read on to learn some answers.
Parameters
This study was born out of my thoughts about the odds of the Redskins actually drafting a 10 year, big-time, All Pro, Hall of Fame worthy starter this year, whether it’s GENERATIONAL TALENT!!!! Chase Young, someone else, or another pick in the top 10 via a trade down. We all could take an uneducated guess at it, but in order to put some sort of objective reality to the question, with the help of the fabulous Pro Football Reference website I pulled every draft pick between 2000 and 2019, broken down by position group, and manually counted the number of players selected in the top 10 of each year’s draft who have been First Team All Pro selections, have been selected to at least one Pro Bowl, and only spent 1 or zero years as a full-time starter. The last category is a good indicator of players who were clear and obvious busts.
Being selected for an All Pro team or a Pro Bowl isn’t necessarily a conclusive indication of a “successful” top 10 draft pick, but it is an easy way to establish some sort of objective frame to the argument.
Study limitations
The most obvious limitation to this study is that the class of 2019 has only had one year of play time, so while it’s not completely fair to evaluate that year group, the All Pro and Pro Bowl selections in year one are stats worth compiling. Therefore, I left the class of 2019 out of the “years started” category but counted it in the others.
My use of the draft classes of 2000 – 2019 was for no other reason than because it was an even 20 years. It’s a totally arbitrary line.
Finally, these categories aren’t decisive; for example, Robert Griffin III was drafted #2 overall by the Redskins, made one Pro Bowl, and started multiple years, and thus doesn’t look like a bust by these evaluative criteria, but clearly was one. So, my system isn’t precise and is only intended to give a general idea of the success rate of drafting in the top 10 by position group.
Also, I didn’t separate these numbers by 3 – 4 and 4 – 3 linebackers, or by just an “edge” category, because it became too much brain damage for what started out as a quick look at some data but, in typical Steve fashion, became much more than that.
With that having been said, let’s proceed.
Data
The first chart shows (1) the total number of players drafted between 2000 and 2019 in each position group, and the number of players in each position group drafted in that time frame who (2) were selected to the hall of fame, (3) earned multiple First Team All Pro selections, (4) earned at least 1 First Team All Pro selection, (5) were selected to at least one Pro Bowl, and (6) have only been a full time starter for just 1 year or zero full years, except for the class of 2019. It is sorted by the number of players drafted in each position group. Bonus points if you can guess the two hall of famers without looking it up. I’ve also included the totals for all 200 draft picks, the median for each position group by each category, and for the more statistically-oriented, the standard deviation for each category. Standard deviation is a measure of the average amount of variance of from the overall mean in each category. Don’t worry, I’ll explain below.
| Position | # drafted in top 10 | # selected to HOF | # with multiple 1st tm AP selections | # selected as 1st tm AP tm once | # selected to a PB | # only started 1/0 yrs pre-‘19 |
| QB | 34 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 17 | 3 |
| OL | 31 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 17 | 1 |
| WR | 28 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 10 | 5 |
| DE | 25 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 13 | 4 |
| DB | 24 | 0 | 3 | 7 | 16 | 2 |
| LB | 21 | 1 | 4 | 7 | 10 | 1 |
| DT | 17 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 1 |
| RB | 16 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 10 | 0 |
| TE | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| TOTAL | 200 | 2 | 20 | 44 | 102 | 17 |
| MEDIAN | 24.00 | 0.00 | 3.00 | 5.00 | 10.00 | 1.00 |
| STAND DEV | 9.08 | 0.44 | 1.39 | 2.47 | 5.00 | 1.76 |
The next chart shows the percentage of players drafted in the top ten, by position group, who have been selected to multiple First Team All Pro teams, sorted from highest to lowest percentage, plus the total for all 200 draft picks, the median by position group, and the standard deviation:
| Position | % to multiple AP tms |
| LB | 19% |
| RB | 18.8% |
| DB | 12.5% |
| DT | 11.8% |
| WR | 10.7% |
| OL | 9.7% |
| DE | 8% |
| QB | 0% |
| TE | 0% |
| TOTAL | 10% |
| MEDIAN | 10.70% |
| STAND DEV | 6.82%
|
The next chart shows the percentage of players drafted in the top ten, by position group, who have been selected to at least one First Team All Pro team, sorted from highest to lowest percentage, plus the total for all 200 draft picks, the median by position group, and the standard deviation:
| Position | % selected to AP tm at least once |
| RB | 37.5% |
| LB | 33.3% |
| DB | 29.2% |
| OL | 25.8% |
| DT | 23.5% |
| DE | 20% |
| WR | 14.2% |
| QB | 8.8% |
| TE | 0% |
| TOTAL | 22% |
| MEDIAN | 23.50% |
| STAND DEV | 12.02%
|
The next chart shows the percentage of players drafted in the top ten, by position group, who have been selected to at least one Pro Bowl, sorted from highest to lowest percentage, plus the total for all 200 draft picks, the median by position group, and the standard deviation:
| Position | % selected to at least 1 PB |
| DB | 66.67% |
| RB | 62.5% |
| OL | 54.8% |
| DE | 52% |
| QB | 50% |
| TE | 50% |
| LB | 47.6% |
| DT | 41.2% |
| WR | 35.7% |
| TOTAL | 51% |
| MEDIAN | 50.00% |
| STAND DEV | 9.60%
|
The last chart shows the percentage of players drafted in the top ten, by position group, who have only been a full-time starter for either just 1 season or zero seasons, sorted from lowest to highest percentage, plus the total for all 200 draft picks, the median by position group, and the standard deviation:
| Position | % who started only 1 or 0 seasons |
| RB | 0% |
| TE | 0% |
| OL | 3.2% |
| LB | 4.8% |
| DT | 5.9% |
| DB | 8.3% |
| QB | 8.8% |
| DE | 16% |
| WR | 17.9% |
| TOTAL | 8.5% |
| MEDIAN | 5.90% |
| STAND DEV | 6.35%
|
Analysis
First, the draft truly is a crapshoot, even at the top of the draft, and the odds are good that your favorite team isn’t going to find a franchise player, and that your favorite prospect isn’t ultimately going to turn out the way you expect.
Next, the tight end numbers are statistically irrelevant since only 4 have been drafted in the top 10. Tight ends are either undervalued in the draft or just tougher to find, one or the other.
The main outliers were quarterbacks, running backs, and wide receiver. Defensive backs and linebackers both jumped out in certain limited ways.
These numbers validate something that Redskins fans in particular already know: it is incredibly difficult to find a franchise quarterback. The fact that not one single quarterback of 34 drafted (3 more than any other position group and a more than 1 standard deviation above the median point) in the top 10 over the last 20 years has multiple First Team All Pro selections, and only 3 have even one, is absolutely shocking. That’s more than a full standard deviation below the mean as measured by percentage drafted.
Next, the wide receiver group is at or near the bottom in almost every category. A decent number of multiple-time First Team All Pros have been unearthed (10.7%, which is the median point), but other than that, this position group has the biggest bust percentage (almost 2 standard deviations above average – that’s way out there) and the lowest chance of finding a solid, top 10-worthy player. Receivers are clearly the most risky top 10 pick other than quarterbacks.
The running back group fared remarkably well in this study. They have the highest percentage of All Pro selections, the second-highest percentage of Pro Bowl selections (both more than a full standard deviation above the median) and zero obvious busts. For all of the grief that running backs take in the draft, this information indicates that it selecting one in the top 10 may be worth it.
The defensive back group also fared pretty well, producing Pro Bowlers at a rate of 66.67%, which is almost 17% and nearly 2 standard deviations above the median.
An abnormally high percentage of linebackers have earned multiple First Team All Pro honors (19%).
All of the other position groups were somewhere in the muddled middle in terms of the success or failure of teams to draft successful players in the top 10.
The odds are roughly a coin flip that your team’s Top 10 draft pick even becomes an above-average player.
Conclusion
Did you make it all the way to the end of this mess without falling asleep? Yes? Outstanding – you win a prize. Send your address to Alex Zeese, and he’ll mail you something[2].
The unescapable conclusion is that the draft is very hard – barely up to the level of a crapshoot even at the top of the draft. In general, it’s much more likely than not that your favorite NFL team’s top 10 pick is going to either be average or just fail, not become a major franchise-caliber player. Only 10% of top 10 picks become big-time, franchise-changing multiple All-Pro players, whereas just 51% of them even make one Pro Bowl, and 8.5% of them outright fail in spectacular fashion.
If you want a safe selection in the top ten, pick a running back or a defensive back. Your worst odds are on quarterbacks and wide receivers. Every other position group is pretty close to the others in terms of the odds of finding that big-time player that each team craves.
It’s no wonder that talented general managers are in such high demand, as the teams who can consistently beat these bad odds are probably going to be able to consistently put their teams in a position to win every year, whereas the teams with historically bad scouting and leadership (hi, Redskins), will most likely continue to wade through the murky waters of failure.
Cheers, everyone.
[1] Special thanks to some regulars in our comment section for bringing this topic up. You know who you are, hopefully, because I don’t remember.
[2] Please don’t actually do this.