Packers GM Brian Gutekunst doing his homework with draft visits

[TW]

What the graph points out - to me - is that you put almost all your eggs in a couple of baskets, then hope you can make some lucky grabs later in the draft, or through UDFA. The core players eat up so much of the cap money that it's a scramble to get players to fill the rest of the roles. These visits give the teams a relative value of abilities of players from top to those who will be FAs, after the draft. No need to invest big bucks in a guy who won't be much better than that FA who will be available for minimum wage.

 

[Terranimal]

However Mark, this article does give a kind of a gauge and for whatever reasoning and situations,etc the research was very interesting and yeah a little dated..

Would be good to see it updated and if still holds up...though all of this discussion should be in that thread

 

[57packer]

I think the chart supports what people like Ron Wolf have been saying for decades. Higher picks get used at the high value positions - QB, LT, DE/DL and CB. THose positions seem to have the highest percentages of higher draft choices in the 2-deep.

So, use some (say 10-15) of your pre-draft visits on those higher value guys that you expect might figure in to the first round or two. After that, use some on injured or questionable character guys that you want to get a read on (say another 5-8). Use most of the rest on players at positions that are more likely to contribute from the UDFA ranks - OG, OC, ILB, S, FB, LS, P, K.

Of course there is nothing exact about any of this but since the numbers do show that overall less than about 20-25% of your 2-deep comes from the UDFA ranks, it seems wrong to use 80% of your visits on those guys. The reality is that you will draft roughly 8 guys per team and bring in 10-15 UDFAs after the draft. It's reasonable to conclude that 4-5 of the draft choices will be in your 2-deep within the first few years after they are drafted. Maybe 1-2 of the UDFAs. The draft picks still constitute the significant majority of your contributors for most teams. Seems wise to focus on those guys more than UDFAs.

 

[Dubz41]

Have seen Vea as the pick in some mocks. Is drawing comparisons to Vince Wilfork. Haven't had a guy like that since Gilbert Brown. Those big uglies are hard to come by so having a good rotation of them and in case of injury makes a lot of sense.

That's was the Eagles formula last year. They were able to keep up the pressure by keeping the biggies fresh. Fletcher Cox complained a little in the beginning, but was very happy later in the year when he was still fresh. Last year, our failing was no pressure up the middle. Not enough bodies even though we only used 2 DL a lot of the time. No Push! Vea wouldn't be my first choice, but if the board goes to hell in a hurry? He'd be a nice consolation.