MVN - Most Valuable Network

Chiefs’ Draft Strategy: Part 1

Before I begin to analyze what the Chiefs will do in this year’s draft and which players they should consider, I’m going to hop onto my soap box and talk about a strategy that I believe all teams should employ when entering the draft.

There seems to be two camps when it comes to drafting players:

1) Draft based on need

2) Draft based on Best Player Available (BPA)

Frankly, I think both of these approaches are severely flawed.

I don’t like the idea of drafting based on need in the early rounds because it too often forces you to reach for a player and take second round talent in the first round. I don’t like the idea of drafting based on BPA because it forces you to perhaps take a player you don’t necessarily need. Much as people rave about the Saints drafting Will Smith a few years ago, the fact is, the Saints for so many years were lacking in so many positions, yet were still forced to release one of their better players in Darren Howard because they simply could not afford to keep three terrific defensive ends. So the Saints gained Smith and lost Howard–to me, that’s a bigger wash than many would make it out to be.

My draft method of choice is a combination of the two theories: Weighted BPA. I think a team should sit down and assign a weight of importance to each position, and then attach that weight to their overall evaluation of a player. For example, the Chiefs desperately need a wide receiver or a defensive tackle, so they should apply a high weight to any player at either position. The Chiefs don’t really need a halfback or a tight end, so they should apply a low weight to any player at either position.

Now, when you get to the later rounds, I think that’s when you revert to BPA, because at that point, you’re looking for the player most likely to succeed in football rather than the player most likely to help your team out right away.

What does this mean? It means that after these rankings, if the Chiefs want to take a running back, he better be very, very, very good to justify picking him over a very good defensive tackle. So with that in mind, who should the Chiefs take? Stay tuned for Part 2.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 10th, 2007 at 9:31 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.