By: Edward Egros

The Cleveland Browns Won the Draft

01/05/17 16:40 Filed in: Sports
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You may already be thinking: "Of course the Cleveland Browns had a great draft! They had the number one pick! Myles Garrett was the obvious move! You can't screw that up!"

You haven't been keeping up with the Browns, have you?

Cleveland picked a defensive end from Texas A&M who was so respected in College Station, two assistant coaches came to his draft party in Arlington to present him with a framed jersey (Garrett is also the Aggies' first-ever number one overall pick). During the combine, as NFL Research pointed out, Garrett is:

  • Taller than Julio Jones
  • Heavier than Rob Gronkowski
  • Quicker than Devonta Freeman
  • Faster than Jarvis Landry
Cleveland could have drafted a quarterback like Mitch Trubisky or DeShaun Watson, but instead went with the pass rusher. Nothing is a guarantee when it comes to who will have the best NFL career, and the Browns have had failures with top picks in the last several years (i.e. Trent Richardson, Johnny Manziel, Justin Gilbert, etc.) What matters here is how much value the Browns acquired simply with moves they made in the draft.

NFL Draft charts have been around since Jimmy Johnson and the Dallas Cowboys popularized their own in the 1990s. As sports analytics have become more commonplace, others have come out with their own. But one that is worth noting is a chart by Michael Schuckers of St. Lawrence University. Using games started, Schuckers used a LOESS function to assign value to each pick (to read his entire paper, click here). Here is the table he came up with:

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What Schuckers extrapolated from his study was that teams tend to overvalue earlier picks and undervalue later ones. The Cleveland Browns seemed to believe the same thing, and stockpiled multiple draft picks in the last couple of years. Here are the trades they made and how much value they acquired, using the chart:

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Note: + is a second round pick to be determined
++ is a first round pick to be determined

Because two of these picks are undetermined, I used the lowest possible value and added that to the Minimum Known Value Added column, when applicable. Even by doing that, every move the Browns made added value to their draft class. Here is who the Browns drafted last year and how many games they started, in parenthesis:

  • WR Corey Coleman (10)
  • DE Emmanuel Ogbah (16)
  • DE Carl Nassib (3)
  • OT Shon Coleman (10)
  • QB Cody Kessler (8)
  • LB Joe Schobert (4)
  • WR Ricardo Louis (3)
  • S Derrick Kindred (5)
  • TE Seth DeValve (2)
  • WR Jordan Payton (0)
  • OT Spencer Drango (0)
  • WR Rashard Higgins (0)
  • CB Trey Caldwell (0)
  • ILB Scooby Wright III (0)
Combined, this draft class has 61 starts. Yes, this draft class was part of a 1-15 team, bad enough to acquire the top pick in the 2017 draft, but these rookies beat out more experienced players, so it might be safe to say Cleveland did not have much talent before this approach.

The Browns drafted 10 players this year, and currently have a dozen picks for next year's draft. Myles Garrett can be a complete bust, and the Browns have enough insurance, in the form of younger players, to keep going. But if Garrett is as advertised, not only will the Browns have won this year's NFL Draft, they will start winning a lot more games.

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