A Look at Past Charger Drafts

As this herky-jerky off-season drunkenly stumbles along, we are left with one beacon of stability: The NFL Draft. For all we know, there may not be football for a long time. The owners hate the players and the players hate the owners. They are suing each other and trading barbs in the press. Our familiar rhythm of free agency, draft, mini-camps and OTAs has been reduced to one thing: The NFL Draft. The Chargers are one of the teams in The League that relies heavily on the draft for their players. Luckily for me, this fits my philosophical bent of how an NFL team should be built. Deep down in our hearts, I think we would all rather be on the side of the team that is built through the draft for the long haul rather than the free agent frenzy the seems to doom the likes of the Redskins every year. If you've been a Charger fan for long enough, you remember David Boston and Marcellus Wiley and how they failed to deliver on their promise. If you're like me you would rather live in a world where there is no way we will get a Julius Peppers than one where we risk reliving that dark history.

That being said, if we are a team that builds through the draft, we need to be good at it. Too many mistakes and you become the Bills. A lot of reactionary fans tend to either blindly claim that A.J. Smith is either the biggest genius or the biggest idiot they have ever seen assemble an NFL football team. The only way to really be objective about this is to take a look at past drafts. A.J. admitted as recently as the 2009 off-season that he had to do better, so let's take a look back as see how he has done.

Keep in mind that you typically need three years to evaluate a draft. A.J. is on record saying he won't judge a draft pick as being a success or failure until they get to the point of needing their second contract, which is after 3 or 4 years in the league. Usually by the third year, a player can be accurately evaluated as to their NFL potential. For some players it comes earlier, but typically we need to give a player three years. I've looked at every player we've drafted since 2001, plus any draft slots we traded away and what we got for them. I've also included Undrafted Free Agents (UDFA) who we picked up after the draft and made an impact.

We're going to try and look at this as objectively as possible. We are going to track how many years each player spent with the team, how much they contributed in terms of starting and pro-bowls. And lastly we are going to look at if they got a second contract, which essentially is A.J. saying they were a good draft pick. With the craziness of the CBA over the last two years, we are going to count any RFA who would not have been an RFA under the normal CBA who was then tendered as having received a second contract (they are marked with an *). Tendering an RFA who would have been an RFA anyways will not count as a second contract.

So, let's get to it!

Let's start by assuming the last two drafts still need some maturing before they can be evaluated. One thing that jumps out is the sheer number of pro bowlers picked in 2003-2006, 3 per year if you count the special teamers. Across the NFL, teams average about 0.8 pro bowlers picked per year, so 3/year is astounding. However, 2007-2008 hasn't been nearly as good. Some of this has been due to the drafts not maturing yet, and some has to do with the Chargers having better records and not drafting as high. But I think part of it has been A.J. trading away too many of his potential impact picks. Impact picks typically come in the first three rounds and A.J. has traded at least one of those away every one of those years.

Also, AJ's rate of success with his top picks is very good. Ignoring 2010, 15 of his 21 picks in the first three rounds have become full time starters and 7 of them are pro bowlers.

Looking at third day picks (rounds 4-7) 6 of 33 have become full time starters, with an additional 3 making the pro bowl.

AJ has also done a really good job of picking up quality Undrafted Free Agents (college guys who weren't drafted in the 7 round draft). 2003 was just ridiculous picking up Dielman, Gates, and Osgood (pro bowlers) and Cooper and Cesaire. Through AJ's 7 drafts, he has picked up 11 UDFAs who have spent some time as starters and 3 of which were pro bowlers.

Most of us can agree that AJ's drafts have been well above average and have been one of the primary ingredients in turning the Chargers into the powerhouse they are today. For those of us who witnessed some of those late career Beathard stinkers, AJ seems almost infallible in comparison. That being said, many of his recent drafts have been less productive and the tendency to trade future picks to move up in rounds to pick guys like Hester and Weddle worries me. I think part of it is a subtle shift in AJ's strategy from stocking an empty cupboard (2003-2006) to fine tuning a championship caliber roster, but I still don't like it. Overall, I am not worried yet, since most of my criticism of him has been in the last four years of drafting. Those guys have yet to really mature and there might still be some diamonds in the rough (English) who will come through big with a little more seasoning and opportunity, and some guys like Mathews, Weddle, and Cason who stand an excellent chance of getting pro bowl consideration before their time is done.