Revisiting the 2013 NFL Draft

I thought for the draft this year I would do a series looking back at each draft from 2012 through 2017 and seeing what information we can get by breaking each draft down based mainly on career earnings. In the first post of the series I went back and looked at the 2012 draft. Today I’ll look at what has been regarded as one of the worst recent drafts, 2013. For each draft we will break things down by position and the round in which the players were drafted.

Career Length

For a players career length we are looking at how many times the player finished an NFL season on a roster, practice squad included. Here is the breakdown by round.

This wound up being very consistent in terms of career length with the top two rounds being nearly identical and the 3^rd round not being that far behind. For the teams that drafted the players it was basically a disaster. The average length of time for a 1^st rounder was just 5.1 years, which is basically the length of the rookie contract. The other rounds had similar results to 2012. Five players from this draft lasted for a decade with the team who drafted them.

Performance by Original Draft Round

We re-ranked every player based on how much they earned over their initial four year rookie contract. Here was the breakdown for the 2013 draft based on the initial draft position, the average result, and what percentage finished in the top 100.

These results were pretty interesting with the first and 2^nd round basically producing very similar quality players while the third round still did a solid job overall at producing talent that deserved to be picked in the top half of the draft. Round four and five also were pretty consistent followed by round 6 with a big dropoff once you get to round 7.

If we just look at overperforming or underperforming their initial round of selection we get the following hit rates.

These results fall in line with the idea that the 2013 draft was very weak on the top and just filled with players who were more likely to fit 2^nd round profiles rather than true top picks.

Performance by Position

Here is the breakdown for each position and where they ranked in earnings over rookie contract.

This was a good year if you were an offensive tackle or center. Corners also did well and the interior defensive lie was respectable. Linebacker and running back were both duds as were edge and QB.

What if we just limit this to the hit rates of players taken in the top 100 ?

While there were only four left tackles taken, the scouts seemed to get it right with two landing in the top 10, three in the top 32 and all four in the top 100 players selected. Tight end had a very high hit rate as did the interior d-line, corner, and wide receiver. Edge was a terrible projection with only 36% of the players selected top 100 actually finishing top 100.

Who Had the Best and Worst Drafts

The Eagles and Packers are still in a race for top draft with the Eagles ranking being powered by Lane Johnson and the Packers by David Bakhtiari. The Eagles were the only team with two top 10 players as tight end Zach Ertz also made the top 10 in career earnings outside of his rookie contract. The other teams that had a solid draft were the Ravens, Lions, Saints, and Texans.

The Colts were the worst of the teams with their players not even hitting the original contract numbers. This was the Bjoern Werner draft at the top for them and they also got nothing out of their late round selections. Seattle, who was great the year before, was anything but in 2013. The Browns and Titans also did not reach $10 million in value.

The Final Draft Rankings

When re-assessing the draft here is where the average pick came from in each final draft tier.

Our new top 10 consists of three left tackles, two wide receivers, two tight ends, a cornerback, a safety, and a center. The only top 10 pick to actually finish in the top 10 was Lane Johnson. The only other first rounder to finish top 10 was DeAndre Hopkins.

Here are the top 100 players ranked by career earnings over their rookie contract.