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By One Metric, Packers’ Draft Wasn’t So Bad

Sports Info Solutions used SIS’s Total Points metric to weigh all 32 teams’ draft classes.
Bill Huber|
By One Metric, Packers’ Draft Wasn’t So Bad
By One Metric, Packers’ Draft Wasn’t So Bad

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Contrary to the premature grades rolled out by the pundits, a formula used by Sports Info Solutions shows the Green Bay Packers actually had a quality draft.

Alex Vigderman of Sports Info Solutions used SIS’s Total Points metric to weigh all 32 teams’ draft classes. (You can read about Total Points here.) The chart is below:

“The Packers fell in the middle of the pack with respect to filling needs,” Vigderman wrote via e-mail. “While plenty of attention went to their not filling in behind Davante Adams at wide receiver, they did pick a player at each of their three neediest positions, according to Total Points. Their biggest hole from a Total Points production perspective was at linebacker, and they didn’t address the position on either of the first two days of the draft.”

Much of the criticism surrounding Green Bay’s draft was based on the selection of quarterback Jordan Love as a potential successor to Aaron Rodgers rather than the pick being used on an instant-impact performer to improve a roster that was good enough to go 13-3 and reach the NFC Championship Game last season. Needs such as receiver, offensive tackle and linebacker were either partially or fully ignored.

The analytics don’t care about all of that, though.

“This method is agnostic to the politics surrounding a pick, so when the Packers took Jordan Love in the first round, they got credit for taking a quarterback, which is obviously the most valuable position you could draft,” Vigderman wrote. “Taking Love makes their Total Points value higher than will actually manifest itself on their roster, assuming Rodgers is healthy in 2020. They also get credit for solid value from seventh-round edge Jonathan Garvin and fifth-round LB Kamal Martin, who are rated by Total Points as their highest-producing players behind Love and second-round pick AJ Dillon.”

Video: Draft pick jersey numbers

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.

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