Draft History

Secrets of a Belichick Draft

(View Belichick Draft Blueprints here)

The salary cap era of professional football has produced no finer mastermind than New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. While owners such as Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys have struggled mightily under the financial restrictions of salary caps, Belichick seems to adapt and grow the Patriots’ rule over the NFL, which is the closest thing to a dynasty since the Cowboys of the 1990′s.

Since his inception in 2000, Belichick has coached the Patriots to three Superbowl championships, and four appearances. His 2007 team became the first team to go without a regular season loss since the days of Dan Marino.

Despite the kind of success that merits consideration as one of the greatest, if not THE greatest coach of all-time, his name invokes strong emotional reactions among the masses because of his oft misunderstood personality, and for his scandalous Spygate incident.

However much you may love or loathe him, there is no denying his ability to mold raw talent into a highly competitive team.

“The Genius” of the West Coast

Please click here (Bill Walsh Draft Blueprints) to view the attachment of the complete study on Walsh’s draft history.

Few coaches can boast that they invented the offense that they run. San Francisco 49ers coach Bill Walsh could claim such high praise. During his tenure in the Golden State, he  invented the West Coast offensive scheme, winning three Superbowls on his way to the Hall of Fame.

I want to note Walsh’s supreme understanding of the intricacies of the NFL Draft. This knowledge allowed him to produce some of the richest draft classes in history. His most noteworthy draft came in 1986, a pivotal year in the franchise.  In that year, Walsh desperately needed to replenish his roster, and replenish the roster he did, indeed.  By masterfully trading for additional picks, Walsh ended up with 13 draft selections, and made all of them count. The players acquired that year allowed San Francisco to maintain league dominance for many more years. For this reason, the 49ers’ 1986 draft will go down as one of the greatest of all time.

CBSsports.com and NFL.com provided the raw data for this study.

The Big Tuna

Please click here (Parcells Draft Blueprints) to view the attachment of the complete study on Parcells’ draft history.

Perhaps one of the most colorful personalities of the modern football era, Bill Parcells has become known as a savior of horrific franchises. When others have failed, he somehow has the Midas touch and sprinkles some of his magic on every organization in which he has been involved.
His first shot as a head coach in the NFL came in 1983, working with the hapless New York Giants. The previous ten years had produced only one winning season. However, Parcells showed his quality chiefly in the draft, where he showed a keen eye for talent. Within three years, his Giants had won the first of their two Superbowls during Parcells reign.
A decade later, Bill left the success in New York to

[take] over a weak New England team, which had gone 2-14 the year before he arrived. There he had quickly begun to work his specialty: the quick rehabilitation of teams embedded near the bottom of the standings.  In 1993, New England went to 5-11, and in 1994, 10-6. (David Halberstam, The Education Of A Coach)

After New England, Parcells took his talents to the New York Jets, helping make them perennial playoff contenders before leaving for his final coaching destination in Dallas.

2006 became the legendary coach’s final season before hanging up his spurs. But he became restless and took the job as Executive for the Miami Dolphins. In only one year, he turned that outfit from the worst in the league (1-15), into AFC East division champs. He still holds that position to this day.

How to Build a Championship Team

About 8 months ago, I was sitting at my work computer thinking “why are the Detroit Lions so incredibly bad?”

This question led me to two more fundamental questions: “how do the great front office executives draft? Do they draft certain positions at certain times, and how frequently do they draft those positions?”

Little did I know that these seemingly simple questions would lead me to create this blog!

So, I identified men who built great teams, both past and present, and came up with this list of eight names:

• Bill Polian, former executive of Buffalo Bills, Carolina Panthers. Current president of Indianapolis Colts.
• Bill Parcells, former head coach of New York Giants, New York Jets, New England Patriots, Dallas Cowboys. Current executive for Miami Dolphins.
• Bill Walsh, former head coach of San Francisco 49ers.
• Bill Belichick, current head coach of New England Patriots
• Ted Thompson, current GM for Green Bay Packers
• A.J. Smith, current GM of San Diego Chargers
• Kevin Colbert, current GM for Pittsburgh Steelers
• Ozzie Newsome, current GM of Baltimore Ravens

I broke down every draft pick by round and player position, and put it onto a series of Excel spreadsheets. I used NFL.com’s draft history section to help with this study.

Today, I have Bill Polian’s draft history, which will begin the Draft Blueprint series.

For those of you who might be unfamiliar with Polian, here is an excerpt from Wikipedia on him:

Bill Polian is the President of the Indianapolis Colts NFL team. He rose to league prominence as the General Manager of the Buffalo Bills, building a team that participated in four straight Super Bowls. Following his stint in Buffalo, Polian went on to become the General Manager of the expansion Carolina Panthers, where his initial success in building what was arguably the most rapidly successful expansion team in NFL history led to his moving on to the Colts. He has won the NFL’s Executive of the Year award 5 times (1988, 1991, 1995, 1996, and 1999).

I hope you enjoy the series!