Looking at the NFL Draft history by the numbers
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Tony Villiotti, creator of the Draftmetrics website poses for a photo in his Scott home.
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Want to know the biggest flops in past drafts? Which NFL teams are most efficient drafting? The best and worst draft classes? The danger of selecting quarterbacks in the second round?
Tony Villiotti is your man. As Mel Kiper is to the evaluation of draft choices, Villiotti is to the history of the draft.
Villiotti, 64, lives in Scott, is a graduate of Taylor Allderdice High School and has had a fascination with the NFL draft since the day the Steelers hired Chuck Noll to coach them in 1969. He has written books and has a website, draftmetrics.com, that breaks down certain historical aspects of the draft.
A retired chief financial officer for a Duquesne Light subsidiary, Villiotti knows numbers.
"I'm useless around the house," Villiotti said. "Put me down with a bunch of information with a computer, I'm a happy guy. We've been Steelers fans a long time and have had season tickets since Three Rivers opened."
Villiotti is a rare bird in a business where everyone has an opinion about prospects and devise multiple mock drafts. He looks at the draft statistically.
For example, in determining a team's draft efficiency, he considered the number of players who became five-year starters, those who made the Pro Bowl at least once (he must be an original selection and not make it through another's injury) and the number of draftees who were All-Pros at least once. He included the drafts from 1991 through 2004.
You'll never guess which team came out on top. The Steelers earned a 17.6 rating in that system as the NFL's most efficient organization at drafting. They left second-place Green Bay far behind at 11.3. Other top teams were New England at 7.7, Indianapolis at 6.4 and Seattle at 5.8. All have been to one or more Super Bowls over the past 10 years. Bringing up the rear were San Diego at minus-9.5 and Detroit at minus-9.1.
His analysis has determined that a player's draft position can often determine how successful he will be in the NFL -- there's a dropoff after the first 13 picks, then another drop after the 28th.
"The other thing I found interesting is looking at it by position. The skill positions seem to be the riskiest positions to take in the draft -- quarterbacks, wide receivers, running backs kind of have the least chance of going on to become five-year starters. How much of that is injury or whatever, it's tough to get handle on it."
Busts -- or what Villiotti calls flops-- are another thing. Everyone is familiar with their team's flops. Steelers fans can rattle them off in their nightmares, from Bob Ferguson to Darryl Sims to Aaron Jones and Huey Richardson and Jamain Stephens, to name just a handful.
First Published April 23, 2011 12:00 am
