What the Data Says on Poles Draft Record

0:00This is Belie, one network, every topic, everywhere. I'm going to talk a little bit about Ryan Poles and the draft picks. I just want to turn the page on this. I just kind of give my two cents. I did some research in this more just to back it up and talk more about it because I don't expect every single fan to go into crazy depths.

1:02So that's the reason why we have this show. I always say want to make you the most educated fan. So we'll be breaking down the draft and whether or not Ryan Poles is good at drafting. So, but first, just want to give a little shout out to our friends at Fandall for sponsoring today's episode. And go out there at Fandall and right now bears versus Panthers. They finally have the props open. So right now our beloved bears are Caleb Williams 2333 and a half passing yards is the over under for him right now. So if you want to take the over, it's at minus one 14. Also for passing touchdowns, they have it set at 1.5 at minus 110 odds. So thank you as always for Fandall for sponsoring today's episode. And the only other thing I'll say about it too is hey, Deandre Swift just went down with an injury, Roma Dunes, they just went down with an injury. If you feel like you have an inside track on what's going to happen because you know, take

2:04advantage of it. See if it's still out there on the on the receiving or rushing market. But I will say Bartamy is like, oh man, maybe I should put a little bit on a little bit on Colston, Loveland. We'll see. But in all honesty, they did have the they did go down with injuries. So definitely want to monitor that next week and see hopefully they should be good. But we'll learn more soon. So topic at hand, Ryan Poles. So why are we here and why are we even talking about this, right? The biggest reason is because it was called to attention after the Bears traded away Jervon Dexter. A lot of people pulled up this draft class. The Darnell, right, Jervon Dexter, Tyree Stevenson, Zach Pickens, Rocheon Johnson, Tyler Scott, Noah Sule, Terrell Smith, Travis Bell, and Kendall Williamson and said, look at this. We don't have half of these players on this team anymore and what a terrible job and bringing

3:06it up that way. And so this caused me to kind of go, yeah, let's let's analyze this. Let's look through this and let's understand how drafts work and what else was kind of going around around that time and around these certain selections because it's important to know that because anyone could just kind of look at this and say, you know, Travis Bell, not good, you know, Terrell Smith, not with the team, never see Noah Sule. And it's important to know that the draft even as someone who loves the draft as much as I do, right? I treat as a national holiday for anyone that listens to this show. I have a free draft guy that usually has like 200 different profiles out there, just a whole bunch of different profiles of players because I just love the draft. But at the end of the day, it is a crap shoot. It is you take your best stab at it. And I'm not here to say just it is what it is, but it's making smart decisions and then seeing how it pans out and not every pick is going to be a starter.

4:10But if a pick in the third round becomes a backup, it's actually a very good pick. Now, some of you might be saying you might just be saying that Brad, well, that's why I have the numbers to back it up. So think of this very similarly to baseball. You're not going to hit a home run every time. You're going to take some outs. You're going to strike out even how he Roseman had multiple, he had like another stab at the apple with GM because they didn't like the way it was going. Even like the GM for the Seahawks was bad in a certain chunk because he changed the way that he was trying to draft. And it's important for us to see this and say, hey, how are we faring against other teams? So I grabbed the numbers. So let's get into this. So first off, let's just talk. I first want to just talk about the thing that, let's just talk about this main draft class, this Darnell right one. I actually want to give Ryan Poles a little bit of kudos for at least the Darnell right selection. Broderick Jones was the consensus player.

5:11If you wanted to tackle at that spot and Ryan Poles decided not to go with, you know, Broderick Jones and with Darnell right, and he turns into an all pro. But that is we continue to go down here. We have Dribbon Dexter. One of my favorite stats that I'm going to be referencing very heavily today is the weighted. Let me pull up the exact, the exact terminology weighted approximate value. This is a stat that's made by an unfold reference. So you can actually go out to NFL reference and all the draft classes. And you can see the weighted approximate value. The reason why I like that stat is because it's not just, you know, you can't just vote on it. Like not everyone's going to be a proble. There's going to be people that are backups. There's people that just make the active roster. There's also like I don't want to just use PFF grades because you might have someone like a Torell Smith who grades very, very well for PFF, but does not play a lot. That's not a lot of value and it's, and it's very subjective that you might have someone

6:14who's poorly rated with PFF, but they play all the time. So what's the value in these different things like an allot Taylor? Good. Someone who's a starting cornerback, but not amazing, right? But still a starting cornerback in the NFL nonetheless. So when I look at the average, you know, the weighted approximate value, Javon Dexter, after he was selected, there was around 20 different defensive tackles that were selected. Not a single one had a higher weighted approximate value than Javon Dexter, except for Kobe Turner. Now, some might say, well, Tully Tully below two was drafted after that. Yes, he was. Or slightly after that. Yes, but he's more of a defensive end. I'm just looking at the defensive tackles. And I also want to phrase this too. There is always always it's that that concept. There's a bigger fish. If you're in stock investing, there's always a stock that is going to make more than the

7:14stock that you have invested in. You can't be perfect, right? And so if you're, if anyone's going to be Captain hindsight, I just want to call this out. Don't be Captain hindsight. Don't just be somebody that's like, Hey, we could have had. If we just had Tom Brady in the fifth and if we would have just drafted Kobe Turner in the fourth, then we would have been great. You know, like, yeah, of course, yeah. Yeah, we are perfect. We'd be the greatest GM of all time. You know, like that. That's just how it would work, right? But anyways, I digress. Javon Dexter, high approximate value. But then as you continue on, Tyreeke Stevenson, actually, there's no other corner that had higher approximate value after him. And you might be saying, well, why? Well, because he's been a starting corner in the NFL and yet again, after him, there wasn't a lot of good corners that were picked after him. Jack Pickens bust nothing, nothing there. Like, right? That flopped. But then you go down to Rocheon Johnson, Rocheon Johnson, a backup running back, right?

8:16I'm not saying that he's anything more than that. I'm saying he's a backup running back that gives special teams value after him. Nine out of the 10 running backs that were drafted after him all have lower weighted approximate value than Rocheon Johnson. What does that mean? The only other one that didn't chase Brown, obviously, very good running back. But this just shows that after that, no one else really did anything else besides Rocheon Johnson. And yet again, not saying he's this unbelievable running back, it's just saying that after that, there's really nobody else or nobody else did anything, anything noteworthy. It's just the way that round three or day three draft picks workout. And actually, I really want to highlight day three because people also bring up Ryan Pulse's first draft where he made a total of eight different day three selections. And day three selections don't typically pan out. It's just the way it is.

9:17So what I did was I took that weighted approximate value. So yet again, that's stat from sports reference. And just so everyone knows too, like I know if there's data people out there, yes, this is one data point. And I could cross reference it with many other different data points. But I'm not going to. I have a day job and four kids. So I base it off of this and pulling these things together. So basically I took the average or the average weighted approximate value for each round of each year. So individually, and let me switch it over to this screen. So I took that and I had an average and you can see just a giant drop off. I'll just look at the 2023 numbers. So yet again, weighted approximate value. So the value number was 19.3 for round one on average in 2023. And then 12.2 in the second round, 9.3 in the third round. Then we see a big drop to 5.9 in the fourth round, 4.7 in the fifth, 4.3 in the sixth and

10:222.3 in the seventh. And for those on YouTube, you can kind of see the other numbers. But typically as soon as you get to that, you know, in 2022, you see a drop from 8.7 in the fifth round all the way down to 4.4 in the sixth. But this is showing is that yes, day three picks do not hit. It's very difficult to get value out of day three picks. Do some of them hit? Yes, they totally do. And that's what a lot of people point to. It is the fear of missing out. It is the I want that daddy, like the person from Charlie and the chocolate factory. I want that. Well, no, you can't. Everyone can't just get Pukka Nikuwa. There's only one Pukka Nikuwa that's in the NFL. And he went to the Rams. So what I did was I took the averages. And then after that, I basically just, you know, just pointed that at the Bears draft classes and said, or all the draft classes in the NFL and said, what percentage of draft

11:25picks have a above the weighted approximate value, you know, over the last four years? And the Bears are number two right below the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at 44.1%. The Rams at our third at 42.1% above average hit rate. And then Houston 41.7 Seattle 39.5 and the chargers at 39.4. So you can kind of see it out there. This is very, you know, saying, hey, Ryan Poles is the second best at drafting. If I even remove 2025 and I do that, we're third. But, but when I see this, I feel like we have to wait in that, like, you know, I bring up Pukka Nikuwa. Pukka Nikuwa is someone that is a player that, you know, skews things because he's

12:25one of the best wide receivers in the NFL. As long as he stays out of trouble. And he can skew kind of the overall average of some of these numbers. So that brings me to the median. So I ended up going with the median. This is what people do when they talk about like salaries and things like that too, because 1% is insanely higher than everybody else. And to me, this seems more reasonable. Because now when you look at this, you can see that the Bears, when you, when I factor in the median. So the median number rather than averaging out weighted approximate value, we're taking the median now. So middle player and the Bears in this scenario are seventh. And that seems a lot more palatable because of what I'm doing is I'm factoring in the percentage of people that were above or at that median number. And it makes a lot of sense when you actually look at it, Dominic Robinson drafted in the fifth round is seen as a okay as an equal player that was drafted in the fifth round.

13:27And I feel like we can all agree on that. He's still a backup in the NFL to this day. He's not a starter. He's not unbelievable. But at the end of the day, you drafted a backup defensive end in the fifth round. Not bad. And you keep going. Kendall Williamson is considered equal, which is crazy. But he is still a backup safety on the active roster for the chargers. Yet again, still providing value of a seventh round draft pick in 2023. And then you go to Rochon Johnson, providing equal value because when you put him out with all the other people that were drafted in the fourth round, he's still a backup running back that gives you special teams value. And this is the thing too. And even like Roma Dunes, he's considered equal, which you would say as a first round draft pick. Yeah, he's been solid. He'd like to see a little bit more, but solid nonetheless. But I feel like this is a good example of just kind of how he's drafted. Now, the thing I don't like is we have two punters out there that might skew it just because

14:32they're both considered hits because they gave value because they were both starting punters in the league. And Trenton Gill was a, you know, a seventh round draft pick. So getting anything out of that seventh round draft pick is good. The other thing too is I'll also unselect the draft class last year's draft class. And when I unselect that, the bears are down at one ninth, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. So the bears are down then at the ninth spot. Now the other thing too is if anyone is curious as to like, you know, the relevancy and things like that. The order is Tampa Bay Rams, Seattle, Buffalo, Houston, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, giants, and then bears and then Ravens and Packers. So what this is at least showing is that this kind of goes to what we were talking about before where I don't think that Ryan Poles is the greatest drafter of all time. What I'm saying at least is that he's not bad.

15:33And I think I think that's the key in all of this is that he's not just, he's not a bad drafter. It's just yes. Do some of the picks not hit? Yeah. Are some of them back up and back up caliber? Yes. Because some might see Braxton Jones and say, well, I don't like Braxton Jones. Well, yeah, I know you don't like Braxton Jones, but Braxton Jones has been a starting tackle in the NFL that he got in the fifth round. How many starting offensive tackles are drafted in the fifth round? I'll give you a hint, not a lot. And yes, he gets bulldozed right back into the quarterback and things like that. Totally agree. But he started, he's played and he's done some work. Tyree Stevenson has been a starter. Jervon Dexter is going to start to the Falcons and he just got traded there. That's where this all factors in. So I wanted to just kind of put this all together, do some of the homework on this and dive into it because I just wanted to highlight that not every pick is going to hit.

16:39And it's things that like Luke Newman being a backup guard and just playing a little bit last year is good. Is a solid thing so far for a six-rounder to be doing right now. Obviously, lot more in the future that we have to see with Luke Newman. But that's why I wanted to call it out that way. Now with all of this being said to, I do want to just call out one other thing that does drive me crazy about Ryan Pohl's and actually two things. One, I always feel like he goes into the draft with the need. And so if someone's saying, because I know there's people that are like, we should have drafted Jared verse and stuff like that, right? I feel like a lot of that is a little bit with some people just because I know the amount of people that wanted Roma Dune's a. I feel like a little bit of that is kept the captain hindsight creeping in a little bit. You can watch my shows when I talked about, you know, Byron Young or, you know, the defensive tackle and then also talking about Jared verse as well.

17:40A lot just being, being huge fans of them. But at the end of the day, they went with the Roma Dune's a who was seen as a blue chip player for a lot of people. I wasn't one of those, but saw him as a top tier talent though. But anyways, the thing that drives me crazy does go in with like having needs where he needed a right tackle. So we had to go darn all right. Or this year, we needed a safety. So we went thankfully Dylan, the admin was there and we went with him. But the other thing too is just the overreaches. We saw this as of recent because the big thing that ended up happening was we saw what happened when we overreached for Rubin Hippolyte. He's not on the team anymore. He was drafted 433 spots ahead of where he was supposed to go. I'm also not going to be pointing out the consensus bigboard as like look at Ozzy one round before he should have gone. Not going to be pointing that out. I'm just pointing out the huge reaches Rubin Hippolyte.

18:43433 picks ahead of where he was supposed to go. Just got cut by the bears. Luke Newman was a reach 161 spots ahead of where he was supposed to go so far. Has it looked bad? Then obviously this year was the big one was Xavier on Thomas who so far knock on wood has looked pretty good 169 spots ahead of where he was supposed to go. Then Tory Taylor 79 spots before he was supposed to go and then you get into here Travis Bell and Kendall Williamson. Yes, Williamson is still a backup. I still don't love it. Travis Bell, Kendall Williamson. Then you get into your Elijah Hicks's Trenton Gill, Doug Kramer, Tristan Ebner, Bayless Jones, all of which were drafted at least two rounds before they should have gone. The big thing that I just want Brian Polz to stop doing is kind of doing these, I bring up the baseball analogy. These are kind of like the blind swings. Hey, you know what?

19:44We'll hit something with Bayless and then they just go with that. You look at the draft board, you're like, well, Jalen Tolbert was the best receiver that was available there. Jalen Tolbert hasn't been amazing or anything like that. But then David Bell was after that. Danny Gray was after that. Like no one really great, but then you hit in to your Romeo dobs, your Kyle Van Oston's, your Khalil Shakir's. It's just the way that the draft goes because after that it's a bunch of nobody's. Montreal, Washington, Kyle Phillips, Michael Woods, Jalen Taylor was there. Bob Melton, Derek Young, Samari Toure, right? When we just go through those, yeah, there's some that are good players that are solid players, but others not so much. So there's going to be hits. There's going to be misses. At the end of the day, I'm just glad that we can kind of turn this page on this. Brian Polz is not a bad draft. He is, if anything, just an average, a solid person in the draft room.

20:46But do you know what's going to make it even better? Is this head coach that we got that's able to take this talent and mold it and make it better and really do something with this. So for me, I'm looking forward to what we're doing in the future. I know that yes, Ben Johnson is going to be helping with selections that was discussed and brought up by, I believe, Dan Pompey in that article that he wrote about Ben Johnson that he is very active in the draft room with this. But at the end of the day, let's stop complaining. Let's stop whining about it. It's been solid. It's been good. We're in an exciting time to be a bear's fan. So make sure to hit that like button. Subscribe if you're out there on YouTube. Rate the show five stars. Download the podcast ever you get your podcast with that unbearable sports podcast. We are out.

21:47If you liked the show, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe. It really does help the show to grow. Thank you for listening.