Sometimes Quantity Is As Valuable As Quality

Over the past two months I have often spoken about the need to either stay put at #16 or move down in this years draft. The great thing about a site like GGN is that we all have personal opinions on draft day stratergy, we have spoken previously about the possibility of trading up and going with quality over quantity. If you are doing that, you better be sure that the guy who are trading up for is going to be a game changer. When your team lacks real depth like the Jets, you better be 100% sure.

However my viewpoint is that we should go quantity over quality in 2012 for three main reasons. One, I really think that our team depth is lacking in a lot of areas. Two, this is a physical game and injuries are going to happen which will highlight point one. Three, the more you look into this draft the more you notice just how deep it is. There are players that are projected as 3rd or 4th round selections that have instant impact capability.

I was taking a look back at the 2011 Superbowl Giants drafts of 2011, 2010 and 2009. They took 8 players in 2011 and 7 players in 2010, 9 players in 2009. Now not all of those selections have been great selections, but when you take 7-10 players a draft, if you hit on 50% your doing well. You have around 4 players who can contribute. If you select 4 and hit on 50% you have two players who can contribute

The 2010 Superbowl winning Packers took 7 players in 2010, 8 players in 2009 and 9 players in 2008. Now the Packers traded up in 2009 for Clay Matthews but they still had three selections in the first four rounds as they had another first round selection in B.J Raji. That was perfectly fine because in 2008 they had six selection in the first four rounds. They had team depth based on prior drafts which allowed a move such as the trade up for Matthews.....how did they do that? they traded their first round pick to none other than the Jets and moved down to stockpile picks.

Everything that you do on draft day I believe should be dictated by the way the draft board falls. However over the last 3 years we have made 13 selections in total. I'm not against trading up completely, it has served us well in the past. However sometimes you just need to roll the dice on 8-9 picks and trust your scouting department that they can find contributions throughout the rounds in a deep draft. Set the foundation with a depth draft in 2012 to allow flexibility in the future.