Online Draft Simulator – User Guide 1

As draft interest draws near, so does usage of Draftteks innovative ODS .    For those of you regular users, we’re going to prepare some short bites every few days on how to use the ODS in preparation for draft day.

Today:  Using baseline ODS data vs. using your own changes

Today (3/13) we collected new team needs from out Team Correspondents and put up a new Consensus Mock Draft (CMD) over on the regular site.  All the baseline information in the CMD (Team Needs, Grabs, Lockouts, Player list order) is immediately propagated over to the to the Online Draft Simulator.

But if you’ve been running the ODS and have made a bunch of changes to the input screens, to get the draft just the way you want it, won’t this importing of new baseline data mess you up??

The answer is no, not right away anyway.    Please go to the ODS “Simulator Home” page by clicking on a link off the main site.  You will see two big buttons to the right of the ODS logo.  Here’s what they do:

DraftSim program – New P code?

Drafttek.com lead programmer Warren Hauck here.  Pondering a new “P code”.  To review some existing codes and their meanings:

If one of our correspondents codes a position as P2, that means:

2 (or P2) – PP’s designated with P2 indicate that the that the team is in great need of starting calliber talent and will reach to fill the need. The reach isn’t quite as great as P1. There can be multiple P2’s identified per team.

A P3 OTOH means:

3 (P3) – PP’s (Player Positions) designated with P3 indicate that the team is in need of starting caliber talent, but will not reach for it. Some teams use a “best available player” draft discipline, this fits the P3 code well.

Watch For Bills to trade down, take DE

–Dean Kindig, Bills Correspondent, DraftTek

 

The Bills are in a great spot at #11 in the 2009 Draft, only 91 Days away for those counting. If they look at the available free agents, they will notice that the weak spot is DE. There are some good experienced Tight Ends on the Free Agent market, which I believe sways the Bills to look at Defensive End with their First Rounder.The Bills can hope to get Texas DE Brian Orakpo there, but he’d have to get past Cincinnati and Oakland at 6 and 7. Cincinnati’s needs almost replicate ours in this draft, and they could be an annoyance all day. One hopes they trade down and/or take an OT, RB Knowshon Moreno with their first pick.

If Orakpo is gone, Tyson Jackson of LSU would be attractive, but he’d be there later on in Round 1. It’s usually hard finding a trade partner, but Minnesota needs a QB, and at #11 they could leapfrog the Jets and take Matt Stafford or Mark Sanchez. Minnesota picks at #22. A drop from #11 to #22 nets the Bills a player like DE’s Jackson, Paul Kruger from Utah or Michael Johnson from Georgia, as well as a second round pick. I ran this through the www.DraftTek.com Simulator, and we took DE Kruger at #22, followed by TE Chase Coffman at #42 and OC Alex Mack at #54.

Consensus Mock Draft Rev 3 – Staff Comments

Post-Season Revision 3 was released on Saturday. In case you were not aware, the Consensus Mock is computer generated based on two inputs. First, the positional priorities assigned for each team by our contingent of team analysts. Second, the players rankings on the Big Board.

A couple interesting notes on our Consensus mock:

1) Where are the offensive skill players??   QB, RB and WR.   Michael Crabtree is in there at #4 going to Seattle. But whose next? It’s Jeremy Maclin at #16.

Simulating the NFL Draft – 4-3 vs. 3-4

Draft Tek’s NFL Draft computer simulation model now enters its 4th season.  The 2009 version is still under construction; we’re still employing the 2008 logic to generate the Consensus Mock Drafts that are currently up on the web site.

One of the chief complaints that we’ve heard ever since year 1 involves 3-4 vs. 4-3 players: Nose Tackles, Pass-rush linebackers, etc..  The program needs a means of categorizing DL players, identifying teams by their base defenses, and assigning as such.  The goal of Draft Tek programmers is to integrate this logic into the 2009 model, effective at the completion of this regular NFL season.

This will involve an expansion of player definitions.   Intead of DT, DE and OLB; we’ll see 34DT, 43DT, 34DE, 43DE, 34OLB and 43OLB.    And we’ll see some of the target players taking on dual designations.  

In an effort to gain clarity for programming purposes, the following questions were posed to our Draft Tek Football Analysts:

1) A 4-3 DE may or may not qualify as a 3-4 OLB – depends upon
size/speed. Is this an accurate assessment??
2) A 4-3 DT may or may not be suitable for a NT position (3-4 DT) -
depends upon player makeup. – Correct?
3) Consider the opposite – A Nose Tackle is acceptable for a 4-3 DT.
Yes/No?

First 2009 Draft Sim of the Season

It’s October and its time for The World Series Draft Teks Kickoff coverage of the 2009 NFL draft.

Our first effort has just been posted up over on the main site.  Won’t get into team needs and player rankings just yet.  This posting discusses our In-season timeline and other guidelines that simulations will follow until the NFL season is over.

What’s that?  You don’t like where your team is ranked ??   Our Sim sucks?   Kansas City is just fine at QB ??

If only there was some manner to make changes to the simulation’s inputs and then generate a new mock draft based upon those changes . . . . 

Online Draft Simulator (ODS) Beta Kickoff

What is the ODS?

The Online Draft Simulator provides a totally unique experience for Draft buffs and NFL/NCAA fans in general.  The ODS takes the Computer generated draft simulator, the results of which have been Draft Tek’s forte over the past few years, and puts it online for fans and football professionals to use for draft analysis.

The beta version of ODS is a scaled-down version of our Excel-VBA model, which never had a name or acronym.  But I will use DTOM (Draft Tek Offline Model) for the purpose of blog discussion.  Here are differences and similarities between ODS and DTOM:

 

Comparing the ODS and the “classic” Draft Tek Excel-based model (DTOM)

1) DTOM goes the full 7 rounds, ODS only 3 (in the early versions)