Do the Baltimore Ravens Really Value Their Draft Picks More Than Most NFL Teams?

It’s the puzzle-making time of year for NFL general managers as they start whittling down their 90-man rosters into a squad of just 53 players. Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as choosing the 53 best men. GMs need to find the right mixture of veteran leaders, experienced contributors and youthful potential in order to build a winner—for both this season and the future.

Rookies have an interesting place in that process. Most players need a season or two before they are truly ready to become a starter or rotational player, so front offices need to decide how many roster spots they are willing to dedicate to prospects that aren’t going to play a significant role every Sunday.

The Baltimore Ravens are widely considered to be a team that places a great value on their draft picks—at least initially. That’s the party line that frequently gets tossed around by writers when they’re predicting what the final roster will look like.

For example, the final wide receiver spot on the 2014 roster could come down to Michael Campanaro, Jeremy Butler or Kamar Aiken. The fact that Campanaro was just selected by Baltimore in the 2014 draft gives him the upper hand, or so the saying goes. Likewise, the Ravens would ideally only carry two quarterbacks on the final roster, but some (like Jon Meoli of The Baltimore Sun) question whether they are willing to expose Keith Wenning (a sixth-round pick in 2014) to waivers by stashing him on the practice squad.

With Ozzie Newsome and Co. making the picks, Baltimore would be wise to place its faith in the scouting process and see what its draft picks are capable of. But do the Ravens really place more value on their draft picks than other NFL teams?

“Value” is always a tricky thing to quantify since there are many different ways to define the concept. For this case study, “valuing a draft pick” was defined as keeping a drafted rookie (undrafted rookies weren’t counted in this analysis) on the final roster or injured reserve in his first season.

Beyond the first season, draft picks may be waived or traded because they simply weren’t good enough or didn’t deliver on the potential that scouts predicted. In Year 1, however, teams have a limited sample size of information to make those judgments. Keeping a drafted rookie on the team can be as much about trusting your drafting process (and the long-term potential you scouted) as it is about seeing tangible development from the rookies in training camp and throughout the season.

On the contrary, a team that cuts a draft pick or signs a pick to the practice squad (where he can be signed to another team’s active roster at any time) clearly isn’t too concerned with the prospect of letting that draft pick go, despite the time and resources that go into making every draft selection.

I looked back at each NFL team’s draft haul over the last five seasons (2009 – 2013) and counted how many draft picks were cut or assigned to the practice squad before the end of their rookie seasons. After the number-crunching, it turns out that the Ravens definitely value their picks more than most.

They ranked sixth in the league over the five-year span with only 7.69% of their draft picks (3 of their 39 total picks¹) not finding themselves on the final roster or Injured Reserve in their first seasons.

Baltimore is definitely in the category of teams that like to hang on to their draft picks—a group that is led by the Jacksonville Jaguars who kept all of their 34 draft picks for the time period on the team for Year 1.

On the surface, it seems as though the Colts’ league-high rate of losing (or potentially losing) close to a quarter of their draft picks is an inefficient use of the draft pool, but the interesting thing is that there is only a slight correlation between devaluing draft picks and wins—and it’s a positive one.

Every team's win total from the past five years is plotted against the percentage of draft picks they cut/signed to the practice squad. There is a slight positive correlation (correlation coefficient = 0.35), and the relationship is statistically significant (p-value = 0.047). Valuing your draft picks in Year 1 isn't necessarily a good thing.

A correlation coefficient of 0.35 isn’t particularly strong (1 = perfect positive correlation, -1 = perfect negative correlation, and 0 = no correlation), but there is a statistically significant trend that suggests devaluing draft picks isn’t wrong and may actually be a better course of action.

There are, of course, a number of possible confounding factors. For starters, the teams that win are more likely to have more depth and talent in the first place, leaving less room on the roster for rookies regardless of whether they were drafted or not.

Then there is the fact that every NFL team is at different points in their competitive cycle. For a team like the Denver Broncos that is firmly in "win now" mode, it doesn't make much sense to hold onto a seventh-round draft pick that may never develop when that roster spot could go to a veteran that can give the team some form of contribution that season. Conversely, the opposite is true for a team like Jacksonville that has been stuck in a rebuilding spiral for a while now.

Additionally, more successful programs may be more likely to select high-risk prospects that are boom-or-bust (either in terms of talent, character, or both) because they can afford to take such a gamble. In those cases, it would be logical to place a lower value on those picks.

Regardless, teams have found a great deal of success at either end of the scale. Only five teams have exceeded 50 wins for the period, and they have differing philosophies on how to make the most of your draft picks.

The Ravens and Saints both keep their a significant portion draft picks on the team, the Patriots and the 49ers are far more cavalier with their picks, and the Packers are somewhere in the middle. Nobody can argue with any of their recent track records, but Baltimore is sure to maintain its status quo.

What does this mean moving forward? It means that “the Ravens value their draft picks” is actually a valid reason when making roster predictions. It also sheds some light on what the coaching staff and front office might do at the end of the preseason in 2014.

Not only did they draft Michael Campanaro, but they traded a pick in next year’s draft to get back into the seventh round to select him. It would likely take a tremendous showing from the other receivers (i.e. Jeremy Butler, Kamar Aiken, Deonte Thompson, and LaQuan Williams) or an injury to the Wake Forest product to keep him off the final roster.

Similarly, the Ravens’ track record suggests that other teams won’t have the opportunity to take a look at Keith Wenning. Either Baltimore keeps three quarterbacks or Wenning will end up on Injured Reserve.

John Harbaugh has made it abundantly clear throughout his tenure that the Ravens are a meritocracy. The best players are the ones that play the best. The number of undrafted free agents and unheralded players that have secured big-time roles in Baltimore supports that notion.

So no player, draft pick or not, is going to get a free ride. But history and statistics suggest that all of this year's draft class will remain in Baltimore through at least the end of the 2014 season.

¹Those three players were Davon Drew (practice squad) and Cedric Peerman (released) of the 2009 draft class and Marc Anthony (released) in 2013.