The NFL draft has a sweet spot, and in 2022, it belongs to the NY Jets

The New York Jets are perfectly positioned to capitalize on the NFL draft’s sweet spot

In general, NFL draft choices are expected to gradually decrease in value with each and every slot down the board. That’s just simple logic. The 11th pick offers more options than the 12th pick, so over the course of time, we expect players taken with the 11th pick to yield more production than the 12th pick. Pick 35 should be better than pick 36, pick 88 should be better than pick 89, and so on.

This has proven to be true for the most part. Obviously, there are some pick slots whose all-time yield stands out as an outlier due to one or two grand-slam picks that were made in that position, but there continues to be a strong linear relationship between pick-slot and expected production. With each slot you move down the board, the expectations get lower.

However, an anomaly has emerged over the past few drafts; a sweet spot, if you will. It’s a defined range of selections where the production yield has actually been significantly higher than the range that comes before it.

This sweet spot comes in a part of the draft where the New York Jets have the ammunition to do massive damage in 2022: the early second round.

Is the early-second round a better position in the NFL draft than the late-first round?

Over the past few years, we have seen much better results from the first few picks of the second round than the final few picks of the first round.

Seen below is the difference in production between the final eight picks of the first round (25-32) and the first eight picks of the second round (33-40) over the previous six drafts (2016 to 2021). Both groups include 48 players.

• Picks 25-32: 4 Pro Bowlers, 746 total Approximate Value (AV)*, 15.5 AV per player, 1,323 games started, 27.6 starts per player
• Picks 33-40: 8 Pro Bowlers, 812 total Approximate Value (AV)*, 16.9 AV per player, 1,567 games started, 32.6 starts per player

*- Approximate Value is a metric via Pro Football Reference that attempts to measure a player’s cumulative impact on winning.

With twice as many Pro Bowlers, 1.4 more AV per player, and 5.0 more starts per player, the early part of the second round has been producing far better results than the final run of the first round.

In terms of AV, the 33-40 range has outperformed the 25-32 range in five of the past six drafts:

The early second round gains its edge over the late first round through a significantly lower bust rate. While the two ranges each offer a similar ceiling, there has tended to be a much lower bust rate in the early second round.

Over the last six drafts, the best 15 players selected in the 25-32 range (in terms of total AV) combined for 499 AV (33.3 per player), which is actually a tad better than the 488 AV (32.5 per player) accumulated by the 15 best players selected in the 33-40 range. This tells us that there has tended to be a nearly identical ceiling for players taken in these two areas of the draft.

However, the non-top-15 players in the 25-32 range combined for just 247 AV (7.5 per player), significantly less than the 324 AV (9.8 per player) racked up by the non-top-15 players in the 33-40 range. This tells us that there has tended to be a much higher floor for players selected in the early second round than for players selected in the late first round.

The 25-32 range has delivered a whopping 25 players who are currently averaging 3.0 AV per season or less – more than half of all picks in that range. For reference on how ineffective a 3-AV season is, it’s equal to the total that Keelan Cole, Ashtyn Davis, and Shaq Lawson had for the Jets in 2021.

Meanwhile, the 33-40 range has delivered only 12 players who are currently averaging 3.0 AV per season or less, making up merely one quarter of all picks.

The question of course becomes, “how legitimate is this data?” Is this a blip on the radar or something that we can expect to continue for years to come?

I believe this phenomenon has a good chance of being sustained. There are certainly legitimate reasons to think this is a real thing and not just a random statistical outlier.

My theory is that, in the late first round, we see a bevy of contending teams draft with a win-now mindset, bypassing overall talent in favor of players who can fill one of their few vacant starting positions. This leads to better talent falling into the early second round.

Additionally, teams picking in the early second round get a whole day to analyze the board and formulate a plan. Teams picking in the later stages of the first round do not get the same luxury.

For your viewing pleasure, here is a look at the picks made in the NFL draft’s 25-32 range from 2016-21:

And here is a look at the picks made in the NFL draft’s 33-40 range from 2016-21:

Armed with the 35th and 38th overall picks in this year’s draft, the Jets are set to make two selections within the heart of this sweet spot. They are currently the only team that owns two of the second round’s first eight picks.

This is a draft class that is better known for its depth than its star power at the top. Plenty of intriguing prospects will be available in the early second round.

Some of the most popular second-round options for the Jets include Penn State receiver Jahan Dotson, Penn State safety Jaquan Brisker, Connecticut defensive tackle Travis Jones, and Baylor safety Jalen Pitre among many others.

New York seemed to strike gold in this range last year by selecting Elijah Moore with the 34th pick. Can Joe Douglas do it twice more?