After losing several key starters on defense, the Carolina Panthers needed to field a strong 2020 draft class if they’re going to have any chance of competing next season. Once the draft was over, new head coach Matt Rhule admitted to the media that they’ll have to lean on their rookie class.
Obviously it’s going to take a couple of seasons at least to fairly evaluate these players. However, the early reviews for Carolina’s picks have been generally positive. The math seems to back that up.
According to The Athletic’s inimitable Arif Hasan, his model for calculating return on investment for the 2020 NFL draft shows that the Panthers’ class ranked 11th-best in the league this year. Here is how he explains the math.
“Here, we calculated the expected value each team earned on the pick and subtracted the capital of the pick, using an equation that weighs the value of the team’s selections (capital) against the draftees’ rankings in the Consensus Big Board (value). We also take into account positional needs — if a team, for example, drafts a running back because he’s the highest-ranked player on the board but then never plays that running back because there are five better ones on the roster, that wasn’t a good pick.”
The team that did the best was the Arizona Cardinals, who picked Clemson’s Isaiah Simmons at No. 8 and wound up with a 143.90% return – just barely edging out the Buffalo Bills and Dallas Cowboys.
Carolina’s draft class came in just ahead of the No. 12-ranked Houston Texans’, earning a 117.50% return.
Their best value pick according to Hasan’s model was Yetur Gross-Matos in the second round. The Panthers wound up taking Gross-Matos at No. 38 overall, but the Consensus Big Board had him ranked at No. 24.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Seattle Seahawks got the worst ROI this year at just 72.20%.
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