Peeling apart Brad Holmes Draft Strategy and "BPA"

The Den
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The line that has caused so much consternation in the fan base is on Brad’s continued line of - we always draft the best player available regardless of position.

This has felt true at times and not at others. Very smart people on this board have looked at things like Grit index and character/captain traits to identify likely targets beyond the RAS and pff numbers.

So what does Best Player Available (BPA) mean?

To a lot of us, if there are ~500 prospects and you’ve identified say ~50 that you’d like to draft, then with your first pick you should take the highest ranked available player no matter if it’s a kicker.

Last year Brad did disclose that some positions have more rarity and thus get a weighting bump so we know that OTs are more valuable than Kickers nearly every single time.

This year, I think Brad disclosed something very telling, “although he did admit that need may have acted as a tiebreaker in some cases”

How can a Tie occur when you have players ranked 1-50? If you are using a ton of variables like Grit, RAS, PFF, Health, etc, the scoring should be clear and absolute with no Ties likely.

Brad also said of the 2023 draft that the Lions only had first round grades on like ~9 of the players on their board and they got 2 of them. Clearly they were willing to drop down that year because they thought they could still get Gibbs and Jack Campbell

This means that they are likely looking at their own draft round evaluation in it’s entirety instead of solely BPA. Put differently, if they have 8 guys with first round grades, they take the guy at the position of need in that grade range instead of pure highest rated.

This is how ties are likely to happen and how positional needs are likely to be taken over the true highest rated prospect or what we think of as BPA.

This would explain why Holmes’ draft this year aligned so closely with needs. This helps make sense of a lot of BPA talk that felt too restrictive to be real.

Any one disagree? Has he shared enough for us to dissect?

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The truth is, in a sport with ~15 positions to choose from (give or take a few based on scheme and preference), need and BPA are simply going to line up pretty regularly. It’s one of the reasons a lot of us thought we would attack them in this class… because the value of OT in the 1st looked good and the value of edge in the 2nd looked good. Clearly the brass agreed.

That said, it think he gladly would have taken Bain or Downs too.

When someone says BPA - even Brad - what they really mean is BPA at some level of need. Where everyone disagrees and all the fighting starts is what qualifies as “some level.” You’ve seen it in here all offseason. People have made arguments for TE, NT, RB, KR, pass-rushing 3T, on and on and on.

My belief is pretty much every position is some level of need. Mostly that’s because I know how fluid situations are and how quickly they change, so I am of the belief that in the long run, simply adding the best talent is the way to go. The only position I absolutely positively wouldn’t have drafted in the first was WR… and even then, if Jeremiah Smith was available? I might change my mind.

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I think anyone being reasonable will realize that any subjective scoring system has a pretty large margin of error.

To that end, #40 in your rank of the top 50 players is likely +/- 5 or even 10 slots realistically.

There’s a continuum of BPA vs. need, and I don’t think any GM could function on either extreme.

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I heard on that Twentyman interview, or maybe one with Dan Miller, that guys were on the board as “round” grades. That sounds to me like they don’t or won’t make strict stack rankings like the pundits do.

Makes them move up or down to grab “their guy” in a given round, which seems to make sense when the board is changing right in front of them in real time.

BH stated that he had Abney “two rounds” higher so it was a “no-brainer” - insinuating they would have gone to their system of choosing guys with a 5th round grade if Abney wasn’t staring them in the face.

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They just group similar tier guys together. Bucket A has players of a certain level quality, Bucket B is the next level down, etc, etc. They may have preferences, but everyone they’ve put into their buckets already check all the boxes for them. After that, it’s just figuring out when they think those guys are going. If you’ve only got 1 or 2 guys in left in Bucket A and you don’t pick for 10 picks? You might wanna move up. Similarly, if you’re on the clock and you’ve got 10 guys in Bucket C left on the board, maybe you can afford to drop back a bit.

Then there’s gonna be times where you might have guys, even in the same bucket, but you like Player A a whole lot more than the rest for whatever reason. Those are the guys Brad gets a trade boner for.

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Yeah. They use buckets with need being the tie breaker. Brad has said as much.

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I think needs and BPA and what BPA means are much more intertwined than we typically think, and they can’t quite be separated. Things like Availability / Injury Risk, Culture Fit, Football IQ, Positional Value, Positional Flexibility, Special Teams potential, etc all usually go into a players grade. Its not just the tape.. or the testing, or both. Like if you are looking at an offensive lineman in the 3rd, usually you might think if drafting them they will be a valuable backup with starter potential. Does drafting someone with position flexibility filll more needs or are they graded higher because of it and because thats what you look for in a 3rd round lineman? Its kind of always wrapped together. I don’t think any pick is pure one way or the other.

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I’ve had a lot to say on the subject, so I’m not going to relitigate. But IMHO there is true “BPA” then there is everything else which is definitely NOT BPA. A team that is a true BPA team, doesn’t target players. They lay out their board and draft the guy highest on their board PERIOD. I feel exactly ZERO teams/GMs actually do this, but nearly all SAY they do. It’s like a person on one side of the political isle that keeps yelling to all who will listen that they are an “Independant.” It SOUNDS like that makes you extra super pragmatic and everyone wants to be known that way.

What BH does, is he has a board and then within that list has HIS GUYS. When HE thinks HIS guy is going to get taken within the next group of picks, he does whatever it takes so that doesn’t happen. That is why you almost never see him trade down and almost always see him trade up. That is not BPA and it’s not trusting your board. That is falling in love with a player and making damn sure you get him before anyone else does. I’m not criticizing the approach. I’m totally fine with this approach. Just don’t dare say you are a pure BPA GM, because nothing could be further from the truth.

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BPA has a lot of factors, many already mentioned.

I honestly think the board sort of starts with the Sheila test: If there is a character question, do they think they can sell Sheila on it? I don’t believe it disallows too many prospects, but I do believe this is the first filter.

I think what comes next is the mess of tape, RAS, Leadership (have they been team Captains), positional value, need, and do they live and breathe ball. I think this gets them sorted by tiers which becomes their board. I think the board will get you through those first 4ish rounds. I think 5th round is where you grab people you didn’t think would make it through the first 4 rounds. Once in those last rounds, I think they are looking for guys they like.

What made this draft a little different is that our needs really did align nicely with our picks. I did some soul searching since the draft to see if I believed they changed to a more needs-based approach. I am of the opinion that they have not. But that doesn’t mean that positional value and need were excluded from the equation. It most certainly was a part of it.

But these guys, as a whole, do seem to have grit. They seem to love the game. They seem to be self-starters. Most (if not all) seem to have the football character that we value. So yes, BPA with a heavy dose of FIT in the evaluation.

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I feel the exactly same. I’ve expressed as much many times too but have been told so often I’m wrong.

There is no such thing as true BPA…but I’ve had a lot of arguments on this. There are times it may happen, but it is no teams true philosophy.

This thread actually has me laughing a bit. Because some I’ve argued about it now sound as if they are pivoting. If I was petty, I would go get receipts haha…but it’s really not that big a deal.

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As you say, BPA is just a buzzword to give a GM cover from giving every justification on their picks.

Do fans or pundits care more about this drafting methodology? Pundits stack rank prospects in a BPA sense on their mock boards. They have no idea how a team is actually drafting, to fill a “need” or otherwise.

If i were to point to a team that seemingly drafts BPA, it would be the Giants. What else explains 4 high level starters at DE, when (maybe) only 1 or 2 are on every other team?

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I hope this isn’t directed at me, I’ve never said there was an “absolute” BPA, obviously there are positions teams won’t pick. I mean all you have to say is kicker/punter and everyone gets it.

I have ALWAYS been a “BPA at some level of need” guy (and so is every FO, even when they say BPA), but where I differ with many, many people on here is with what qualifies as some level of need. Because I believe needs change so, so frequently that basically every position is some level of need for most teams, which is why I have been a major advocate for drafting the most talented guys because it will work out better in the long run.

Even in this draft, if Arch Manning or Jeremiah Smith would have somehow been available to us at 17, I would have taken them. The level of need at QB and WR is obviously very, very low on our roster currently, but it isn’t absolute zero. At some point we will have to pay the bills and move on from Goff, for instance, and it’s better to be early than late… Now normally I would think that time frame is somewhere in the range of 3-5 years, but if a talent like Arch becomes available, you change your approach.

THAT is what BPA means to me.

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I think the way Brad “does” BPA is they take all their factors in play (tape, RAS, football character, etc) and either give them a grade or eliminate them altogether. So viable players end up in ”buckets” as he puts it.

There may be gradations within each bucket, which is where “need” comes in.

During the draft, they stick to players in the highest bucket. They won’t leave behind a higher bucket player even if there may be a more pressing need that can be filled from a lower bucket. That would be what he’d call a “reach.”

When the highest bucket still in play is just about tapped, he’ll move up. He’ll only move down if there will still be plenty in the bucket to choose from later.

On Day 3, if there’s still value, they’ll go with value, otherwise I think they go with their guts.

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It’s not really directed at you or anyone in an absolutes sense…but yeah we have debated this mildly.

I think the way you break it down leaves every possible angle covered haha. It’s a great form of debate but it leaves any interpretation you want to take, basically open. Some of the guys I respect the most here have had arguments just weeks ago about how we are definitely a BPA team. Now there’s that favorite term around here “nuance” to it. I would’ve never gotten into a back and forth with anyone who suggested it was BPA with an emphasis on current needs.

It does feel a little like a goal post move or a Pivot…but it could be those who debated it just didn’t get into detail on what their version of BPA meant. Or I could’ve misinterpreted what some actually meant :man_shrugging:t2:

Either way it’s one of those discussions where we aren’t that far apart. And I don’t mean just you and I.

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I agree with the “buckets” - Brad has said as much. They probably have a handful of guys that fit within a range. If the bucket is emptying quickly before his pick he will go get a player or (less likely) trade down into the next bucket area. So yes, if we want to be technical, it is a BPA hybrid. But I don’t think he will reach for a player if the board does not have any player in the bucket. If they have 2 or more players in the bucket then position of need is considered (his words in his presser).

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Could you just imagine Brad saying something like “Yeah, we really needed an OT and a DE, so we did alot more research on those positions, hence our picks”. Everyone claims to be BPA, and if it just happens to be a position of need, my, my, my, how lucky we were!

Of course its BPA at some position of need. The “some level” may be a very small level of need for a generational talent, but where we are drafting lately, that’s not going to happen very often (exception below). More often “some level of need” is a more near-term need, either this year, next year etc.

If you just look at Brad’s trade-ups, IMHO, when its a first or second round trade-up (e.g Terrion, Moore, Jamo) the need is more immediate. Branch’s trade-up might be the exception, but Branch was nearly generational sitting there still in the second round.

OTOH, when his trade-ups are later (e.g. BroMart, Manu, Teslaa) the need is longer term, down the road. And these players just seem to be personal man-crushes with a higher degree of risk. Which s OK. You can probably cite a counter-example or two, or have a different opinion on needs, but that’s the way I see it anyway.

Brad’s very good. Overall, he’s done well. We don’t all agree all the time, but it would be very weird if we did.

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The Giants drafted BPA

We drafted our guy we targeted at a position of need

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I like how you are turning it around to change the perspective.

Similarly, I wish we got more insight into the guys that he wanted that were taken by other teams just ahead of where he thought he could get them. We heard about the Seahawks DB a few years ago. Has he been jumped enough times by other teams that he is trigger happy now?

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Reese was a BPA pick, but also a top 5 need for Giants at WLB. It is also easier to draft BPA with a top 5 pick when the top 3 team needs are DT, CB, and OG.

Mauigoa will play OG according to the team, which was a top 3 need.

Hood at CB was also a top 3 need.

In round 3, Malachi Fields at WR was a top 5 need.

I would say they also leaned into drafting needs.

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I mean off ball linebacker and OL were among their biggest needs. They couldn’t go DT that high and the only other pressing need for them was CB.

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