Bill Belichick on Stacking the Draft Board (especially Horizontal Stacking)

Amnorix · 04-21-2009, 12:51 PM

Thought this would be of general interest, since no doubt Pioli and crew are doing it the same way:

A year or two ago, I heard Bill Belichick say that in the last two weeks before the draft his staff is focusing on "horizontal stacks" (i.e., prospects with the same grade but different positions) and ranking them. This suggests that more players have the same grades than many of us assume -- and that the "ties" must be broken by other factors. I would guess that need, value of the position, depth of the draft at that position, interest of other teams, and perhaps alternative ways to get comparable players are all factors. Can you offer some insight on this?
John

A: Solid topic here, John, and you had me scrambling back to 2003 to read some of Bill Belichick's comments on horizontal stacks. Here is what I took from Belichick's comments that year: The vertical stack is by position -- quarterbacks, tight ends, running backs etc. The horizontal stack helps you assess value -- comparing, for example, the cornerback rated at the same spot as the guard. It is possible I might not be interpreting this the right way, so here are Belichick's comments from 2003:

"When you stack your board, you're going to look vertically ... The way we do it, we look vertically by positions. Here's all the quarterbacks, here's all the tight ends, here's all the running backs. Horizontally across the board, you try to get some kind of value of ... This cornerback and this guard, and this linebacker and this tight end would have about the same value. They'd come in and they'd be role players for us. They're never going to be starters. Or whatever their value is. And so when you're sitting there trying to make your picks, you may be looking at three or four guys and they're all kind of about the same. You're five or six picks away and whichever one of these guys we end up with, we take them in this order, but we could live with any of them. But sometimes you're sitting there and you have three or four guys in that category and you have one guy that you feel like is sitting up there and is significantly higher and you're not saying, 'Well, he's just going to come in and be a role player and he'll never be a starter.' You're saying, 'Well, this guy could come in and he's going to be a starter for us, now it might take a year and he has a little developing he has to do, but we feel like this guy can come in and he can be a starter for us.' That's when you sit there and think about, 'Alright, do we want to try to jump up and get this guy if we don't think he's going to fall to us and give up whatever we have to give up to move up and get him, or do we want to stay here and hope he's on the board -- he probably won't be -- and we'll end up with one of these other guys.' It just comes down to draft management. Sometimes you try to trade up and get him and nobody wants to trade with you and you sit there and let it come to you. But that's basically the process. I don't think you sit there and say, 'Well, we're only going to trade up if we think the guy's going to be an impact player or we're only going to trade up if the guy's going to be a starter or whatever.' We've traded up in the fourth round, fifth round, down in the fifth round, sixth round, so I don't think when you're picking in the sixth round you're really thinking, 'This guy's going to be an impact player.' We would have picked him in the second."

http://www.boston.com/sports/footbal..._09/?page=full

**The Franchise** · 04-21-2009, 12:55 PM

I think it would be amazing as hell to sit in their war room on draft day.

KCrockaholic · 04-21-2009, 12:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pestilenceaf23

I think it would be amazing as hell to sit in their war room on draft day.

yes it wood.

ChiefsCountry · 04-21-2009, 01:13 PM

I would rather be in Baltimore's. They are the best at the draft, their downfall is at QB.

Amnorix · 04-21-2009, 01:18 PM

I mentioned this before on here, I think -- I'd seriously pay good money to be able to sit in the Patriots war room on draft day. In fact, alot more than what I'd pay to see a single game.

KCrockaholic · 04-21-2009, 01:19 PM

I am willing to bet that the Patiots walk away from this draft head and shoulders better than the rest. They are destined to have a good draft even if they dont try.

SBK · 04-21-2009, 01:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChiefsCountry

I would rather be in Baltimore's. They are the best at the draft, their downfall is at QB.

It'd be fascinating to be in ANY teams war room on draft day. Even one led by Dicky V and King Carl.

KCrockaholic · 04-21-2009, 01:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SBK

It'd be fascinating to be in ANY teams war room on draft day. Even one led by Dicky V and King Carl.

That would be a bad idea. You'd walk in and it would be like this

Amnorix · 04-21-2009, 01:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcrockaholic4life

I am willing to bet that the Patiots walk away from this draft head and shoulders better than the rest. They are destined to have a good draft even if they dont try.

No way they're taking 11 guys. They're either going to move up slightly (say from 23 to 20 or whatever), or they're going to move out, probably out of one of their second round picks for a 1st next year.

We have 6 in the first 3 rounds. I call that trade fodder.

KCrockaholic · 04-21-2009, 01:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amnorix

No way they're taking 11 guys. They're either going to move up slightly (say from 23 to 20 or whatever), or they're going to move out, probably out of one of their second round picks for a 1st next year.

We have 6 in the first 3 rounds. I call that trade fodder.

If I was them I would stay where they are. They can make some great picks with what they have.

BigRock · 04-21-2009, 01:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SBK

It'd be fascinating to be in ANY teams war room on draft day. Even one led by Dicky V and King Carl.

I imagine a Vermeil draft room involves the following:

- plenty of Mexican food (supposedly some sort of Vermeil draft tradition)
- being caught off guard when the team's pick comes up
- picking a player based on the "Mel Kiper's Best Available" list that flashes by on ESPN
- basing the decision on the opionion of one of the player's college coaches (who is also one of DV's old cronies).

**The Franchise** · 04-21-2009, 01:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcrockaholic4life

If I was them I would stay where they are. They can make some great picks with what they have.

The problem is....is that they really don't have much roster room. I'm going with Amnorix. I'm assuming that the Patriots will ship a 2nd rounder for a 1st next year. Some team is going to want to get back into the 2nd round....especially because of the talent that is going to be in the 2nd round this year.

Coogs · 04-21-2009, 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChiefsCountry

I would rather be in Baltimore's. They are the best at the draft, their downfall is at QB.

Which they appear to have finally came away with a winner. And despite several years of missing with a QB in round 1, it appears their franchise was not "set back" too bad. Pretty competative team year-in and year-out.

Amnorix · 04-21-2009, 01:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcrockaholic4life

If I was them I would stay where they are. They can make some great picks with what they have.

They will sit tight if they can't get the value they want.

But I've seen this act before. Trade a 2 for a 1. Trade back and pick up another next year. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they moved from the top of the 2nd round with the 34 pick to the back of the round and got another 2 for next year's draft, for example.

They rarely sit and pick. Usually they're moving around.

Chiefnj2 · 04-21-2009, 02:17 PM

More detail on Belichick's stacking and scouting:

By Tom E. Curran
NBCSports.com
updated 5:46 p.m. ET, Tues., Feb. 26, 2008

Image: Tom Curran
Tom E. Curran
• E-mail
INDIANAPOLIS - “Be prepared.” It’s the Boy Scout motto all the time. It’s the NFL scouts’ motto right now.

When the head of the football-watching world swivels in the direction of incoming NFL talent, the work done by the league’s 32 scouting departments comes into view. And while fans might be just starting to place faces next to names like Joe Flacco, Leodis McKelvin and Jeff Otah, scouts know what kind of toothpaste these kids use.

And while the immediate focus is on the 2008 draft class, scouts are already conversant in the 2009 group.

But after all the preparation is done and all the information is evaluated, which NFL scouting departments do the best job year after year in stocking their roster?

Talking to scouts, coaches and general managers at the NFL Scouting Combine, the same franchises came up over and over.

The Indianapolis Colts, New England Patriots, San Diego Chargers, Baltimore Ravens, New York Giants, Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers.

“Look at the people who have good records,” said Colts president Bill Polian, probably the most consistently successful GM of the past two decades. “One flows from the other.”

How does a decision-maker like Polian know if his scouting department is doing its job?

“It isn’t just who you draft, it’s what your reports say,” he explained. “That, and how your board’s constructed. Sometimes who you draft is a function of luck. How that player performs is a function of luck. Injuries or off-field issues (can arise). What I want to make sure of every year — and what our scouting people are charged with doing — is determining whether or not we’re getting the right information and putting the right grade on a player. It’s the input on the baseline level that’s critically important.”

After months of scouting, players are given an overall grade. Those generally run from 1.0 (extreme longshot to make any team) to 9.0 (possible franchise player). Most first-rounders come in between 6.0 and 7.0.

Teams won’t stack every draft-eligible player. Once a team gets to the point where its ranking players that couldn’t make their team at that position, they stop grading.

Then comes the vertical stack at a given position.

As Patriots coach Bill Belichick explained in a Providence Journal piece on draft preparation a few years back, “As you vertically stack, it's just, 'The first is better than the second, the second's better than the third.'"

After the vertical stack comes the more difficult horizontal stack in which players with the same grades are stacked. That’s when scouting, personnel and coaches decide whether a linebacker with a 6.0 grade is better than a tight end with a 6.0.

"This part is hard," Belichick said. "Here you start talking about a corner on the rise versus a center who's a good player, but not a good athlete. At some point you have to break up that clump and say, 'OK, this is one, this is two, this is three.' Even if you have 15 guys in the 6.0 range and another 15 in the 6.1, you have to determine, 'This guy over that guy, that guy over the next guy,' and now you're in another vertical stack within your horizontal stack.

Then comes the final vertical stack, which should now be easier to complete thanks to the first two steps. Still, Belichick explained, “You get situations where you see a guy at 65 and you know you'd take him before the guy you have at 51. So who's in the wrong place? The guy at 51 or the guy at 65?"

And that’s where the scouting staff’s work comes in.

Here’s how Belichick breaks down the Patriots’ process.

“First we scout regionally, then we have our scouts who scout nationally come in and look at those players. [The national scouts] will see all the players on offense, defense, east of the Mississippi, west of the Mississippi. Then, by the end of November we break it up and do it positionally. By the time the combine comes [in March], a regional scout, the national scout, a position scout, a position coach and, ultimately, (Vice President of Player Personnel) Scott Pioli and I will look at them. We get six or seven looks at a guy. When we put the whole board together, that's where Scott and I and the national scouts come in and start stacking horizontally."

And even after all that work, there is room for the ultimate decision-maker to exert his authority.

“Sometimes Bill (Polian) gets a feeling,” Colts coach Tony Dungy said. “He had it about Bob Sanders (drafted 44th in 2004). He had it about Dallas Clark. Pretty soon, when Bill gets a feeling I start to get a feeling too.”

Experience and continuity from scouting to personnel to coaching is indispensable.

“The younger the player, the more question marks. Same with scouting departments,” said Floyd Reese ESPN analyst and former Tennessee Titans GM Floyd Reese.

“Anytime you look at a department that is mature and has scouted for a while and can draw from experiences in the past (there’s an advantage). Then you top that off with a GM or decision maker who’s an experienced guy then you’ve got it together. Look right here in Indy, that’s an example. Bill Polian is experienced, Dom Anile experienced, scouts are experienced. Then you look at what they do that bears it out.

"I’ve known Bill Belichick for a long time. He and I started off lining fields together and now he’s a Hall of Fame head coach. There’s not much he’s missed. When it comes to experience and being able to draw from the past and having a person who thinks the same way with Scott (Pioli), that’s hard to beat.”

And that’s what makes those teams hard to beat from September into February.

04-21-2009, 12:51 PM
Amnorix In BB I trust Join Date: May 2003 Location: Boston, Mass. Casino cash: $10029808	Bill Belichick on Stacking the Draft Board (especially Horizontal Stacking) Thought this would be of general interest, since no doubt Pioli and crew are doing it the same way: A year or two ago, I heard Bill Belichick say that in the last two weeks before the draft his staff is focusing on "horizontal stacks" (i.e., prospects with the same grade but different positions) and ranking them. This suggests that more players have the same grades than many of us assume -- and that the "ties" must be broken by other factors. I would guess that need, value of the position, depth of the draft at that position, interest of other teams, and perhaps alternative ways to get comparable players are all factors. Can you offer some insight on this? John A: Solid topic here, John, and you had me scrambling back to 2003 to read some of Bill Belichick's comments on horizontal stacks. Here is what I took from Belichick's comments that year: The vertical stack is by position -- quarterbacks, tight ends, running backs etc. The horizontal stack helps you assess value -- comparing, for example, the cornerback rated at the same spot as the guard. It is possible I might not be interpreting this the right way, so here are Belichick's comments from 2003: "When you stack your board, you're going to look vertically ... The way we do it, we look vertically by positions. Here's all the quarterbacks, here's all the tight ends, here's all the running backs. Horizontally across the board, you try to get some kind of value of ... This cornerback and this guard, and this linebacker and this tight end would have about the same value. They'd come in and they'd be role players for us. They're never going to be starters. Or whatever their value is. And so when you're sitting there trying to make your picks, you may be looking at three or four guys and they're all kind of about the same. You're five or six picks away and whichever one of these guys we end up with, we take them in this order, but we could live with any of them. But sometimes you're sitting there and you have three or four guys in that category and you have one guy that you feel like is sitting up there and is significantly higher and you're not saying, 'Well, he's just going to come in and be a role player and he'll never be a starter.' You're saying, 'Well, this guy could come in and he's going to be a starter for us, now it might take a year and he has a little developing he has to do, but we feel like this guy can come in and he can be a starter for us.' That's when you sit there and think about, 'Alright, do we want to try to jump up and get this guy if we don't think he's going to fall to us and give up whatever we have to give up to move up and get him, or do we want to stay here and hope he's on the board -- he probably won't be -- and we'll end up with one of these other guys.' It just comes down to draft management. Sometimes you try to trade up and get him and nobody wants to trade with you and you sit there and let it come to you. But that's basically the process. I don't think you sit there and say, 'Well, we're only going to trade up if we think the guy's going to be an impact player or we're only going to trade up if the guy's going to be a starter or whatever.' We've traded up in the fourth round, fifth round, down in the fifth round, sixth round, so I don't think when you're picking in the sixth round you're really thinking, 'This guy's going to be an impact player.' We would have picked him in the second." http://www.boston.com/sports/footbal..._09/?page=full
Posts: 43,125

04-21-2009, 12:55 PM	#2
The Franchise Most Valuable Villain Join Date: Dec 2006 Casino cash: $2065047	I think it would be amazing as hell to sit in their war room on draft day.
Posts: 92,316

04-21-2009, 01:13 PM	#4
ChiefsCountry The Insider Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Lake of the Ozarks Casino cash: $-1441248	I would rather be in Baltimore's. They are the best at the draft, their downfall is at QB.
Posts: 52,038

04-21-2009, 01:18 PM	#5
Amnorix In BB I trust Join Date: May 2003 Location: Boston, Mass. Casino cash: $10029808	I mentioned this before on here, I think -- I'd seriously pay good money to be able to sit in the Patriots war room on draft day. In fact, alot more than what I'd pay to see a single game.
Posts: 43,125

04-21-2009, 01:19 PM	#6
KCrockaholic Sarcasm Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Olathe Casino cash: $3412900	I am willing to bet that the Patiots walk away from this draft head and shoulders better than the rest. They are destined to have a good draft even if they dont try.
Posts: 21,178

04-21-2009, 02:17 PM	#15
Chiefnj2 In Search of a Life Join Date: Mar 2007 Casino cash: $6664388	More detail on Belichick's stacking and scouting: By Tom E. Curran NBCSports.com updated 5:46 p.m. ET, Tues., Feb. 26, 2008 Image: Tom Curran Tom E. Curran • E-mail INDIANAPOLIS - “Be prepared.” It’s the Boy Scout motto all the time. It’s the NFL scouts’ motto right now. When the head of the football-watching world swivels in the direction of incoming NFL talent, the work done by the league’s 32 scouting departments comes into view. And while fans might be just starting to place faces next to names like Joe Flacco, Leodis McKelvin and Jeff Otah, scouts know what kind of toothpaste these kids use. And while the immediate focus is on the 2008 draft class, scouts are already conversant in the 2009 group. But after all the preparation is done and all the information is evaluated, which NFL scouting departments do the best job year after year in stocking their roster? Talking to scouts, coaches and general managers at the NFL Scouting Combine, the same franchises came up over and over. The Indianapolis Colts, New England Patriots, San Diego Chargers, Baltimore Ravens, New York Giants, Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers. “Look at the people who have good records,” said Colts president Bill Polian, probably the most consistently successful GM of the past two decades. “One flows from the other.” How does a decision-maker like Polian know if his scouting department is doing its job? “It isn’t just who you draft, it’s what your reports say,” he explained. “That, and how your board’s constructed. Sometimes who you draft is a function of luck. How that player performs is a function of luck. Injuries or off-field issues (can arise). What I want to make sure of every year — and what our scouting people are charged with doing — is determining whether or not we’re getting the right information and putting the right grade on a player. It’s the input on the baseline level that’s critically important.” After months of scouting, players are given an overall grade. Those generally run from 1.0 (extreme longshot to make any team) to 9.0 (possible franchise player). Most first-rounders come in between 6.0 and 7.0. Teams won’t stack every draft-eligible player. Once a team gets to the point where its ranking players that couldn’t make their team at that position, they stop grading. Then comes the vertical stack at a given position. As Patriots coach Bill Belichick explained in a Providence Journal piece on draft preparation a few years back, “As you vertically stack, it's just, 'The first is better than the second, the second's better than the third.'" After the vertical stack comes the more difficult horizontal stack in which players with the same grades are stacked. That’s when scouting, personnel and coaches decide whether a linebacker with a 6.0 grade is better than a tight end with a 6.0. "This part is hard," Belichick said. "Here you start talking about a corner on the rise versus a center who's a good player, but not a good athlete. At some point you have to break up that clump and say, 'OK, this is one, this is two, this is three.' Even if you have 15 guys in the 6.0 range and another 15 in the 6.1, you have to determine, 'This guy over that guy, that guy over the next guy,' and now you're in another vertical stack within your horizontal stack. Then comes the final vertical stack, which should now be easier to complete thanks to the first two steps. Still, Belichick explained, “You get situations where you see a guy at 65 and you know you'd take him before the guy you have at 51. So who's in the wrong place? The guy at 51 or the guy at 65?" And that’s where the scouting staff’s work comes in. Here’s how Belichick breaks down the Patriots’ process. “First we scout regionally, then we have our scouts who scout nationally come in and look at those players. [The national scouts] will see all the players on offense, defense, east of the Mississippi, west of the Mississippi. Then, by the end of November we break it up and do it positionally. By the time the combine comes [in March], a regional scout, the national scout, a position scout, a position coach and, ultimately, (Vice President of Player Personnel) Scott Pioli and I will look at them. We get six or seven looks at a guy. When we put the whole board together, that's where Scott and I and the national scouts come in and start stacking horizontally." And even after all that work, there is room for the ultimate decision-maker to exert his authority. “Sometimes Bill (Polian) gets a feeling,” Colts coach Tony Dungy said. “He had it about Bob Sanders (drafted 44th in 2004). He had it about Dallas Clark. Pretty soon, when Bill gets a feeling I start to get a feeling too.” Experience and continuity from scouting to personnel to coaching is indispensable. “The younger the player, the more question marks. Same with scouting departments,” said Floyd Reese ESPN analyst and former Tennessee Titans GM Floyd Reese. “Anytime you look at a department that is mature and has scouted for a while and can draw from experiences in the past (there’s an advantage). Then you top that off with a GM or decision maker who’s an experienced guy then you’ve got it together. Look right here in Indy, that’s an example. Bill Polian is experienced, Dom Anile experienced, scouts are experienced. Then you look at what they do that bears it out. "I’ve known Bill Belichick for a long time. He and I started off lining fields together and now he’s a Hall of Fame head coach. There’s not much he’s missed. When it comes to experience and being able to draw from the past and having a person who thinks the same way with Scott (Pioli), that’s hard to beat.” And that’s what makes those teams hard to beat from September into February. __________________ Mismanaging the clock.
Posts: 22,540