AVG Career Length - First Rounders

[LordTrychon]

This thread was started due to a comment about not having enough time to develop players, because the average career was 5 years.

I'm not sure where that stat comes from exactly, the number that was thrown around all off season is worse... average career of an NFL player is only 3 years.

I won't go into everything that was wrong with that argument by the NFLPA and their supporters, but I didn't want to derail that thread anymore, and I wanted to back up my argument more fully.

Just threw these together for that reason only. When you hear that the average career of an NFL player is X length, keep in mind that includes nearly as many UDFAs as drafted players, and their sheer numbers really skew the numbers.

So I took 3 years: 2005, 2000, 1995. The average # of years the players play are 5.56, 7.84, and 9.5 respectively. The most accurate number there is the 9.5 from 1995, because those players are done for the most part, but I wanted to include the newer years just to show that it hasn't changed so much. Eight players from 2000 are still playing, and 26 are still playing from 2005. Those averages will continue to rise.

Anyway, the average for 2005 is already over five years, despite the max that anyone could have played from that year is six.

Maybe sometime I'll figure out the average for the second and third rounds of those years too, but I think this shows my point fairly well as it is.

Here is the chart of the years, and the draft positions -



Draft 2005 2000 1995
1 6 6 10
2 6 7 7
3 6 10 13
4 6 6 6
5 6 10 16
6 6 8 14
7 5 11 6
8 6 9 16
9 6 11 13
10 6 8 9
11 6 8 5
12 6 11 13
13 6 11 10
14 5 9 13
15 6 9 10
16 6 11 10
17 1 11 10
18 3 11 6
19 6 9 8
20 6 7 10
21 3 1 5
22 6 2 14
23 6 2 15
24 6 6 6
25 6 10 2
26 6 5 8
27 6 10 14
28 6 8 14
29 5 1 9
30 6 11 4
31 6 4 3
32 6 5

tot: 178 243 304

Avg 5.5625 7.838 9.5

[LordTrychon]

Got a discussion going at the other board, and there was the question as to how the other rounds looked. I've done rounds 2-4 for 1995, since that is the most recent draft that gives us 16 years of history (usually the dead end level for most players.)

2nd through 4th rounds of the 1995 draft


Draft 1995-2 1995-3 1995-4
1 10 10 9
2 10 12 0
3 5 7 6
4 5 6 8
5 11 8 0
6 12 9 4
7 13 7 11
8 5 5 2
9 1 8 8
10 7 11 1
11 4 3 11
12 4 4 6
13 16 6 0
14 5 3 9
15 9 13 5
16 10 6 7
17 9 8 1
18 10 1 2
19 8 7 0
20 1 6 7
21 4 4 1
22 11 3 9
23 10 6 5
24 13 8 8
25 10 7 6
26 11 9 1
27 1 8 6
28 11 6 16
29 0 4 4
30 2 5 3
31 0 1 2
32 5 3 0
33 3 5
34 0 9
35 4
36 5




Tot 233 207 181
picks 32 34 36
Avg 7.281 6.088 5.028

[LordTrychon]

Just for fun... interesting results on the last three rounds.


1995-5 1995-6 1995-7
0 10 8
0 0 3
4 2 3
1 0 2
7 1 0
5 4 9
7 8 5
2 1 0
3 2 1
8 11 6
5 0 3
2 0 2
0 2 11
2 3 9
3 4 0
0 0 2
8 0 0
8 0 9
5 0 0
0 0 3
0 12 0
3 0 12
1 5 0
10 5 4
11 7 0
0 4 1
7 4 2
2 0 1
0 3 3
4 1 0
4 1 1
0 0 3
5 4 10
2 0 5
2 5 12
9 7 5
1 13 8
0
4
0
131 119 2
37 37
3.54 3.216

149
41
3.634

Seventh round is statistically better than the previous two. Probably due to kickers/punters being taken.


So the average career of drafted players based on the 1995 draft is 5.317 yrs. In the top 3 rds, it's 7.59 yrs.