The belief that the more draft picks a team has, the greater chance they have of getting good players is based on the assumption that all picks have equal value--a 50% chance a pick hits, and a 50% chance it doesn't. Draft picks don't work like that. The NFL Draft is, obviously, 7 rounds, and each round historically has a decrease in a pick's hit rate with each round. The difference in hit rate from round 1 to round 7 is significant. Draft pick value is not uniform. The idea that you have a greater chance to score on a draft pick is not based on how many picks you have, but rather what round those picks reside in.
Most often, the majority of a team's draft picks fall in rounds 5-7, due to the NFL's compensatory picks system. So when you have a team that, say, has ten draft picks, and six of those draft picks are in rounds 5-7, being that the last three rounds have a much smaller hit rate than the first three, your percentages in hitting on those draft picks is still rather low. So, how important was having ten picks really? I'd rather have, say, six total picks in rounds 1-4 than ten total picks, where six of those are in rounds 5-7. Again, it's about what rounds the picks exist, not how many you own.
Let's dive further. How many 6th and 7th round picks even make their respective teams out of training camp? With undrafted free agency being bigger now than ever, quite often those undrafted players beat out 6th and 7th rounders in training camp. You'll often see teams take "project" players in the 6th or 7th rounds and stash them on IR with injuries, and take more "ready-now" players in undrafted free agency. 6th and 7th rounders are usually shots in the dark. A portion of them don't even make the team out of camp. The Eagles cut 5th rounder Clayton Thorson out of training camp in 2019. So immediately, out of whatever draft haul each team has, you are going to skim at least one or two players off the top of that haul by the time training camp is over. So that ten player draft class may immediately be cut down to eight in just a few months. And of those remaining eight players, how many of them on average will become surefire NFL starters for the next 5-7 years for your team? Well, the average NFL career length is estimated to be about 3.3 years. Chances are one, maybe two players at most out of any draft class become anything worth a damn at the NFL level.
So, at the end of the day, if a ten player draft class is going to be cut down to eight or nine just in a few months and leave you with one or two players being long-term high quality NFL starters for your team, how important was drafting that many players in the first place? The real value in the NFL draft isn't in overall numbers, but making each pick count and maximizing the chances on hitting each pick. Even though no pick is a guarantee, it's still undeniably true that the higher you pick in any draft, the greater chance you have to land a quality player with that pick. Where the variables come into play is how good each team is at evaluating talent. Whether a team has a seven player draft class or a ten player draft class, they likely will have the same number of long-term high caliber starters out of those classes. Probably two at most.
People blame the Eagles' recent draft failures on the lack of overall selections in recent years stemming from the Carson Wentz trade. This is faulty logic. The Eagles didn't struggle in the draft because they lacked the overall number of draft picks, they struggled because the picks they did make were poor. The opportunities were there, they just missed, and not in late rounds, but in earlier rounds. In 2017, the Eagles had the opportunity to trade up for Dalvin Cook and land a franchise RB. Instead, they chose to sit tight and draft Sidney Jones coming off a serious injury. In that loaded RB class, the Eagles ended up waiting until the 4th round to take the slight Donnel Pumphrey to address the RB position. In 2019, the Eagles had the opportunity to take the highly-touted DK Metcalf in round 2, and instead opted to take JJ Arceda-Whiteside, a player very few had pegged to the Eagles prior to the draft. Or they could have traded up a couple spots to grab AJ Brown, a player who was a beast at Ole Miss. The fact that they missed in 2017 with Cook and Pumphrey, caused a ripple effect, which forced them to have to select a RB in 2019 early, which, in turn prohibited them from doubling up on WR in round 2. None of these gaffes are in hindsight. These were players your average fan and pundit were coveting before the draft, who the Eagles passed on... because of their inability to evaluate talent. Had they just made a few better selections, no one would be talking about their canyon-sized holes at WR right now, and just the same, no one would be talking about how trading up for Wentz in 2016 damaged their ability to construct a roster with a lack of draft picks.
Let's look at Eagles recent history for some context:
The two largest draft classes the Eagles have had in the last ten years were the 2010 and 2011 classes. Those had thirteen and eleven picks respectively.
However, the 2009 and the 2013 classes, each had only eight selections. Those classes had two Pro Bowl caliber players from each(Maclin, McCoy, Johnson, Ertz) and 2013 had Bennie Logan as well, who was a decent player for the Eagles.
At the end of the day, draft success will vary due to countless circumstances. But if I'm the Eagles, and I've struggled to draft certain positions like WR, having only drafted one starting caliber player in over 10 years(the last being Jeremy Maclin in 2009) I'm focusing on having greater chances to hit the picks I do make, even if it means less of them, than having a large quantity overall.
