Eric DeCosta “No One Really Knows”
Ravens GM Eric DeCosta citing the Massey Thaler Loser's Curse research piece! Also how teams are all drafting the same these days and that their approach that nobody knows who is good or not means you have to have as many picks as you can. pic.twitter.com/HYBZKjYNR7
— Shaun Newkirk (@Shauncore) May 2, 2025
Interesting take from someone who’s drafting better than most.
“Hell is empty and all the devils are here”
Shakespeare
Yes, if you go by the data, trading down makes the most sense. Yet that is the very thing that screwed us in 2022.
Kwesi, fresh from his Ivy League Econ degrees, was well aware of this and traded down from 12 to 32, passing over Kyle Hamilton and settling on Lewis Cine, getting some picks in return, none of whom worked out. If he did this every single year for the next ten, he'd probably end up having more positive results than negative.
But you're not going to do this every year for the next ten, and this is where I think analytics can screw you by focusing too much on the aggregate data and not enough on the realities of the specific players involved.
I think as services like AWS continue to gather more tangible data points we could see development of something akin to Moneyball. God knows the NFL teams will have the financial resources to throw enough statistical analysis into it.
I could also see scouting advancements that could bring fourth an incrementally better hit rate. We won’t be able to measure heart, but I can see a module being developed that takes into account vastly more data points that tie back to success.
Or, they can continue to flip a coin and have more arrows in the quiver to take a shot.
“Hell is empty and all the devils are here”
Shakespeare
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