I'm not sure if many of you saw the most recent article in The Seattle Times around Jake Locker. It essentially boiled down to a grown man trying to guilt or shame a 4th year college student into staying under the guise of numbers that he cooked up.

 

First, shame on The Seattle Times. We've chronicled before the inherent bias at KJR and The Seattle Times when it comes to UW sports. But this was at a whole new level. They actually allowed a guest "writer" to act as an "analyst" and treated the article as if it was objective news. Here's the problem: It was an opinion piece that was neither objective nor news. It was an op-ed article sitting on the front page of the sports section. Even if you accept that this was biased but interesting the supposedly objective news organization should have printed a counter point of view to balance the bias in the article. Instead, there was nothing other than a piece written by a Husky booster that smacked of UW self-interest.

 

Second, Hugh Millen is NOT an analyst. There is one key difference here. A good analyst looks at numbers and formulates an opinion based on what he sees. Hugh Millen forms an opinion and then manipulates the numbers to try and tell his story. This is convenient for him as it allows him to seem objective and data-driven. It's a sad tactic and one that he loves to lean on.

 

Millen's basic opinion in the article is that coming out as a Junior significantly increases your likelihood of failure in the NFL. The interesting part is once you remove the "Millen bias" and look at the numbers in a reasonable range of years and target group you see that there actually is no real disadvantage. It's really even money between failure and success for a first round QB. The decision is incredibly variable based on specific situations for a QB. There simply is no blanket statement to be made on whether you should come out early or stay for another year.

 

Let's take a look at all of the basic flaws in his analysis:

 

FLAW #1: Millen arbitrarily selects a sample of QB's taken within the Top 15 picks of the first round.

 

Hugh, why go with the QB's selected in the "Top 15" of the first round rather than any QB selected in the first round? Is there some sort of magic lottery number like the NBA that I wasn't aware of that separates pick 15 from the rest of the first round? The first round is generally every teams first selection. Why not use that as a baseline for objective analysis?

 

 I wondered why this was and it became very obvious when you looked at the numbers behind any QB that was drafted in the first round rather than just the Top 15. Senior QB's selected after pick 15 consisted of 7 players between 1990 and 2005. Six of those players were busts. Of course, if Millen opted to include those QB's his numbers would have evened out. So, Millen conveniently decided to exclude them from his "analysis". Wonder who those QB's were? They are Dan McGwire, Jim Druckenmiller, Chad Pennington, Patrick Ramsey, Kyle Boller, and Jason Campbell. By the way, there were four early entry QB's selected in the first round after 15. Two of them were successful and two were busts.

There is absolutely NO reason to assume that Locker would be a Top 15 pick next year after another year of evaluation and exposure to injury. It's not even a given that he would go Top 15 this season before combines and full evaluation. The arbitrary selection of "Top 15" is specifically designed to help him skew the numbers of success. A more reasonable assumption is using the first round in totality as it's every team's first pick. These teams are investing their first selection in a QB at that point.

 

 

FLAW #2: Millen takes QB's from as far back as 1981, takes players from the supplemental draft, and includes players that are too recently drafted to call successes or failures. This infuses age bias and circumstance bias.

 

Hugh, why would you go all the way back to 1981 or use supplemental draft picks from 1989? The game is night and day from 29 years ago and supplementals opt for a different draft usually because of deficiencies or injuries that force them out of school. Is Jake Locker considering the supplemental draft? Is he about to be kicked out of school or recovering from catastrophic injury? No? Then why use these picks? Easy, there are three of them and they're all early entries and they're all busts. It's nice to pad the numbers with three busts when you are using a sample size of less than 20.

Again, the right way to do it is to pick a sample that is not age biased or appreciably different circumstantially than what Locker would face today. If you opt for the years 1990 to 2005 you have a 15 year sample and it throws out most recent grads that are too early in their careers to judge as success or failure.

 2005 has allowed for four years in the league and they've played most of their first contract. If you use those parameters you get 36 QB's drafted in the first round. Not statistically significant but almost double the sample that Millen uses. Of course when using these parameters they don't tell the story that Millen wants to tell. They actually tell us that early entries and Seniors drafted in the first round fail at very close to the same rate. Interesting, right?

 

FLAW #3: Millen decides to consider success as being "good" with your FIRST team.

 

A classic error Hugh. You switched what you were measuring. You're supposed to be measuring success for Locker. It doesn't matter if he does it with his first or second or third team. The team drafting Locker would want him to succeed with them but isn't the purpose of the article to determine whether it's in Lockers best interest to leave early? Under your system Matt Hasselbeck is a failure. Brett Favre is a failure.

 

So, we are back to the central question.  Why would Hugh Millen measure success as being "good" with your first team? Isn't the point to measure whether Jake Locker will be a success and not necessarily the team that drafts him? Once again, it's cooking the books. You can discount the careers of Jeff George and Trent Dilfer that enjoyed long careers and several contracts but didn't necessarily elevate the very first team they played for. That's two more that he's used as a negative for early entry when they were actually the opposite. Dilfer and George enjoyed long careers and numerous contracts.

 

Once again, a big error in trying to analyze numbers. Millen lost sight of the core objective and inadvertently or purposely switched things up to his benefit.

 

 

FLAW #4: Casual dismissal of the salary Locker might receive this year versus next year.

 

Why casually dismiss the impending salary cap for draft picks? This is conveniently glossed over with some sort of superficial analysis of rich and really rich and how the difference between the two are akin to what you'd get with the current system or the coming system. Painfully elementary.

Any good decision better include your projected wages. You are going to be starting a career and like any job you need to account for your likely earnings. Who in their right mind decides on a job without worrying about the salary? Any analysis of first round QB's shows a failure rate at about 50%. There is NOTHING that should have you think that Locker is somehow exempt from this number when he eventually comes out. That means half of the QB's drafted will have their first contract as their biggest contract. Don't assume like Millen does that you'll be Peyton Manning if you stay for another year of college and that you'll  make it to your 2nd and 3rd contract. The odds show you that you're just as likely to be Akili Smith.

 

Further, what are the implications of a rookie cap on that first contract? It's appropriate to look at the changes in salary NBA rookies saw as they have a current rookie cap in their CBA. The last "un-capped" first pick contract was Glenn Robinson at 10 years/68 million….GUARANTEED. What about this year's 1st pick? Derrick Rose at 4 years/17 million.

This is very likely the last season the NFL will go with an "un-capped" rookie wage scale. The difference it made for the NBA is about a 40 million dollar drop in contract value. Still think it makes sense to throw out the money argument for Jake Locker? According to Hugh Millen he should.

 

SUMMARY:

So, what happens if you use a truly meaningful number set that uses the first round QB's selected over a recent 15 year period? What does that tell you about what Jake Locker should do? Well, the numbers are interesting in how even they are. It tells me that this decision is much more dependent on specific cases for each QB. Really, the only thing I take from these numbers is that if you are an organization thinking of drafting a Senior QB later in the first round….DON'T DO IT. You are probably reaching and trying to justify flaws the QB might have.

In fact, you can make a really compelling argument for Locker to stay to get another year of pro-style work. But the actual draft numbers that Millen tries to falsify do not support that POV in any way. As you would expect, it's a deeply personal choice that Jake Locker and his family and TRUSTED advisors should make.

If I was him, I would do two things. One, tell Hugh Millen that he's a fraud and should be embarrassed by trying to influence public opinion to indirectly pressure the decision. Two, sit down and look at the development areas he's got left and decide whether or not that would best be learned in the NFL or with Sark.

 

Finally, did you also notice the sad attempt at boxing in Locker? Millen states that this will show whether Locker values money or legacy. In short, if he declares early then clearly he's greedy and if he stays for another year he's in it for the glory of the game.

 

The shame in all of this is that Millen's argument is grossly inaccurate and nothing more than a sad attempt to drive public opinion and pressure a kid into the decision that Millen wants. It's just pathetic that The Seattle Times would act as a glorified message board or fan board in helping to convey this message.

 

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