Analyzing the Draft: Demario Davis

Round 3, in which the Jets drafted LB Demario Davis, is where the draft begins to take the turn into the "cross the fingers" stage. The average score drops to a 293 and the median a 158. If we take Pro Bowls out of the equation and simply consider a 200 to be an average player, which is probably a fair measure from here onward, our bust potential is about 56%. Still there have been some great finds in this round including Jason Witten, Jason Taylor, Frank Gore, and Steve Smith (of Carolina fame). Somewhere around 8% of the selections would make a team pretty happy which is not too bad. 11.8% of the top 10 draftees have come from this round so the high end production is not too much worse than the second round. An average selection would be someone like Hank Poteat or Ben Hartsock, who are at least part time contributors.

For the Jets range I took the values from pick 70 thru 84. The performance is basically the same as the round average with an average of 284 and median of 151. Our highlight players taken in this section include Taylor (73), Joey Porter (73), Justin Tuck (74), Smith (74), and Jeremiah Trotter (72). The Jets struck gold twice with Laveranues Coles at 78 and Kareem McKenzie at 79, though both players left the team over salary considerations after their rookie deals. Average selections in this range would be players like Heath Evans, Reuben Droughns, and Jacoby Jones.

Linebackers make up 17.1% of third round selections and have been a solid selection with an average score of 354 and median of 207. So this is definitely a smart value selection for a team. Just under 8% of LBs taken are scoring over 1000 points while nearly 19% are grading above a 600 while a total of 22% perform just as well as an average 2nd round selection. That makes this an excellent positional pick based on the upside. 50% of the players selected would be considered busts. 16.3% of picks made in the Jets range have been linebackers with the average score a 353 so there is no real advantage or disadvantage to picking at 77.

How has the Jets performance been in round 3? Pretty average, with slightly less bust potential. The average score was 293 with a median of 194. The best pick was Coles who scored a 989 and the best post-Parcells selection was McKenzie at a 660. Other above average players include Sione Pouha and Chris Baker. The worst player, with a score of only 35, was LB Anthony Schlegal, who was considered a major reach on the draft day.

So while I was pretty neutral on Coples and very negative on Hill, I love the selection of Davis. He has a real chance to be a really solid starter for the team. Might he bust? Sure. It's probably just under 50% that he is a nobody, but that is better than average and better odds than the second round selection the team made. With a 20% chance that he is at least as good as David Harris the Jets may have finally found that missing contributor from the outside that they have been searching for since they made the defensive switch to a 34 defense in 2006.