Adam Rittenberg blog: Heart of the City: Minnesota

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It's nice of him to give us another national title. Those states at the top are pretty ugly.
 

I'm not sure of the point of limiting the NFL Draft stats to post-1970. Before the 1967 AFL-NFL merger, the 1st round had anywhere from 9 to 16 picks, so it was much more difficult and prestigious to actually get a pick in the 1st round. Minnesota has 18 overall, which is indicative of the quality produced from the 1930s through the 1960s.
 

He didn't give one...

CrocShots said:
It's nice of him to give us another national title. Those states at the top are pretty ugly.
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He just included one that was not a "consensus" choice. Minnesota, unlike Alabama which counts it's 1936 and other titles, because some Geologist with no real methodology voted them #1 or other spurious means, only counts titles when the majority of outlets have voted for them.
 

dpodoll68 said:
I'm not sure of the point of limiting the NFL Draft stats to post-1970. Before the 1967 AFL-NFL merger, the 1st round had anywhere from 9 to 16 picks, so it was much more difficult and prestigious to actually get a pick in the 1st round. Minnesota has 18 overall, which is indicative of the quality produced from the 1930s through the 1960s.
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I think it's more about ESPN and the stats they keep, not Rittenberger personally. Plus it could be confusing to the average viewer if picks before the merger were included. If you don't limit it to the NFL first round picks you open other options, such as the AFL, CFL, UFL, etc which could skew the data.
 


Badger2010 said:
I think it's more about ESPN and the stats they keep, not Rittenberger personally. Plus it could be confusing to the average viewer if picks before the merger were included. If you don't limit it to the NFL first round picks you open other options, such as the AFL, CFL, UFL, etc which could skew the data.
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That makes no sense. The NFL has been the NFL since 1920. The average viewer is a complete moron if that is in any way confusing.
 


dpodoll68 said:
That makes no sense. The NFL has been the NFL since 1920. The average viewer is a complete moron if that is in any way confusing.
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First of all, yes the average viewer of that article would probably fall under your category of moron.

Second of all, the NFL as we know it started in 1970 with the merger.

Third, the first NFL draft was held 1936. 1920 is irrelevant to this discussion.

Fourth, the draft setup has completely changed since the 30's, 40's etc. For example in 1943 there were 8 people taken in the first round, 6 in the second and only 2 in the fourth round. The manner in which the rounds were set up were completely different.


Fifth, and most importantly, the AFL and NFL each had seperate drafts, so there would be two "first rounds during the years of 1959-1967. It is also well documented that teams were assigned picks by geographical regions around the city the team was based out of. For example a team based out of Chicago would have the rights to the players within the state of Illinois and possibily other surrounding states or parts of states, depending on where the next closest team is located.


Other factors such as racial discrimination, the hatred of small and private schools by the NFL also factor into the picture. 1970 is the best starting point available, or at least that is my opinion.
 

Woops, didn't see the other thread about Maisel's article. Nevermind.
 





Badger2010 said:
Discrimination would probably be a better word. I'm just regurgitating what I've read. These are not original thoughts by any means.
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It would be better to say they are not thoughts. The NFL doesn't hate or discriminate against small schools. They may overlook talent at smaller schools, but that is imperfect scouting, not hatred to discrimination.

The AFL and the NFL had a combined draft starting in 1967. Even before that, there were players who were drafted in the first round of both the AFL and NFL drafts, effectively reducing the size of the 1st round of both drafts. The league is considerable larger than it used to be, thus being a first round pick is "watered down".
 

The last 40 years have been pretty painful, but the framework as designed by Rittenberg (or ESPN) really ignores how strong the Minnesota football program once was. I realize that the "what have you done for me lately" nature of sports downplays previous eras and I'm not going to gripe about that. I'll only say that Carl Eller, Aaron Brown, and Gale Gillingham were all first-round picks in the 1960s and they were all really great professional players. Add Hall of Famers Bobby Bell (2nd round pick) and Charlie Sanders (3rd round pick) and you see how good the program was then.
 



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