Steelers’ G.M. says everyone wants to trade down in this draft

[Shoes]

Don’t expect the Steelers to trade up from the 15th overall pick in the NFL draft.
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/03/23/steelers-g-m-says-everyone-wants-to-trade-down-in-this-draft/


He's been reading your posts, Dwins. :chuckle:

[Steelerette]

Now I wonder if he anticipated all of this upcoming draft depth last year when he traded away our third rounder to the Browns last year. To be fair we got Shamarko Thomas out of that, I'd do it again. But maybe last year was the year to trade a couple of our late picks for 2014 4th-5th rounders...

edit: But that's what I've been worried about - if this is such a deep midround draft, doesn't everyone want to trade down? So how will we? Colbert needs to have two lists and keep them side by side:

1) Players that really should not still be available when we pick, and
2) Critical needs of teams that pick after us, and the teams between us and them which could spoil that pick for them.

That way he can make a few calls with a compelling "come get your guy" implication.

[GBMelBlount]

Contrarian.

IFF it is true that everyone wants to trade down then that may present an opportunity to trade up cheap if there is a great value in a position of need.

[Dwinsgames]

IFF it is true that everyone wants to trade down then that presents an opportunity to trade up cheap if we see a steal in a position of need.

we cant afford to give picks away , to many holes to fill and besides we can sit tight and have a very good player of need fall into our laps ( since we have so many needs )

I also think yes lots of teams will want to move down but lots of teams will want to move up to snag one of the few " elite talents " or a falling QB /WR/TE/0-Lineman ....

also keep in mind teams like the 49ers sitting with ten billion picks they cant use them all and everyone make the team so they will likely be looking to move up and maybe move up a couple times ?? they have the ammo and few holes

[Psycho Ward 86]

Contrarian.

IFF it is true that everyone wants to trade down then that may present an opportunity to trade up cheap if there is a great value in a position of need.

brilliant line of thinking

[Steelerette]

I'll be mad if we trade up.

Unless something crazy happens like, we're five picks into round 2, and still on the board is CJ Mosley...

[Psycho Ward 86]

i dont see why people always think every draft needs to have every draft pick count. even a good draft usually fields just 3-4 useful players. look at the past drafts. if a talent is there that is surefire and might need a bit of move to get, i say let the FO go for it if they feel its worth it

[Steelerette]

In general, no. But we have a few situations converging here:

-We have many many areas of depth need, thanks to many drafts of players not working out, injuries, and cap hell
-We're already one draft pick short because we traded it to Cleveland last year (admittedly I would do it again, it was to get Shamarko, but still)
-This is the deepest draft in decades - literally.

This year, don't trade up unless a very special situation arises.

[86WARD]

we cant afford to give picks away , to many holes to fill and besides we can sit tight and have a very good player of need fall into our laps ( since we have so many needs )

I also think yes lots of teams will want to move down but lots of teams will want to move up to snag one of the few " elite talents " or a falling QB /WR/TE/0-Lineman ....

also keep in mind teams like the 49ers sitting with ten billion picks they cant use them all and everyone make the team so they will likely be looking to move up and maybe move up a couple times ?? they have the ammo and few holes

Not necessarily...a team like the Niners it Patriots use those picks not only to move up or down, but trade them for picks in future drafts...

[steelreserve]

I really think this is just a case of everyone saying "Deepest draft! Deepest draft!" just to jerk themselves off. Every draft for the past decade has been "an incredibly deep draft." All it means is the hype around the draft keeps increasing. There's nothing to it. A third of the players will work out, a third won't, and a third will struggle along for a few years, like always. Nobody on Earth or Mars can predict how third and fourth-round picks will work out, except for the occasional obvious-in-hindsight move. The only thing is that there's more hype and teams have internally elevated the value of draft picks like gold.

If other teams want to trade down for cheap, let them. If it helps us get a player we really want in the first round (the one place we've tended to have real success when we "spot" someone), then great. Otherwise, treat it like any other draft.

[GBMelBlount]

brilliant line of thinking

Thanks.

In this draft an example might be a top 15 grade receiver or defensive player we wanted but didn't take as a first round pick fell to the 2nd round in a position of need.

Good move with Troy, not so much for our former punter & Ta'amu.

[Dwinsgames]

I really think this is just a case of everyone saying "Deepest draft! Deepest draft!" just to jerk themselves off. Every draft for the past decade has been "an incredibly deep draft." All it means is the hype around the draft keeps increasing. There's nothing to it. A third of the players will work out, a third won't, and a third will struggle along for a few years, like always. Nobody on Earth or Mars can predict how third and fourth-round picks will work out, except for the occasional obvious-in-hindsight move. The only thing is that there's more hype and teams have internally elevated the value of draft picks like gold.

If other teams want to trade down for cheap, let them. If it helps us get a player we really want in the first round (the one place we've tended to have real success when we "spot" someone), then great. Otherwise, treat it like any other draft.


college players do not normally declare early unless they get a 3rd round grade or better from the league ...

normally we have 50 players or less declare early the past few years that number has increased dramatically
in the 2014 draft we have nearly 100 players declare early .....

that is nearly 2 extra rounds worth of talent stuffed into the same draft , the more players involved the deeper the talent pool for every new 3rd round or better talent entering you have a third round or better talent dropping .....

what does this mean ? it means you are going to have guys with normal 3rd round value still available in round 5 ...

that makes it deep very deep ....

its easy to say yea , we hear this every years but the fact is this year is VERY different in this regard and it is historical in shear numbers ... I have said this 2 maybe 3 times before but somehow a handful of people are either ignoring it or just reading past it ...




Year
Special Eligibility


2014
98


2013
73


2012
65


2011
56


2010
53


2009
46


2008
53


2007
40


2006
52


2005
51

[steelreserve]

college players do not normally declare early unless they get a 3rd round grade or better from the league ...

normally we have 50 players or less declare early the past few years that number has increased dramatically
in the 2014 draft we have nearly 100 players declare early .....

that is nearly 2 extra rounds worth of talent stuffed into the same draft , the more players involved the deeper the talent pool for every new 3rd round or better talent entering you have a third round or better talent dropping .....

what does this mean ? it means you are going to have guys with normal 3rd round value still available in round 5 ...

that makes it deep very deep ....

its easy to say yea , we hear this every years but the fact is this year is VERY different in this regard and it is historical in shear numbers ... I have said this 2 maybe 3 times before but somehow a handful of people are either ignoring it or just reading past it ...


I don't think it has anything to do with the available players being "better." It has everything to do with the new CBA and the rookie wage scale. If you have enough talent, you just want to get to the NFL as soon as possible to get your rookie contract over with, and THEN you can negotiate for real money if you're any good. That's all.

The guys who come out early aren't concentrating any more talent into one draft, either. They're just replacing the guys who would've been in this class, but rushed it and came out last year because of the CBA. It's basically the same principle as teams pushing their salary cap problems into next year; what goes to one place comes out of another, and it all adds up to zero in the end.

With a sample size of thousands of college players, you're not going to get that large of a variation from the norm basically ever. I really think this is all just a mirage, and it's going to be hit-and-miss just like every year.

[Dwinsgames]

I don't think it has anything to do with the available players being "better." It has everything to do with the new CBA and the rookie wage scale. If you have enough talent, you just want to get to the NFL as soon as possible to get your rookie contract over with, and THEN you can negotiate for real money if you're any good. That's all.

The guys who come out early aren't concentrating any more talent into one draft, either. They're just replacing the guys who would've been in this class, but rushed it and came out last year because of the CBA. It's basically the same principle as teams pushing their salary cap problems into next year; what goes to one place comes out of another, and it all adds up to zero in the end.

With a sample size of thousands of college players, you're not going to get that large of a variation from the norm basically ever. I really think this is all just a mirage, and it's going to be hit-and-miss just like every year.

have you studied the talent in past drafts ? ( not as a casual observer but actually studied players 200 or more deep )

have you studied them in this years crop 200 or more deep ?

I ask this because if you have not then anything you are saying is nothing more than a guess ...

if you have then it becomes an Educated guess ....

you are going to have " hit or miss " in every draft because that is all it ever is , is an Educated guess as best case scenario even if we are talking about the first over all selection because plenty of them fail to make a positive impact on the league ... there is NEVER a can't miss prospect just ask Mel Kiper Jr. how well that works out making that kind of claim ( See Aaron Curry )

[steelreserve]

have you studied the talent in past drafts ? ( not as a casual observer but actually studied players 200 or more deep )

have you studied them in this years crop 200 or more deep ?

I ask this because if you have not then anything you are saying is nothing more than a guess ...

if you have then it becomes an Educated guess ....

you are going to have " hit or miss " in every draft because that is all it ever is , is an Educated guess as best case scenario even if we are talking about the first over all selection because plenty of them fail to make a positive impact on the league ... there is NEVER a can't miss prospect just ask Mel Kiper Jr. how well that works out making that kind of claim ( See Aaron Curry )


No, I don't study the draft like that. I used to a lot more, like a decade or so ago, but eventually came to understand that a) beyond about the first three rounds, the players available depended more on blind luck than anything else, so really knowing more than a guy here and a guy there you might like to have was more exhausting than interesting ... and b) given how surprised even the "experts" are every year beyond the first round - both about which player goes to which team, and about which players ultimately succeed - it's also more exhausting than interesting. A "deep draft" to me means nothing more than your guys in round 4 and later are 37 percent likely to become productive instead of 35 percent likely - big whoop. And since everyone says "Deep draft! Deep draft!" every year now, I don't even believe that anymore.

I'm not talking about you personally, but a lot of people who always say "It's a really deep draft" are just using it as a way of saying "Look at me! I spend a ton of time reading about the draft! HEY! Look at me!" There's more hype around the draft, teams value their picks more, so naturally there's more interest in it and more people trying to impress others by talking about it. Every draft for several years (conveniently coinciding with the rise in popularity of fantasy football, but that's a whole different tangent to go off on) has been dubbed "a really deep draft," and I haven't seen any end results that are much different from normal. You ask me, it's just the result of people paying more attention and more hype trickling down to the lower rounds instead of just the first couple, but nothing fundamentally has changed.

[ALLD]

Thinking my blindfolded rooster pecking away at the board will have a decent draft this year. This is just they type of draft where a few sleeper picks will turn into HoF players.

[Texasteel]

To tell you the truth, if you just wanting to say" look at me" the draft is a piss poor place to do it. It's way to time consuming, and its way to easy to look like a total idiot. Just something that some of us have a passion for.

[steelreserve]

To tell you the truth, if you just wanting to say" look at me" the draft is a piss poor place to do it. It's way to time consuming, and its way to easy to look like a total idiot. Just something that some of us have a passion for.

I didn't mean the people on this message board, so much as the Internet at large. Believe me, I understand why the draft is interesting to people, and there are those here who put a lot of thought into it. Among people in general, though, you basically have a lot of fantasy football people who want to look smarter than they are, and a lot of media people whose job it is to create hype, which is where I think a lot of this "deep draft" stuff tends to come from. Since most of the people they're talking to are also fantasy football people who don't know a hell of a lot, it does the job.

I'll be the first to admit, there are people here who are WAY more knowledgeable about the draft than I am, which is why I tend to stay out of it once it gets beyond the simple stuff. Heck, maybe this IS the year the draft is 'deeper' than normal. But there is no mistake that I've heard the same exact thing said very loudly about every one of the last six or seven draft classes also. I know they're not ALL better than usual. They can't be, by definition. I also don't think it's any coincidence that the yearly "deep draft" phenomenon started at exactly the same time that the league and ESPN started pumping the draft up into a huge deal and stretched it out into this big three-day ceremony. People just get excited, that's what I think.

[Steelerette]

There have been years the draft has been deep at certain positions, or had a lot of quality midround depth in a given position, or topheavy in another position, etc...

But top to bottom? No draft has been nearly as deep as this one. Not even close. It may well be that future drafts will be as deep as this one (but not next year's)... but in all my years we haven't seen a draft this deep since the early 70s, if ever. Relatively speaking, this is "the big one." You don't really want to trade up this year unless you have the chance to pull off something very special - but since we have so many needs and there's so much quality, it's a bit tough to envision for us.

[steelreserve]

Well, that could be, then. I admit it's possible that this is the year, and the PAST five or six years were the ones where everyone's been full of shit. If that's the case, good for us that we have a decently high position this time. Not having a third-rounder hurts, but for the player we got, I still think it was a good trade.

[Steelerette]

Yeah, it stings but we did get Shamarko, so I guess I'd do it again. Last year was a year that was deep at Safety... though tbh not *that* deep, it was a little nuts to get Shamarko in the 4th.

We will have a 3rd round comp pick at least. While I have my preferences and others have theirs (for instance I'd love Nix or Mosley, others will tell me I'm nuts for not wanting a CB or WR in the first, others yet want a TE, etc...), it will be hard to go too terribly wrong this year.

[steelreserve]

Oh, way to throw a jinx on it. All you have to do to go wrong is pick a bust, no matter how deep the draft class is.

That aside, personally, I'd love to have Nix, as it would finally fix a position that's been a problem since about 2010. And a good CB is also something we're sorely in need of. Receivers, TEs, linemen (on either side) other than NT ... not something I'd use a top pick on at this point, unless it was just too good to be true, and I don't see many of those types of players out there.

[Steelerette]

Once we get to about round 3 there may be a few "too good to be trues" hanging around, guys who would be a late 1st rounder most years, but are still hanging around. I'm hoping we scoop one of them up. Day two and three of the draft would be a pretty swell time to go back to our "BPA tradition" (did that tradition ever really exist other than in name? I'm not convinced...)

[TMC]

steelreserve, I think this table posted by Dwinsgames is where you see how the "depth" keeps improving.





Year
Special Eligibility


2014
98


2013
73


2012
65


2011
56


2010
53


2009
46


2008
53


2007
40


2006
52


2005
51



When you look at those underclassmen entering the draft, prior to 2011, the number was pretty consistent. Whether they come out because of the CBA or better talent or whatever, it is not really relevant. The key, they came out. In 2012, that number jumped up a +10, meaning you get a third more players (usually top 100) in that draft. It jumps another +8 in 2013, meaning it is a half round more talent. This season, it is a +25 from last year. When you compare that to 2011, that means you have 43 more players of top 100 talent coming into this draft. In essence, your "Top 100" stretches to 143. That means your 4th round talent is now in the 6th round and your 5th round talent is in the 7th.

Whether people like the term or not, it is excellent depth and means you can find better talent through the draft and your priority free agent pool grows exponentially.

To me, the key is recognizing the positions where the talent lies. I think that is the key. I would rather draft 2 players from a position of excellent talent than "fill a hole" with a lesser talent. The WR position is exceptionally deep this year. I do draft metrics for the WR position (because it is exceptionally easy to love film and the guy busts out). My draft metrics turn out players I call "complete" WRs. It means they have the skills to be deep threats and scorers but also have the quickness and athleticism to run a full route tree. In the past few drafts, that metric turned out about 3-6 WRs per draft I felt exceptionally good about. This draft, the number has jumped to 15. The depth at WR in this draft is exceptional.


I also feel the depth at CB, ILB, and OLB is very good. It has a host of very athletic safeties that could be developed. The DL is pretty solid. I do not like a bunch of RBs and outside of 5 or so OTs, I am not thrilled on the OL.


With that said, if the Steelers could give up a later round pick, say their 4th, to move up into the top 10 (and, while people would say it won't happen, I would suggest they review the Polamalu trade), I would be thrilled with that, especially if they could land Matthews or Robinson. Never know, strange stuff happens on draft day.


Then, you move the 2nd round down, even if it is to the bottom of the 2nd or early 3rd and try to pick up another 3rd or a pair of 4ths. The addition of a 3rd/5th/6th for the comp pick is nice.

[steelreserve]

steelreserve, I think this table posted by Dwinsgames is where you see how the "depth" keeps improving.

When you look at those underclassmen entering the draft, prior to 2011, the number was pretty consistent. Whether they come out because of the CBA or better talent or whatever, it is not really relevant. The key, they came out. In 2012, that number jumped up a +10, meaning you get a third more players (usually top 100) in that draft. It jumps another +8 in 2013, meaning it is a half round more talent. This season, it is a +25 from last year. When you compare that to 2011, that means you have 43 more players of top 100 talent coming into this draft. In essence, your "Top 100" stretches to 143. That means your 4th round talent is now in the 6th round and your 5th round talent is in the 7th.

I don't think that number tells as much as you would think. Not because I think everyone's full of shit or anything, but just straight mathematics say it can't be so.

First, having 43 more players declare early than in 2011 does not mean there are 43 more good players; and it ESPECIALLY does not mean that they are going to go with picks 1 through 43 in the draft, which is what the above assumption is. In reality, about a third of early entrants went undrafted in 2013 compared with a quarter in 2011 (25 of 73 in 2013, vs 14 of 56 in 2011). So you figure at minimum, a quarter of the 43 "extra" ones this year are going to wash out (9 players), more likely a third if last year's trend continues (14-15 players) or, if a RISING washout rate continues - which I believe it will, for reasons explained in a moment - then close to half should, which would be about 21-22 of the "extra" early entrants.

For the early entrants as a whole (not just the "extra" ones compared to 2011), that overall washout rate would mean in 2011 we had 42 underclassmen who were actually drafted, in 2013 we had 48 despite the fact that nearly 50% more came out, and this year with about a 30% increase and an expected higher washout rate, we should see maybe 50-55 of the underclassmen actually be selected. This is not a huge increase.

If anything, this ought to show that most of the underclassmen who declare for the draft do not get taken at the top of the draft (which the stats also prove to be true), so they aren't "pushing down" the draft spots of the other players nearly as much as you would think. More than a third don't make it, and the rest are evenly distributed through the draft, so the pushing-down effect is less than a third of what people who are excited about it are expecting. The notion of having "third-round talent available in the fifth and sixth rounds" is a mirage.

The reason why the washout rate is rising is pretty simple ... more kids are feeling the pressure to rush into the draft, but their average talent level hasn't actually gone up much, if at all. (And why would it? Out of 120 schools with a total of ~12,000 players, that level of change is statistically almost impossible, and that's just counting Division I-A schools; count all colleges and it gets even more unlikely.) Also, because there are a finite number of draft spots, if someone joins the pool, someone else is going to be left out. Basically, the net result is that you've enhanced the talent pool over last year by 6 or 7 guys out of 250 picks, each of whom displaces one player who was slightly less talented. In other words, compared to last year, you've added one player in each round, and the last 7 guys in the 7th round are now free agents. The guy who would've gone with the 31st pick now goes with the 32nd; the guy who would've gone with the 90th pick now goes with the 93rd, and the guy who would've gone with the 210th pick now goes 217th. This is nothing to write home about.

Long story short, the number of underclassmen coming into the draft doesn't tell you much. The actual bump in quality is going to be a couple percent, which means that as always, there are no sure things and your own aptitude at picking individual players is far more important.

[Steeldude]

Wait, I thought this draft was full of elite players...lol. This draft is full of good/decent players, but not many stars. Is anyone deserving of the 15th pick? I doubt any of the top players will fall to the 15th pick.

[Texasteel]

I've always thought that this draft was thin at the top. but that it had several very good players that could go deep into the draft. As far as stars are concerned they could be scattered through the first 3, maybe 4, rounds of the draft. There will be disappointments picked in the top of the draft and stars found latter on. It will be up to the teams to find the stars, and avoid the disappointments, but more importantly just find a player that can contribute to a winning team. It's easy for us, if we miss on a player there's no damage done, except to our pride. If a team misses, that miss will be, or not be, a member, of the team.

[TMC]

I don't think that number tells as much as you would think. Not because I think everyone's full of shit or anything, but just straight mathematics say it can't be so.

First, having 43 more players declare early than in 2011 does not mean there are 43 more good players; and it ESPECIALLY does not mean that they are going to go with picks 1 through 43 in the draft, which is what the above assumption is. In reality, about a third of early entrants went undrafted in 2013 compared with a quarter in 2011 (25 of 73 in 2013, vs 14 of 56 in 2011). So you figure at minimum, a quarter of the 43 "extra" ones this year are going to wash out (9 players), more likely a third if last year's trend continues (14-15 players) or, if a RISING washout rate continues - which I believe it will, for reasons explained in a moment - then close to half should, which would be about 21-22 of the "extra" early entrants.

For the early entrants as a whole (not just the "extra" ones compared to 2011), that overall washout rate would mean in 2011 we had 42 underclassmen who were actually drafted, in 2013 we had 48 despite the fact that nearly 50% more came out, and this year with about a 30% increase and an expected higher washout rate, we should see maybe 50-55 of the underclassmen actually be selected. This is not a huge increase.

If anything, this ought to show that most of the underclassmen who declare for the draft do not get taken at the top of the draft (which the stats also prove to be true), so they aren't "pushing down" the draft spots of the other players nearly as much as you would think. More than a third don't make it, and the rest are evenly distributed through the draft, so the pushing-down effect is less than a third of what people who are excited about it are expecting. The notion of having "third-round talent available in the fifth and sixth rounds" is a mirage.

The reason why the washout rate is rising is pretty simple ... more kids are feeling the pressure to rush into the draft, but their average talent level hasn't actually gone up much, if at all. (And why would it? Out of 120 schools with a total of ~12,000 players, that level of change is statistically almost impossible, and that's just counting Division I-A schools; count all colleges and it gets even more unlikely.) Also, because there are a finite number of draft spots, if someone joins the pool, someone else is going to be left out. Basically, the net result is that you've enhanced the talent pool over last year by 6 or 7 guys out of 250 picks, each of whom displaces one player who was slightly less talented. In other words, compared to last year, you've added one player in each round, and the last 7 guys in the 7th round are now free agents. The guy who would've gone with the 31st pick now goes with the 32nd; the guy who would've gone with the 90th pick now goes with the 93rd, and the guy who would've gone with the 210th pick now goes 217th. This is nothing to write home about.

Long story short, the number of underclassmen coming into the draft doesn't tell you much. The actual bump in quality is going to be a couple percent, which means that as always, there are no sure things and your own aptitude at picking individual players is far more important.

That may be true if the "washout rate" or undrafted number was increasing, but it is not. In fact, it is widely inconsistent. In 1989, 25 underclassmen entered the NFL draft, only 12 were drafted, meaning a massive 52% were not drafted. In fact, that number held close to 50% until around 2000, when it decreased into the 40s/30s. The NFL set up the advisory committee and they have done great work in assisting these young players. The numbers are in the 20s/30s over the recent years. Not sure why you left out 2012, but the numbers I see (I use Ourlads) shows the number of undrafted has varied greatly over the past few drafts. Here are their numbers:
2005-33.3%
2006-36.5%
2007-27.5%
2008-26.4%
2009-10.9%
2010-13.2%
2011-29.5%
2012-35.7%
2013-34.2%

So, to speculate that this is a rising trend is a little off base since, in the early numbers, half of the underclassmen were failing and that number can vary wildly from year to year.

Furthermore, if we just use the two years you cite, look at your numbers. In 2011, 42 underclassmen were drafted. In 2013, 48 were drafted. What if the senior class was much stronger in 2013 than it was in 2011? Not only do you have 6 more underclassmen going, you also could potentially have a better senior class. If you look at the 2008 and 2009 underclassmen numbers as they were trending downward, you would argue that the bust rate was shrinking, but if you look at those two draft groups now and the number of players washing out of the NFL, it simply shows that those were weak draft classes and the underclassmen were bolstering a poor draft (and still busting out).

The numbers of underclassmen are growing. The washout rate is not climbing significantly enough to show that these large groups of underclassmen are not increasing the drafted underclassmen group. And, again, it increases the number of draft eligible players in each round. It also increases the number of undrafted players for teams to sign. No matter your argument, whether they fit in the top 30, 100, or 500, the growing underclassmen pool is making these drafts deeper.

[steelreserve]

Well, OK, I guess I'm just going to be more skeptical of the effect; I tend to think it's more of a zero-sum game overall and it'll all work out close to the average in the end. You have a point too, and I don't want to be a troll about it, so like with most things draft-related, I guess it's "we'll see how it turns out a year or two from now, and hope we don't fuck up when it's our turn to pick."

[Pristas]

Good points on both sides. If we have a larger number of players declaring eligibility, what happens when those players go undrafted? Do they go back and finish school and play one more year? Or do they drop out and never get the chance to develop into the talent they would have become? I wonder how much elite talent never came to fruition because of early eligibility? And if you account for the 93 or so guys that come out early this year, based on the math about 30 of them won't be drafted. How many of those guys would have been top talent in 2015, and guaranteed a draft by a team?

[Steelerette]

Some of the fellas here will know how it works better than me, but it all depends. Once you hire an agent or take a sponsor then you're done, you are no longer an amateur and you are not allowed to play college ball anymore.

I'm a little unclear on what happens if you declare for the draft, go undrafted, but you never hired an agent or took a sponsor. I tried asking Mr. Google but I found conflicting reports on your eligibility in that circumstance.

In either case I do believe the large number of not only players but quality players coming out this year will have a few echoes to it:

1) A lot of good talent, guys who would have gone in rounds 3 to 7 on other years, are not going to get drafted.
2) UDFA Bonanza. Every team is going to have the chance to get a little better this offseason. Only the worst managed teams will walk away with nothing.
3) The Canadian Football League and Arena Football League are both about to get a little better.

Not only that but, we're going to see a lot of kids get "screwed over" - I put that in parentheses because they are the ones who made the choice to come out for the draft, but all these underclassmen, means a lot of kids this year are both not going to get drafted, and also not get the chance to complete their college education thanks to their declaring. Student athletes are going to take notice of this and we might see in the future that kids, unless they are surefire 1st or 2nd rounders, are going to stay through their senior year and finish their degree.

If this amount of talent becomes a trend rather than an anomaly we could see several things that happen. Will the league expand rosters? Will we see a pair of expansion teams? Will an alternate league (think USFL) arise? Will kids who go undrafted start declaring for the drafts of regional or competitor leagues? (Remember that kid who declared for the XFL draft?)

A wildcard here is the ruling that college athletes can unionize now. Will undrafted kids in the future become eligible to return to their school for another season? Would their team want them back?

[Dwinsgames]

Some of the fellas here will know how it works better than me, but it all depends. Once you hire an agent or take a sponsor then you're done, you are no longer an amateur and you are not allowed to play college ball anymore.

I'm a little unclear on what happens if you declare for the draft, go undrafted, but you never hired an agent or took a sponsor. I tried asking Mr. Google but I found conflicting reports on your eligibility in that circumstance.

In either case I do believe the large number of not only players but quality players coming out this year will have a few echoes to it:

1) A lot of good talent, guys who would have gone in rounds 3 to 7 on other years, are not going to get drafted.
2) UDFA Bonanza. Every team is going to have the chance to get a little better this offseason. Only the worst managed teams will walk away with nothing.
3) The Canadian Football League and Arena Football League are both about to get a little better.

Not only that but, we're going to see a lot of kids get "screwed over" - I put that in parentheses because they are the ones who made the choice to come out for the draft, but all these underclassmen, means a lot of kids this year are both not going to get drafted, and also not get the chance to complete their college education thanks to their declaring. Student athletes are going to take notice of this and we might see in the future that kids, unless they are surefire 1st or 2nd rounders, are going to stay through their senior year and finish their degree.

If this amount of talent becomes a trend rather than an anomaly we could see several things that happen. Will the league expand rosters? Will we see a pair of expansion teams? Will an alternate league (think USFL) arise? Will kids who go undrafted start declaring for the drafts of regional or competitor leagues? (Remember that kid who declared for the XFL draft?)

A wildcard here is the ruling that college athletes can unionize now. Will undrafted kids in the future become eligible to return to their school for another season? Would their team want them back?

from my understanding once you declare for the draft and become draft eligible you have forgone any remaining collegiate eligibility thus unable to play collegiate athletics ....

now with " unionization " things may change but I doubt that aspect will

[steelreserve]

Once you declare yourself eligible for the draft, you are done playing college sports. You could go back to school (and not play sports) if you could pay for it on your own, I guess, but my suspicion is hardly anybody can, which means you are not only done with college athletics, but in most cases also done with college period. You see stories about these guys doing everything from trying out for CFL teams to working at car washes, either of which you wouldn't be doing if you could go back and take a free ride to showcase yourself for the NFL draft again, or at least get a degree out of it. It really is a bullet to the head for a lot of those guys.

Interesting article about the issue of the CBA and how the rookie wage scale has underclassmen just chomping at the bit to come out early. If you're a second- through seventh-rounder, it actually makes even more sense than ever to come out early, with the three-year contract instead of the fifth-year team option contract for first-rounders. You will probably see a lot more of that kind of talent coming out early now that the agents have figured it out and are out there pitching kids on the idea.

http://mmqb.si.com/2014/01/24/nfl-draft-underclassmen-problem/

You'll notice that the first line of the article starts by pointing out the talent drain this has caused for the senior classes in recent years. Less "Deep draft!" than just this group of underclassmen replacing all the ones who came out early last year. The real bump in talent from this effect should have come two or three seasons ago, but as the numbers showed, not a whole lot of difference there.