With the draft quickly approaching I was curious about the how we had faired in the last few drafts. Using the last 5 drafts, I looked at the retention of our draft picks. Here is what I found:

Draft picks still on current roster -

2008 Draft: 4 out of 5 (80%)

2007 Draft: 7 out of 11 (63%)

2006 Draft: 4 out of 6 (66%)

2005 Draft: 2 out of 8 (25%)

2004 Draft: 3 out of 10 (30%)

Overall: 20 out of 40 (50%)

Draft picks still on current roster  (By Position) -

WR: 1 out of 6 (17%)

DE: 3 out of 6 (50%)

LB: 4 out of 6 (67%)

CB: 1 out of 6 (17%)

RB/FB: 4 out of 4 (100%)

S: 1 out of 3 (33%)

P/K: 2 out 2 (100%)

OL: 1 out of 4 (25%)

DT: 1 out of 2 (50%)

TE: 1 out of 1 (100%)

Now looking at these breakdowns, you can see that the Jaguars biggest weakness' also have the lower percentage of retention of draft picks. Right now the Jaguars biggest needs are WR, OL, CB, and DT...which as shown in the stats are the lowest percentages. On the flip side, the Jaguars strongest areas RB, LB and TE are also their highest percentages of retention. I started to look at the overall retention percentage (Jaguars is 50%) and how that rates with other teams. When I looked at the Super Bowl Champion Steelers I found that they actually have a lower retention percentage (47%) then the Jaguars. The Steelers also have only a slightly better retention rate of their higher draft picks. The Steelers have a retention percentage of 61% of draft picks selected between the first and fifth rounds, while Jacksonville's is 56%. So it is obvious that retention of draft picks only has so much of an effect considering the statistics for a Super Bowl team and a 5-11 team are almost identical.

The biggest difference between the draft picks of the Steelers and Jaguars in the last 5 drafts is more about quality. The Jaguars have no Pro Bowls drafted in the last 5 drafts while the Steelers have Big Ben and Willie Parker. Actually the Steelers biggest difference between their Pro Bowlers and the Jaguars Pro Bowlers over the last 5 seasons has been that Jacksonville's undrafted free agents have 0 Pro Bowls, while the Steelers undrafted free agents have 4 (Harrison, Parker at 2 a piece). So I guess I am proving a previous post of mine wrong when I did research, undrafted free agents are a major factor in determining a teams success. I hope this information is interesting, as it was to me.

- Kyle