The Draft Rating Index (DRI) is an unscientific study designed to evaluate how NFL teams have drafted and developed their talent over a five-year period.
Points are given based on players’ status at the end of the 2005 season, with teams being rewarded for number of starters, Pro Bowlers and players still on the roster.
Every player who has been drafted since 2001 has been given a point value. These values range from a player like former Seattle Seahawks guard Steve Hutchinson, who received seven points for being a starter and four-time Pro Bowler, to Seattle 2003 draft pick Chris Davis, who got zero points after suffering a knee injury that pushed him out of the league.
The point totals are designed to reward teams for developing their own talent, as well as finding eventual starters in the later rounds (a point was added to each player’s value if the player was a Day 2 draft pick who became a starter).
Of course, the system is not perfect. For example, the ratings do not weight performance other than number of starts. Therefore, a player like Detroit quarterback Joey Harrington (five points: three for ending 2005 as the starter, two for starting half of Detroit’s games since his rookie season) receives the same total as Pittsburgh’s Ben Roethlisberger – even though their careers have gone in vastly different directions.
The DRI also ends up rewarding teams like San Francisco and Tennessee that have been forced by salary-cap woes to play draft picks, even if the picks aren’t necessarily solid players. And veteran teams like Pittsburgh get penalized for having draft picks wait behind experienced players.
But those are the exceptions. Mostly, the system gives a pretty realistic perspective and allows draftniks to evaluate how individual teams have done over the years.
Scott M. Johnson
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