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The Fillability Index
Cold, Hard Football Facts for May 8, 2006
All Fillability Index grades can be found here:
The story of the Fillability Index can be found here:
It's funny. Cold, Hard Football Facts sud stud Lew Bryson writes an in-depth story about mint juleps right before the Kentucky Derby, and production inside our cardboard-box world headquarters screeches to a halt.
Coincidence? That's for you to decide. We don't remember anything.
Yes, it has been a couple days since our last groundbreaking bit of gridiron analysis. But we did manage to get back on track late this weekend after we gathered up all the empty bourbon bottles and placed them proudly on our milk-crate mantle, right next to our "Advanced Dungeon Master" diplomas. 
It's still four long months before kickoff, so we figured there's no hurry here. We might as well spend a little more time peering intently at the 2006 draft and – of course – doing it with more glassy-eyed focus than everybody else. After all, humiliating the "pundits" at their own game is kind of our shtick.
You might have noticed that every draft wrap-up from the "pundits" included the obligatory letter grade. If your team drafted a lot of Big Name players, it got a high grade. If your team drafted a lot of no-name players, it got a low grade. Our take on this juvenile, creatively vapid practice was well-documented last year and again this year.
There are three major flaws with this type of draft wrap-up favored by the "pundits":
Flaw 1 – Most NFL analysts who grade drafts know little about college football. Many don't have time to watch college football. Some openly despise the college game. It's unlikely that they've spent much time watching future draft picks play – at least at a level beyond casual Saturday viewing. Simply put, the NFL "pundits" are in no position to judge the quality of the talent each team has picked.
Flaw 2 – The NFL "pundits" who evaluate drafts are thus basing their grades upon analysis they receive from third-party "pundits" – that is, the hideous draft "pundits" – and from NFL "insider" sources. You know, these are the folks who told everyone that Ryan Leaf and Rae Carruth were can't-miss NFL prospects and that Johnny Unitas and Tom Brady couldn't play in the big leagues.
Flaw 3 – Nobody can predict the future, not even a chaotic neutral wizard with +8 intelligence. We know that realization will hurt many of our readers. But it's true. The post-draft "grading" system is a mesmerizing failure because nobody knows who will turn into the big-time contributors or big-time busts.
The notion, then, of grading a draft before any player has ever stepped on an NFL field is so sickly it should be condemned to a bubble.
The solution
There is a better way to judge the draft. The Cold, Hard Football Facts have, of course, dug it up and exposed it here for all to see.
Before the draft, we addressed the most glaring needs of each and every team. Our analysis was not based upon what we or some "pundit" thought each team needed. Our analysis was based upon something far more solid: the proven, unassailable and irrefutable strengths and weaknesses of each and every organization.
Each team has holes to fill. These holes are easy to see when you look at teams through the pigskin prism of the Cold, Hard Football Facts. Before the draft, we looked at the biggest chasms in each team's statistical performance in 2005. If your team ranked 32nd in run defense, the Cold, Hard Football Facts concluded that it had to beef up its run defense. How simple is that?
We call it our Fillability Index, a gauge of how well each team filled its most pressing needs. And, yes, we stooped to the level of the "pundits" by issuing a letter grade to judge the efforts each team made to fill its biggest holes from 2005. If a team kicked a little dirt at the hole, it got a low grade. If a team pulled up a backhoe, it got a high grade. If a team dug new holes in an effort to fill the original hole, it got a low grade.
The Fillability Index is not perfect. Not by any stretch. But at least it has some statistical merit. It's certainly more valid than the system employed by the "pundits," in which they grade players they don't know based upon inaccurate third-party analysis and a future they cannot predict.
In our Filliability Index, we make no judgment about the players themselves. We don't know how these players will pan out. Neither do you. Neither do the "pundits."
Instead, we grade teams based solely upon the effort they made to fill their most glaring needs from 2005. You will find it's a much more rational analysis of how the draft went for each team. It will come as no surprise to see that bad organizations tended to make bad decisions on draft day.
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Fillability Index grades can be found here:
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