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Earlier in the week, we broke down the Detroit Lions’ draft position after their Week 16 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They currently sit with the seventh overall pick, atop all 5-10 teams due to their easy schedule. With the right amount of luck, that could turn into as high as the third overall pick by the end of the regular season.
Of course, if the Lions decide to win, and Lady Luck isn’t on their side, they could also drop out of the top 10 completely, and as low as 13.
So we know that possibilities, but how likely is each one? Which draft pick position is most likely for Detroit come April’s draft?
Luckily, there are a bunch of math majors across the world that are much smarter than me and have developed prediction models for just this sort of thing. Let’s take a look at a few of them.
2021 NBA Draft Lottery Odds These tables show the percent chance to end up with each pick after the lottery. The last column shows the expected value, or average pick position, for each seed. As noted above, Trevor Lawrence is a heavy favorite and has odds of -3335 at DraftKings Sportsbook. This means a $100 bet would return a profit of just $3. These are very low, or short odds. Unless you have a large bankroll to support making big wagers, it’s probably best to look elsewhere.
Playoffstatus.com
As far as I can tell, this is the only website that gives a percentage probability for all possible draft order spots for every NFL team. Their methodology is a bit vague, saying simply “all future unplayed games are assumed won/lost with a probability based upon relative team strengths.” However, this is a good place to start.
Here’s which draft picks PlayoffStatus.com believes are most likely to land with Detroit:
3rd: less than 1%
4th: 3%
5th: 13%
6th: 21%
7th: 10%
8th: 1%
9th: 3%
10th: 14%
11th: 23%
12th: 12%
13th: less than 1%
What’s interesting here is that their model seems to suggest the Lions have a very good chance to win on Sunday. Their model gives Detroit a 49% chance of picking either 10th, 11th, or 12th, which can really only happen if the Lions win. On the other hand, they give Detroit just a 47% chance of picking fourth through seventh, which can only happen with a win.
Either way, it appears the Lions’ most likely landing spot is sixth with a win and 11th with a loss, per their model.
Football Outsiders
Football Outsiders doesn’t give a pick-by-pick breakdown, but simply notes the probability—based on their DVOA metric plus a simulation of 30,000 outcomes—a team has a top-five pick.
They’re giving the Lions a 15.9 percent chance of a top-five pick, which is almost exactly along the same lines as PlayoffStatus.com (16%).
The Athletic
Ethan Douglas and Dane Brugler have been running a weekly draft order predictions article for the past couple of weeks. Their projections are based on 1,000,000 simulations. Here’s what they take into account in those projections:
Each team’s EPR, home field advantage, and rest advantages. Each team’s EPR is a prediction of how many points we’d expect that team to beat an average team by on a neutral field. You can read more about EPR and the model here.
Per this model’s projections, the most common spot the Lions finish at is seventh, with their overall average at 7.5.
As for probabilities, they offer just the chances of landing in the top three, top five or top 10. Here’s that breakdown:
Top 3 pick: 0.4%
Top 5 pick: 20.2%
Top 10 pick: 80.0%
This model is obviously a little more optimistic about the Lions’ draft position, giving them a four percent better chance of landing a top-five pick than the previous two models.
ESPN
I’ve saved the best (see: most optimistic) for last. Nfl combine 3 cone drill times. ESPN’s projection model runs 10,000 simulations based on their FPI metric.
Per their model, the Lions’ average draft position after their simulations is 7.0, a good 0.5 higher than The Athletic’s projections. Their probabilities are also much more optimistic about Detroit capturing a top five or top-10 pick.
Top 5 pick: 28.3%
Top 10 pick: 84.3%
Putting it all together, it all really depends on what you think happens on Sunday. If the Lions lose to the Vikings, the seventh overall pick is the most likely scenario. Given that Detroit is pretty beat up, playing horribly right now, and may not have the services of Matthew Stafford, it feels like a pretty good bet. Madden 20 wagers.
However, the Vikings have only pride to play for, and it’s unclear what their plans are with their starters. If Detroit pulls off the upset (Vikings currently favored by 6.5), they’ll almost certainly fall out of the top 10 and likely a little further than that.
Odds and Best Bets NFL Draft
As the NFL season is about to come to a close, we can start getting excited about the upcoming NFL draft. Every year we watch action-packed college football with star players that we want to see excel in the NFL.We often wonder if that player has what it takes to make it in the pros and whether the coaches in the NFL value the player the same way we do.
Odds and Best Bets: Trevor Lawrence
This year we expect to see Trevor Lawrence as the first pick in the NFL draft. The odds for Lawrence are at -6000 and for very good reason.Lawrence played football at Cartersville high school in Georgia, where he threw for over 3,000 yards every year and broke Deshaun Watson’s State record for passing yards and touchdowns.
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Trevor didn’t lose a football game in high school. At Clemson, Lawrence started his college career in 2018 and became a starter in his freshman year after Kelly Bryant announced his transfer decision. Lawrence led the Clemson Tigers to the National Championship, defeating Alabama 44-16. The next year he led his team to the National Championship again but was delivered his first loss of college football by LSU.
In this most recent season, he had some complications with Covid-19 but could still throw 24 touchdowns and only 5 interceptions. Lawrence finished his college career with over 10,000 passing yards and 90 touchdowns only after 3 seasons.Trevor is a very polished quarterback, and It’s no surprise that he is the favorite for the first pick in the draft.
2020 Nfl Draft Odds
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Odds and Best Bets: Justin Fields
The next player with the best odds is Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields. His odds are +1000 to be the first pick. Fields transferred from Georgia to Ohio State, and in his first year with the Buckeyes, he was named Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year.
Fields completed the season with over 3,200 yards and 41 touchdowns, and 3 interceptions. Going into the 2020 season, Fields was the leading candidate for the Heisman trophy.He helped lead his team to an undefeated regular season and then beat Clemson in the Semifinals to move on to the National Championship.
He was defeated by Nick Saban and the Crimson Tide 33-17. In his two seasons with the Buckeyes, he threw for 5,373 yards and 63 touchdowns.He showed perseverance, character, strength, and athleticism during his time at Ohio State, placing him at the top of the draft board.
In the last 24 NFL drafts, only a quarterback or offensive line has been picked first overall. With that being said, our next player with the best odds to go number 1 overall is Penei Sewell. His odds are marked at +1100.
Nfl Draft Odds
In his freshman year, he was an immediate starter at Oregon, playing in only 7 of the 13 games due to injury. The next year in 2019, he won the Morris Trophy and became the first true Sophomore to win the Outland Trophy. Sewell, in my mind, will go second overall in front of Fields.
Odds and Best Bets: Zach Wilson
Lastly is BYU quarterback Zach Wilson whose odds are +3000. Recently Ex-NFL player Joe Theismann recently said that he would prefer to take Zach Wilson over Trevor Lawrence. He feels that Wilson has more tools in his bag and feels he is an overall more skilled athlete.
Zach Wilson was the Cougars’ starting quarterback for almost 3 full seasons. He completed 67.6 percent of his passes for 7,562 yards, 56 touchdowns, and 15 interceptions. As we near the draft, expect to see some odds change.There are some real quality players in the draft this year at -6000.
Nfl Draft Odds Bovada
It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Trevor Lawrence will go first overall in the 2021 NFL Draft.