I’m hoping for some people with more knowledge than me to help. The Shannahan O was started in Denver and has had offshoots in Washington and Atlanta and current regimes is Jets, Sf, GB, LAR. The question is: what WRs have been taken by any team on the 1st rd by a Shanahan team?
It’s looking way too far back because the league has changed significantly since then, in terms of drafting practices. If you look back to Shanahan in SF, they took Brandon Aiyuk in Rd 1 in 2020. No Shanahan offshoot (Matt LaFleur, Sean McVay) has drafted 1 in the 1st, but Mike McDaniel just traded a 1st for Tyreek Hill, and a Kubiak variant in Minnesota drafted Justin Jefferson in the 1st in 2020. Zac Taylor is more what I’d call a McVay offshoot but same tree, he took Ja’Marr Chase in the 1st last year. We also know how valuable Julio Jones was to that Falcons SB run when Shanahan was OC
I look far back but the pattern hasn’t changed with time. Forgot about Ayuk. So over 30years (and 6 years) and multiple teams using a specific style offense, only 1 WR has ever been drafted in the 1st round.
No I didn’t look back past 2016. I’m sure it would look different if you really want to go past that farther into history.
I remember the Broncos offense being a run heavy offense with Elway, TD, Sharpe and Rod Smith being the focal point of the offense, their drafts were defense heavy. Ashley Lelie was drafted in first round and did ok for them, but moved on after 4 years. Other than that I don’t know what other WR else they might have drafted in first round. The zone running scheme they used was perfectly run and it was awesome to see TD run behind that line.
1998 Broncos (Mike Shanahan HC) -Marcus Nash 2002 Broncos (Mike Shanahan HC) -Ashley Lelie 2013 Texans (Gary Kubiak HC) -DeAndre Hopkins 2020 Vikings (Gary Kubiak Assistant HC/OC) -Justin Jefferson 2020 49ers (Kyle Shanahan HC) -Brandon Aiyuk 2021 Bengals (Zac Taylor HC) -Ja’Marr Chase 2022 Dolphins (Mike McDaniel HC) -Tyreek Hill (Trade)
Interesting… it looks like Mike didn’t have an eye for WR, Kubiak has the Midas touch, and Kyle had mild results in the 1st balanced with a hit in the 2nd. So of allll the years btw Washington, LA, SF, DV, ATL over 35 years we only have 6 WR 1st rd picks?
There are a few ways to spin it. DEN: 16 SZN HOU: 9 SZN WAS: 4 SZN ATL: 2 SZN SF: 5 SZN LAR: 5 SZN MIN: 2 SZN CIN: 3 SZN CLE: 2 SZN WR’s make up 9.1-13.6% of starting players on a roster. Of those accumulated seasons, at least 14.6% of 1st Rd picks were used on WR’s. That makes it seem like they were selected pretty consistently.
I’m loving this content!!! So there’s been about 48 cumulative seasons with a Shanahan style O… probably more bc we have the 2 GB drafts and ours last year. And we need to add more for Washington. I think Shanahan and MvVay were there 3 years each. I’m getting 6 out of 54 over 25 years. about 11% of their picks. As you point out WRs make up about 11% of a depth chart. It all seems very average. I went back from 2012-2020 9 drafts 288 picks. 35 WRs. 12%. Thank you for helping me put this together!!
Well I already included WAS, it was 4 years from 2010-2013. McVay was there longer but it was under Jay Gruden, so it was a different offense, and he basically installed his own version of the Shanahan scheme when he got to LA with some Gruden influence. I did forget to include GB in the numbers though, and I feel like we should exclude NYJ since I feel like we’re using the other teams to try and predict what the Jets might do
