What Are an NFL First-Round Pick's Odds for Success?

I’m not sure if some, none, or even all of the reasons I listed are why the first round is generally a miss-or-hit round. But I do know that there will always be first-round picks that don’t live up to their hype.

I believe that are certain things that need to be fixed so that many of these so-called “busts” are more likely to make it in the NFL, even if it means staying in the NFL as a backup.

The first thing that needs to be fixed is the overhyping of the NFL’s first-round draft. The NFL’s first-round draft is easily the most-hyped first round of any sports' draft in the U.S.

After the NFL season is over, the first round is immediately hyped up for the next four months. Every day on ESPN, the first round gets overhyped and overanalyzed until you actually start believing it.

Every single scenario in the first round a person can think of gets repeated over and over again. Predicting the NFL first round has become such a big deal that you can find contests that give out prizes to the person with the best prediction.

These first-round picks don’t deserve so much attention yet and are way too young and inexperienced to be hyped up as saviors of NFL franchises.

The overhyping of the NFL drafts leads to unrealistic expectations of these first-round picks and can cause teams to rush these players on the field and stunt their development.

But the worst part of the first round, for me, is the amount of money that these players are getting paid. It’s not helping the players or the teams. A great analogy for me is a student that has earned their grade without ever taking a test.

If a student already knows he’s going to get an A on a test before taking it, why would he bother studying? Obviously it’s not as simple as that, but the pure logistics of it are.

We would like to believe that players play for more than just money, but the honest truth is that the money is probably the leading factor.

Jake Long, the No. 1 pick in the 2008 draft, signed a five-year contract worth $57.75 million, with $30 million of it guaranteed last year before he ever practiced.

If a person gets paid before they earn it, what’s going to motivate them to work hard, except for making even more money?

Teams not only end up paying big money to players who fall out of the league after a few years, but they never see what type of player their draft pick could have developed into, if only they hadn’t been given a big contract.

In order to lower the amount of first-round picks who get run out of the league, I believe that the immediate expectations of first-round picks, hype of first-round picks, and first-round picks' salaries, all need to be lowered.

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