Steven Nelson · Good GM

All NFL teams

Full-career context

These totals follow Steven Nelson across every NFL team. Draft credit is separated below for each team that selected him.

Games played130

Games started115

Weighted career AV36

Pro Bowls0

AP1 All-Pro0

Career seasons9

Accountability by draft event

What each drafting team received

2015 · Round 3 · #98

KC draft credit

GM John Dorsey

Team games52

Team starts38

On-team AV14

On-team PB / AP10 / 0

Bad-0.74 contribution37th of 54 picks for this GM

Games: direct team-season record. Starts: direct team-season record.

Long-career hit

Steven Nelson became a 9-season, 130-game NFL player after going #98. The retained-value model still ranks him 37th of 54 for John Dorsey because KC only got 52 of those games.

His retained-value contribution score (opportunity plus quality plus recognition, with related outcomes collapsed inside each bucket) is -0.74. This is a per-pick accountability metric, separate from John Dorsey's leaderboard composite θ.

Full-career context prevents this from being labeled as a bad talent pick: the negative model score is about retained team value, not whether the draft identified an NFL-caliber player.

The walkthrough below shows which bucket carried the pick: playing time, value quality, or league honors.

Opportunity

Did he earn the field?

Games played

on drafting team · 130 full-career

Games started

on drafting team · 115 full-career

Snap-z

3.0

4 modeled seasons

Quality

Was that time valuable?

On-team AV

modeled; full weighted AV 36

AV / 1k snaps

4.6

3,021 snaps in rate base

AV-rate z

+0.0

position-year adjusted quality

Recognition

Did the league notice?

Pro Bowls

all on drafting team

AP1 All-Pro

0 AP1

all on drafting team · AP2 context 0

All-Decade

context only

Did this pick move John Dorsey's grade?

The first chart removes the time axis: every John Dorsey pick is sorted by retained contribution across opportunity, quality, and recognition. Steven Nelson totals -0.74. The second chart breaks that same contribution into the seasons when the evidence arrived. Opportunity and quality can move separately, which keeps high-snap, low-AV profiles from looking cleaner than they are.

Aggregate contribution by player

Incremental contribution by season

Above expectationBelow expectationSteven NelsonGM total +23.4Steven Nelson by season -1.5

How much retained production did Steven Nelson return vs. his slot?

Each mark below is one player's model value above slot. Light gray marks are slot-similar peers: CBs drafted within ±5 picks of Steven Nelson since 2010 (9 players).The score is the retained production/value bucket from the pick-residual model: on-team AV plus AV-rate quality, adjusted for draft slot, position, and era. Opportunity snaps and league honors are excluded.

Steven NelsonSlot-similar peers (9)

Cumulative value over time

Year-by-year running totals since draft. Left axis = games started. Right axis = honors (Pro Bowl / AP1 / AP2). Pre-2013 picks have no games-started line because that comes from per-game snap counts (not available for older players). Honors extend back to 1980.

Games started (cumulative) Pro Bowls AP1 All-Pro AP2 All-Pro

Full-career season history (9 scored seasons)

Year	Team	GP	GS	Snaps	Snap-z	AV	AV/snap
2015	KC	12	0	179	-0.9	1	5.6
2016	KC	15	15	1,130	1.8	5	4.4
2017	KC	9	8	547	0.1	3	5.5
2018	KC	16	16	1,165	2.0	5	4.3
2019	PIT	15	15	1,071	1.8	6	5.6
2020	PIT	15	15	960	1.6	6	6.3
2021	PHI	16	15	982	1.6	5	5.1
2022	HOU	15	14	959	1.4	5	5.2
2023	HOU	17	17	1,097	1.9	7	6.4

How to read this

The current model groups outcomes into three buckets: opportunity (games, starts, snap-z), quality (on-team AV, AV/snap quality when available), and recognition (Pro Bowl, AP1).
Season rows show full-career context across every team. The draft-credit cards above contain the team-specific totals used for GM accountability. Snap-z is position/year-normalized playing time; AV/snap is shown as AV per 1,000 snaps where snap evidence exists.
AP2, full-career AV, HOF, and All-Decade are displayed as context only. They are not active outcomes in the current θ model.
Pre-2013 playing-time rows may show "—" where weekly snap evidence is unavailable; AV/snap quality is snap-era only.