Games: direct team-season record. Starts: direct team-season record.
A Bad pick
Caden Sterns was George Paton's 33rd-best of 38 picks across his career.
His retained-value contribution score (opportunity plus quality plus recognition, with related outcomes collapsed inside each bucket) is -0.69. This is a per-pick accountability metric, separate from George Paton's leaderboard composite θ.
The walkthrough below shows which bucket carried the pick: playing time, value quality, or league honors.
Opportunity
Did he earn the field?
Games played
21
on drafting team
Games started
5
on drafting team
Snap-z
-4.9
5 modeled seasons
Quality
Was that time valuable?
On-team AV
3
modeled; full weighted AV 3
AV / 1k snaps
4.1
726 snaps in rate base
AV-rate z
-0.0
position-year adjusted quality
Recognition
Did the league notice?
Pro Bowls
0
all on drafting team
AP1 All-Pro
0 AP1
all on drafting team · AP2 context 0
All-Decade
0
context only
Did this pick move George Paton's grade?
The first chart removes the time axis: every George Paton pick is sorted by retained contribution across opportunity, quality, and recognition. Caden Sterns totals -0.69. 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 expectationCaden SternsGM total +17.9Caden Sterns by season -1.9
How much retained production did Caden Sterns return vs. his slot?
Each mark below is one player's model value above slot. Light gray marks are slot-similar peers: DBs drafted within ±5 picks of Caden Sterns since 2010 (17 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.
Caden SternsSlot-similar peers (17)
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 BowlsAP1 All-ProAP2 All-Pro
Full-career season history (5 scored seasons)
Year
Team
GP
GS
Snaps
Snap-z
AV
AV/snap
PB
AP1
AP2
2021
DEN
15
6
432
-0.3
2
4.6
2022
DEN
5
4
289
-0.8
1
3.5
2023
DEN
1
0
5
-1.3
0
0.0
2024
DEN
0
0
0
-1.3
0
—
2025
DEN
0
0
0
-1.2
0
—
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.
