Excellent+1.41 contribution1st of 13 picks for this GM
Games: direct team-season record. Starts: direct team-season record.
An Excellent pick
Donnell Thompson was Dick Szymanski's 1st-best of 13 picks across his career, the best pick of the entire tenure.
His retained-value contribution score (opportunity plus quality plus recognition, with related outcomes collapsed inside each bucket) is +1.41. This is a per-pick accountability metric, separate from Dick Szymanski'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
147
on drafting team
Games started
143
on drafting team
Snap-z
0.0
0 modeled seasons
Quality
Was that time valuable?
On-team AV
63
modeled; full weighted AV 50
AV / 1k snaps
—
snap-era only
AV-rate z
—
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 Dick Szymanski's grade?
The first chart removes the time axis: every Dick Szymanski pick is sorted by retained contribution across opportunity, quality, and recognition. Donnell Thompson totals +1.41. 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 expectationDonnell ThompsonGM total -6.3Donnell Thompson by season +2.0
How much retained production did Donnell Thompson return vs. his slot?
Each mark below is one player's model value above slot. Light gray marks are slot-similar peers: DEs drafted within ±5 picks of Donnell Thompson since 2010 (22 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.
Donnell ThompsonSlot-similar peers (22)
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 (11 scored seasons)
Year
Team
GP
GS
Snaps
Snap-z
AV
AV/snap
PB
AP1
AP2
1981
IND
13
12
—
—
2
—
1982
IND
9
9
—
—
5
—
1983
IND
14
13
—
—
6
—
1984
IND
10
10
—
—
4
—
1985
IND
15
13
—
—
5
—
1986
IND
16
16
—
—
6
—
1987
IND
12
12
—
—
8
—
1988
IND
16
16
—
—
8
—
1989
IND
16
16
—
—
9
—
1990
IND
12
12
—
—
5
—
1991
IND
14
14
—
—
5
—
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.
