Excellent+1.28 contribution1st of 27 picks for this GM
Games: direct team-season record. Starts: direct team-season record.
An Excellent pick
T.J. Ward was Tom Heckert's 1st-best of 27 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 +1.28. This is a per-pick accountability metric, separate from Tom Heckert'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
54
on drafting team · 107 full-career
Games started
54
on drafting team · 99 full-career
Snap-z
1.5
1 modeled season
Quality
Was that time valuable?
On-team AV
27
modeled; full weighted AV 41
AV / 1k snaps
9.2
1,194 snaps in rate base
AV-rate z
+1.2
position-year adjusted quality
Recognition
Did the league notice?
Pro Bowls
0
3 full-career
AP1 All-Pro
0 AP1
all on drafting team · AP2 context 0
All-Decade
0
context only
Did this pick move Tom Heckert's grade?
The first chart removes the time axis: every Tom Heckert pick is sorted by retained contribution across opportunity, quality, and recognition. T.J. Ward totals +1.28. 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 expectationT.J. WardGM total -15.7T.J. Ward by season +2.6
How much retained production did T.J. Ward 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 T.J. Ward since 2010 (15 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.
T.J. WardSlot-similar peers (15)
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 (8 scored seasons)
Year
Team
GP
GS
Snaps
Snap-z
AV
AV/snap
PB
AP1
AP2
2010
CLE
16
16
—
—
6
—
2011
CLE
8
8
—
—
4
—
2012
CLE
14
14
—
—
6
—
2013
CLE
16
16
1,194
1.5
11
9.2
2014
DEN
15
15
1,006
1.2
7
7.0
2015
DEN
12
11
736
0.6
5
6.8
2016
DEN
14
14
987
1.2
6
6.1
2017
TB
12
6
445
-0.4
2
4.5
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.
