Is there a "determined" % of top pick busts? I know the new volatility category is going to add a factor to that, was just wondering if there is a "ballpark" % of busts, like 20%?

Depends on what you would define a bust, a guy could drop 10 points in overall and still be a really useful or even good player. For me I consider a guy a bust when he drops a certain amount in a key attribute to where I feel like I can't even play him.

As far as 1st or 2nd round picks go, I would consider a player a bust if he isn't a starter.

That said, a first rounder can definitely be a big disappointment even if he is a starter, depending on how high he was picked.

Tavon Austin

Each draftee has scores. Volatility, the amount he will go up or down, depending on a roll each camp. And a secret value, this tells whether he will go up or down and it is pre built into the player This is the only algorithim closed to the public.

So, in theory if a draft happened and all the GMs picked the guys in the 1st rd who had these high volatility scores and thier secret value was to go down...... ALL in theroy would be busts.

What really happens pre visiable volatility scores was 1-3 players, on average, would bust in the 1st. And IMO that is simple as going down more than -7 or -9 Though, depending on your ratings a -16 might be the extreme drop in one camp.

This is purely a guess as this is secret. I believe JDB uses a bell curve type of scale were most players will stay the same, but outliers will happen. Where scores will range 30 points either way over a career. A severe 1st rd bust being a 99 potenial and finishing in the 70's, will happen, but it might be 1 out of ten drafts. Where most are players are falling within the 5 to 7 range, up or down. Or 3 to 10 percent might boom or bust as people might pick safe with visable volatility scores.

I had a top 5 pick once who went -27 in his first training camp.

Needless to say I was a little bummed about that one.

That last is a good point. I have a QB I traded up to the #1 spot to get because he projected to be top 5 at his position. He went -3 FUT in his first training camp and is down -5 after his first season and will likely end up a middle-of-the-pack guy. That's a bust as far as I am concerned.

Not that I'm bitter. =P

It follows a normal distribution curve, players within 1 standard deviation will be pretty stable, 2 std deviations might be called a bust if you draft them high or a boom if you draft them low, into the 3rd standard deviation you most certainly will be considered a boom or a bust. So given that you have 68 percent of players will be pretty stable (decreasing in stability as they reach the end of the first standard deviation), with about 13% of players having a small boom and 13% having a small bust, and the remaining 6% will be split evenly with 3% being a major boom and 3% a major bust. The volatility rating on the player card is a uniform distribution that is mapped along this normal distribution curve. So the difference between a 25-volatility and a 50-volatility is smaller than the difference between a 50-volatility and a 75-volatility.

In other words, don't draft a player with a volatility over 50 until late in the draft.

Wow, great posts on this subject, and a big thanks to JDB for taking the time to provide the detail about it.