The completely new entry in the help file on the ammy draft is a good place to start:
Drafting Players
Would you draft a punter in the first round? It happened once, and Ray Guy went on to be fairly valuable for the Raider franchise. But in general, kickers and punters are not high draft picks. Currently (2013), there's one first-round kicker, one second-round kicker and two third-round punters playing professionally.
I wanted the computer-run franchises in Front Office Football to draft in a realistic manner. So the player valuations have to be reflected in how teams have drafted over the years. I found that quarterbacks, especially top-echelon quarterbacks, were valued more than anyone. They were followed by defensive linemen and halfbacks. Kickers, centers, guards and tight ends were the least valued.
When computer-run teams draft or trade players, they will value players similarly. Top-notch quarterbacks simply don't switch teams unless there's a very good reason.
Here's a chart I compiled showing the currently active players at each position by the level they were drafted. The first number shows how often a player from that position was drafted in the top three picks of the draft related to how many players there are from that position in the league. The second number shows that frequency for the entire first round. And the third number shows the correlation between perceived performance and round selected.
<center> <table border="1"> <tbody> <tr> <td>Position </td><th>Top 3 Picks</th> <th>First Round</th> <th>Level of Play per Pick</th></tr> <tr> <td>QB</td> <td>14.7</td> <td>28.4</td> <td>0.40</td></tr> <tr> <td>HB</td> <td>2.0</td> <td>12.8</td> <td>0.57</td></tr> <tr> <td>FB</td> <td>0.0</td> <td>0.0</td> <td>0.00</td></tr> <tr> <td>TE</td> <td>0.0</td> <td>6.7</td> <td>0.57</td></tr> <tr> <td>WR</td> <td>1.1</td> <td>11.9</td> <td>0.56</td></tr> <tr> <td>C</td> <td>0.0</td> <td>7.5</td> <td>0.46</td></tr> <tr> <td>G</td> <td>0.0</td> <td>8.8</td> <td>0.48</td></tr> <tr> <td>T</td> <td>3.3</td> <td>22.0</td> <td>0.66</td></tr> <tr> <td>P</td> <td>0.0</td> <td>0.0</td> <td>0.04</td></tr> <tr> <td>K</td> <td>0.0</td> <td>2.5</td> <td>0.26</td></tr> <tr> <td>DE</td> <td>2.7</td> <td>20.7</td> <td>0.56</td></tr> <tr> <td>DT</td> <td>2.2</td> <td>12.6</td> <td>0.45</td></tr> <tr> <td>ILB</td> <td>0.0</td> <td>6.2</td> <td>0.64</td></tr> <tr> <td>OLB</td> <td>0.6</td> <td>19.4</td> <td>0.57</td></tr> <tr> <td>CB</td> <td>0.0</td> <td>15.4</td> <td>0.48</td></tr> <tr> <td>S</td> <td>0.0</td> <td>10.9</td> <td>0.57</td></tr></tbody></table></center>
The difference in correlation between quarterbacks and offensive tackles, for example, is .40 versus .66. This means drafting a tackle in a higher round is much more reliable than drafting a quarterback. Yet teams keep using their top picks to draft quarterbacks. That underscores the importance of the quarterback position. You can't survive in the league without one, so even though it's harder to scout that position than any other, you keep trying.
My takeaway from this reading, and also my experience is this:
1. It's much, much, much harder to identify quality QBs in the draft.
2. QB is now clearly the most important position in the game.
The only other observations/impressions I have to offer at this point are:
1. It seems so far that WRs aren't as important as they were in FOF2K7
2. It seems that a monster-stud at any position can make a meaningful difference.