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[h=1]2014 NFL Draft: “Consensus” Top 200 Big Board From 34 Experts—”Forecasters” vs. “Evaluators”[/h]May 2, 2014, by Arif Hasan 26 comments
With the NFL Draft finally approaching, getting a consensus on the talents of the prospects may give us the best possible understanding of who a team selects or whether or not they did a good job (as far as we can tell). Unfortunately, not every board is constructed with the same goals in mind or with the same amount of information available to them.
NFL Draft Tracker, a great website for getting detailed reports on prospects as well as a general understanding of the theories driving the draft, made a good point not too long ago: consensus boards don’t make a lot of sense if we don’t discriminate between those who are purely evaluating player talent and those who are attempting to reflect the consensus of the league.
That’s fine—these draft resources generally answer two questions: 1) “Who’s Good?” and 2) “Who Are We Going to Pick?”
The good news is that we can easily do that. For the most part, while insiders like Rob Rang and Daniel Jeremiah do an excellent job pointing out how they differ from mainstream views, the major networks reflect often the consensus of the league, and their draft rankings do not change much from each other. At the very least, their low variance suggest that their rankings are influenced by what they hear around the league, if not driven by it.
I was initially skeptical of this approach, but when I found unusual clusters of rankings by the mainstream draft services (especially those at the same networks) but not among the third-party services, I was fairly convinced they were either stealing evaluations or working from the same inside information—it should be extremely rare to find clusters when you’re ranking around 70 or 100 (flat talent distribution means small differences of opinion cause wide ranking divergence), but among the more established services, it was not.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think they’re stealing draft evaluations from each other, I just think that when they start hearing the same things from the same people over and over again, it affects the process. The fact that many of the NFL-influenced draft boards showed much more week-to-week volatility than the film-dependent draft boards further solidifies this approach.
As a result, we can construct two consensus boards. I ended up including 34 total boards (listed at the bottom of this post), with 22 of the boards categorized as coming from “evaluators” and the other 12 coming from people categorized as “projectors.”
Some of folks (notably Bob McGinn of the Milawaukee Journal-Sentinel) have not released a Top 100 yet, but we’ll do our best regardless.
The distinction wasn’t necessarily arbitrary, but I did make some calls. A simple divergence test on the boards actually produced stark differences between the two groups—with all of the boards with similar ranks coming from those who have insider access and the others coming from a mix of those with high-level access who haven’t incorporated outside input and somewhat amateur evaluation boards (here, “amateur” is used not as a reference to evaluation talent, but recognition).
There are drawbacks and benefits to either approach. Getting information from NFL generally means getting information from a source that has more access to knowledge of injuries (they get to inspect all the top prospects at the combine and request medical information from teams, as well as do their own medical work with top doctors), off-field concerns (as Daniel Jeremiah points out, he left scouting because it has become 70 percent character background work), coaches film (invaluable for scouting safeties and quarterbacks) and years of high-pressure evaluation experience.
On the other hand, relying on information from those who have an enormous incentive to lie and those who are often stuck too far into tradition may cause serious issues in terms of accuracy and evaluation.
For these boards, I’ve used different positional names to get a clearer picture of a player’s most often projected role, so that we can compare like to like. For example, I think a rush linebacker and an edge-setting defensive end are more alike than different, and that to categorize one as an “LB” and the other as a “DE” causes too much confusion—Anthony Barr is not similar to C.J. Mosley, even though both are considered “LBs,” while Jadeveon Clowney and Stephon Tuitt hardly play the same position, despite both being “DEs.”
I’m hardly the first to come up with this concept; it’s been discussed on Twitter for quite some time, and the first time I saw it implemented in a ranking was from Josh Norris at Rotoworld. Positions below:
First, let’s look at how the Top 200 shakes out if we only look at what the mainstream sources forecast, using their access to NFL teams and what the NFL tells them (as well as their own evaluations).
After that, you can take a look at how the evaluators graded the talent of the players they saw, and there are some pretty stark differences from the table above.
In a 200-person big board, it’s difficult to really get the differences broken down at a glance, although some stand out: Teddy Bridgewater fares better with the evaluators than the projectionists. Tom Savage barely cracks the top 200 for the evaluators, while the projectionists were more optimistic. It should be noted that the forecasters had a clear split with Savage, with nearly half of them projecting a top 64 (but not top 40) appearance, and some others ranking him well outside the top 100.
At first, it might seem intuitive to simply look at the differences in rankings to see who disagrees with who the most, but it’s not particularly interesting if a player ranked 500th by one set of people gets ranked 400th by the other. The disagreements are magnified at the top—seeing a Top Five player in one board going in the second round of the other is more dramatic than 300 to 400. Talent distribution at the bottom is a little flatter, so smaller things can sway decisions than at the top, where it takes a generally big difference of opinion to matter.
So, I’ve largely corrected for that phenomenon with some dirty math and found the 42 biggest sticking points in the Top 300 of both boards, ranked in order of largest disagreement relative to their draft position:
The top disagreements by the forecasting crowd of the evaluators are all of players that are technicians with athletic or size-related deficiencies. Campanaro is an excellent and profoundly intelligent receiver with a good combine, but came in at 5’9″. Yawin Smallwood is instinctive and quick, but weighs less than 240 pounds. We all have had enough of the Teddy Bridgewater talk to be hardly surprised at the differences here, and Cody Hoffman’s prototypical size seems to impress the NFL (by proxy) but not the third-party draft services.
Just barely missing the cut were Jake Matthews and Greg Robinson, surprisingly enough, but that is largely because the differences between #2 and #5 are fairly big in this formula, and each group had one of the two tackles ranked at those spots (Matthews at #2 for the evaluators with Robinson at #5, and the reverse for the forecasters).
The other general category of differences include small-schoolers, where the evaluators were far more willing to bet on players from lesser-known foobtall factories than the forecasters.
The two groups are not constantly warring in their evals, though. They agreed far more often than disagreed (if that wasn’t the case, this would all be useless and no one knows anything. Even though we like to say that, the clear pick-by-pick performance curve tells us we know a few things), and the biggest agreements happened all over the board.
The most impressive even evaluations are usually through chance—you’re always going to end up with a number of players that happen to be in similar spots on the boards, just because over 1120 players were evaluated, and the amount of skill that the players possess is not random. Still, the amount of times they agreed by just a few positions is impressive. The biggest 44 agreements (again, through the quick math formula mentioned above) are below:
It’s hardly surprising that Jadeveon Clowney is the consensus #1 on every group of boards, and that Aaron Donald is a top ten pick to both groups, but it is sort of interesting that Dee Ford is just barely in the top 40, while Jimmie Ward and Davante Adams are just out. There’s a cluster around pick 100, as a bunch of players that are supposed to be “top 100″ talents could potentially get shoehorned in by both groups, and the players at the top seem to be barely draftable.
Here, the patterns aren’t clear. There’s a decent mix of small-school and big-school players, as well as a good mix of positions. Certainly, none of the top qurterbacks made the list, but McCarron and Mettenberger solidified their 96th and 72nd overall rankings.
Some players are easy to evaluate, and it just so happens that you’ll find a lot of agreements among the different Boards—no need to incoprorate an overriding reason or pattern.
That said, there were definitely a lot of players who caused a lot of consternation among the 34 different boards. By comparing the squared difference in their rankings to the overall likelihood of disagreement for a generalized pick spot, you can see which players are the most polarizing. It was important not to take the worst ranking and the best ranking and get the difference (though displayed here), simply because one off grade will throw the whole thing out of whack when really there is general consensus on a player.
Some are obvious, but some may catch you by surprise (again, the list below looked at all 34 boards, not just an average of the two consensus boards, so it’s not the same as above):
Players well known for causing controversy didn’t necessarily score high on the list. As you’ll see in a moment, one of the most controversial players in the draft is Jadeveon Clowney, but he is the least polarizing player in the rankings. Johnny Manziel barely made the cutoff, and was about as polarizing as “safe” pick Khalil Mack—who got every rank between 10 and 2 from the 34 boards (again, because of the difference of value between #2 and #10, volatility in the rankings mean more here than they do for a player ranked 14th overall bouncing between first and sixty-second).
There are a few basic things that get a player on this list: excellent play, but poor measureables (Lamarcus Joyner), injury (Dominique Easley), an uneven career (Will Sutton), and insane bullshit (Teddy Bridgewater).
For me, a big surprise was not seeing Telvin Smith, whose on-field play has been electric, but is well outside the size demands traditionally fit for his position. He just missed the cut off here, but the general thought on him seems more settled than I thought (which is still not very settled).
While the most polarizing players list doesn’t look much like the “biggest disagreements” list, the least polarizing players list does look like the “biggest agreements” list, which makes a lot of sense. The difference between “worst” and “best” rank doesn’t mean much here, largely because they were outliers instead of a good demonstration of the volatility.
Don’t worry about the “.5″ rankings—they were part of a system to assign players a rank to be averaged when a particular big board in question was too small to include them (I did not take any boards with fewer than 50 players, and even then only one). All that means is that at least one big board chose not to include them, and they therefore were penalized (the size of the penalty was directly proportional to the size of the big board).
Despite the fact that Greg Robinson was a point of contention between the two different sets of boards, there was still significant agreement that he was a top pick, and he generally floated in between two and six—unlike Khalil Mack, who was all over the top ten.
I didn’t expect to see Kelvin Benjamin, who’s movement in the first round halfway through the offseason was criticized by a number of people, given the fact that he has inconsistent hands, is a mediocre route-runner and has shown limited versatility despite incredible production at Florida State. It seems that even in a rich receiver class, people of all flavors were willing to forgive his spotty development for his size and speed.
Finally, you can look at the full consensus of picks. There are two separate Top 200 charts that are consensus, because we can either treat each category separately (the average of the “forecasters” and “evaluators”) or treat each board separately (averaging all 34 draft boards). Below is that first board, the average of the two consensus boards:
That board corrects for the fact that there were almost twice as many “evaluator” boards as “forecaster” boards, by weighting the two groups equally. On the other hand, you could avoid that and simply average out every board (functionally weighting the evaluators 67% and the forecasters 33%):
I used a lot of Big Boards for this work, naturally. The online resources used were Eric Galko’s Optimum Scouting, Dan Kadar and Matthew Fairburn’s SB Nation Mocking the Draft site, the National Football Post, Rob Rang’s Big Board at CBS, the eDraft family of boards (Vincent Frank, Luke Inman, Josh Collacchi, Matt Johnson, Derrik Klassen, Blake Meek, Vance Meek, Blake Arnold, Ryan Ratty, Patrick Conn and Richard Gatenby), Ben Natan’s board at With the First Pick, Andrew Parson’s board at Draft Mecca, Drafttek’s Big Board, James Christensen’s board at NEPatriotsDraft, Mel Kiper’s Big Board at ESPN Insider, Todd McShay’s Big Board with Scouts, Inc. at ESPN Insider, Jon Dove’s Big Board at Draft Breakdown, Tony Pauline’s board at Draft Insider, Ryan McCrystal’s Big Board at Draft Ace, Josh Norris’ Big Board at Rotoworld, Charlie Campbell’s Big Board at Walter Football, Path to the Draft’s Daniel Jeremiah’s Big Board at NFL.com, Gil Brandt’s Big Board at NFL.com, and the NFL.com official rankings (run by Nolan Nawrocki—they match his published big boards 1-for-1).
I also purchased draft guides from Bryan Perez at First Round Grade (purchase here for $4.99), Dan Shonka at Ourlads (purchase here for $32.00), Mike Loyko at NEPatriotsDraft (purchase here for $16.00), Kyle Crabbs at NDT Scouting (purchase here for $10.00) and Dane Brugler at SportsXchange and CBS (purchase here for $4.99 – but you can find his top 100 here with a short blurb for each of the 100 here).
I also purchased two draft guides (Rookie Scouting Portfolio from Matt Waldman and Chris Trapasso’s Guide—email him for it at Chris.Trapasso@gmail.com), but they do not have an overall Big Board I could include (Waldman only sells work done for offensive skill players because it has a dynasty fantasy football focus).
If you’re interested in going against the grain, the most divergent ratings were from NDT Scouting’s report, the National Football Post and Ben Natan in that order. If you’d rather find a few people who better reflect the consensus of peers, Daniel Jeremiah ranks first, followed by Mike Loyko and Tony Pauline.
My advice: just print off the last table as a quick cheat sheet when you head into whatever draft party you’re hanging out at. Printable copy here.
With the NFL Draft finally approaching, getting a consensus on the talents of the prospects may give us the best possible understanding of who a team selects or whether or not they did a good job (as far as we can tell). Unfortunately, not every board is constructed with the same goals in mind or with the same amount of information available to them.
NFL Draft Tracker, a great website for getting detailed reports on prospects as well as a general understanding of the theories driving the draft, made a good point not too long ago: consensus boards don’t make a lot of sense if we don’t discriminate between those who are purely evaluating player talent and those who are attempting to reflect the consensus of the league.
That’s fine—these draft resources generally answer two questions: 1) “Who’s Good?” and 2) “Who Are We Going to Pick?”
The good news is that we can easily do that. For the most part, while insiders like Rob Rang and Daniel Jeremiah do an excellent job pointing out how they differ from mainstream views, the major networks reflect often the consensus of the league, and their draft rankings do not change much from each other. At the very least, their low variance suggest that their rankings are influenced by what they hear around the league, if not driven by it.
I was initially skeptical of this approach, but when I found unusual clusters of rankings by the mainstream draft services (especially those at the same networks) but not among the third-party services, I was fairly convinced they were either stealing evaluations or working from the same inside information—it should be extremely rare to find clusters when you’re ranking around 70 or 100 (flat talent distribution means small differences of opinion cause wide ranking divergence), but among the more established services, it was not.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think they’re stealing draft evaluations from each other, I just think that when they start hearing the same things from the same people over and over again, it affects the process. The fact that many of the NFL-influenced draft boards showed much more week-to-week volatility than the film-dependent draft boards further solidifies this approach.
As a result, we can construct two consensus boards. I ended up including 34 total boards (listed at the bottom of this post), with 22 of the boards categorized as coming from “evaluators” and the other 12 coming from people categorized as “projectors.”
Some of folks (notably Bob McGinn of the Milawaukee Journal-Sentinel) have not released a Top 100 yet, but we’ll do our best regardless.
The distinction wasn’t necessarily arbitrary, but I did make some calls. A simple divergence test on the boards actually produced stark differences between the two groups—with all of the boards with similar ranks coming from those who have insider access and the others coming from a mix of those with high-level access who haven’t incorporated outside input and somewhat amateur evaluation boards (here, “amateur” is used not as a reference to evaluation talent, but recognition).
There are drawbacks and benefits to either approach. Getting information from NFL generally means getting information from a source that has more access to knowledge of injuries (they get to inspect all the top prospects at the combine and request medical information from teams, as well as do their own medical work with top doctors), off-field concerns (as Daniel Jeremiah points out, he left scouting because it has become 70 percent character background work), coaches film (invaluable for scouting safeties and quarterbacks) and years of high-pressure evaluation experience.
On the other hand, relying on information from those who have an enormous incentive to lie and those who are often stuck too far into tradition may cause serious issues in terms of accuracy and evaluation.
For these boards, I’ve used different positional names to get a clearer picture of a player’s most often projected role, so that we can compare like to like. For example, I think a rush linebacker and an edge-setting defensive end are more alike than different, and that to categorize one as an “LB” and the other as a “DE” causes too much confusion—Anthony Barr is not similar to C.J. Mosley, even though both are considered “LBs,” while Jadeveon Clowney and Stephon Tuitt hardly play the same position, despite both being “DEs.”
I’m hardly the first to come up with this concept; it’s been discussed on Twitter for quite some time, and the first time I saw it implemented in a ranking was from Josh Norris at Rotoworld. Positions below:
| Positions | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QB | OT | IL | TE | RB | SB | SE | FL | SL |
| Quarterback | Offensive Tackle | Interior Offensive Line | Tight End | Running Back | Scatback or Offensive Weapon | Split End WR | Flanker WR | Slot WR |
| ER | 5T | 3T | NT | CB | OB | MB | SS | FS |
| Edge Rusher | Two-Gap DT | Interior Pass-Rusher | Nose Tackle, 0- or 1-technique | Cornerback | Off-Ball Outside Linebacker | Middle or Inside Linebacker | Strong Safety | Free Safety |
First, let’s look at how the Top 200 shakes out if we only look at what the mainstream sources forecast, using their access to NFL teams and what the NFL tells them (as well as their own evaluations).
| Forecaster Consensus Board | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Name | Position | Pos Rk | School |
| 1 | Jadeveon Clowney | ER | 1 | South Carolina |
| 2 | Greg Robinson | OT | 1 | Auburn |
| 3 | Sammy Watkins | SE | 1 | Clemson |
| 4 | Khalil Mack | OB | 1 | Buffalo |
| 5 | Jake Matthews | OT | 2 | Texas A&M |
| 6 | Taylor Lewan | OT | 3 | Michigan |
| 7 | Mike Evans | SE | 2 | Texas A&M |
| 8 | Anthony Barr | ER | 2 | UCLA |
| 9 | Justin Gilbert | CB | 1 | Oklahoma State |
| 10 | Eric Ebron | TE | 1 | North Carolina |
| 11 | Aaron Donald | 3T | 1 | Pittsburgh |
| 12 | Odell Beckham | SE | 3 | LSU |
| 13 | C.J. Mosley | MB | 1 | Alabama |
| 14 | Ha Ha Clinton-Dix | FS | 1 | Alabama |
| 15 | Blake Bortles | QB | 1 | UCF |
| 16 | Ryan Shazier | OB | 2 | Ohio State |
| 17 | Calvin Pryor | SS | 1 | Louisville |
| 18 | Teddy Bridgewater | QB | 2 | Louisville |
| 19 | Zack Martin | IL | 1 | Notre Dame |
| 20 | Darqueze Dennard | CB | 2 | Michigan State |
| 21 | Johnny Manziel | QB | 3 | Texas A&M |
| 22 | Brandin Cooks | SL | 1 | Oregon State |
| 23 | Marqise Lee | SE | 4 | Southern California |
| 24 | Kyle Fuller | CB | 3 | Virginia Tech |
| 25 | Ra’Shede Hageman | 5T | 1 | Minnesota |
| 26 | Kony Ealy | ER | 3 | Missouri |
| 27 | Timmy Jernigan | NT | 1 | Florida State |
| 28 | Louis Nix | NT | 2 | Notre Dame |
| 29 | Stephon Tuitt | 5T | 2 | Notre Dame |
| 30 | Cyrus Kouandjio | OT | 4 | Alabama |
| 31 | Derek Carr | QB | 4 | Fresno State |
| 32 | Kelvin Benjamin | SE | 5 | Florida State |
| 33 | Bradley Roby | CB | 4 | Ohio State |
| 34 | Carlos Hyde | RB | 1 | Ohio State |
| 35 | Xavier Su’a-Filo | IL | 2 | UCLA |
| 36 | Dee Ford | ER | 4 | Auburn |
| 37 | Jason Verrett | CB | 5 | TCU |
| 38 | Morgan Moses | OT | 5 | Virginia |
| 39 | Austin Seferian-Jenkins | TE | 2 | Washington |
| 40 | Jace Amaro | TE | 3 | Texas Tech |
| 41 | Davante Adams | FL | 1 | Fresno State |
| 42 | Joel Bitonio | OT | 6 | Nevada |
| 43 | Allen Robinson | FL | 2 | Penn State |
| 44 | Tre Mason | RB | 2 | Auburn |
| 45 | Jordan Matthews | SE | 6 | Vanderbilt |
| 46 | Kyle Van Noy | OB | 3 | Brigham Young |
| 47 | Jimmie Ward | FS | 2 | Northern Illinois |
| 48 | Bishop Sankey | RB | 3 | Washington |
| 49 | Jimmy Garoppolo | QB | 5 | Eastern Illinois |
| 50 | Troy Niklas | TE | 4 | Notre Dame |
| 51 | Dominique Easley | 3T | 2 | Florida |
| 52 | Jeremiah Attaochu | ER | 5 | Georgia Tech |
| 53 | Ja’Wuan James | OT | 7 | Tennessee |
| 54 | Jeremy Hill | RB | 4 | LSU |
| 55 | Scott Crichton | ER | 6 | Oregon State |
| 56 | Demarcus Lawrence | ER | 7 | Boise State |
| 57 | Gabe Jackson | IL | 3 | Mississippi State |
| 58 | Trent Murphy | ER | 8 | Stanford |
| 59 | Jarvis Landry | FL | 3 | LSU |
| 60 | Antonio Richardson | OT | 8 | Tennessee |
| 61 | Deone Bucannon | SS | 2 | Washington State |
| 62 | Donte Moncrief | SE | 7 | Ole Miss |
| 63 | Weston Richburg | IL | 4 | Colorado State |
| 64 | Lamarcus Joyner | FS | 3 | Florida State |
| 65 | Keith McGill | CB | 6 | Utah |
| 66 | David Yankey | IL | 5 | Stanford |
| 67 | Ego Ferguson | 3T | 3 | LSU |
| 68 | Paul Richardson | SE | 8 | Colorado |
| 69 | DaQuan Jones | NT | 3 | Penn State |
| 70 | Zach Mettenberger | QB | 6 | LSU |
| 71 | Stanley Jean-Baptiste | CB | 7 | Nebraska |
| 72 | Cyril Richardson | IL | 6 | Baylor |
| 73 | Marcus Roberson | CB | 8 | Florida |
| 74 | Cody Latimer | SE | 9 | Indiana |
| 75 | Chris Borland | MB | 2 | Wisconsin |
| 76 | Marcus Martin | IL | 7 | Southern California |
| 77 | Ka’Deem Carey | RB | 5 | Arizona |
| 78 | Bashaud Breeland | CB | 9 | Clemson |
| 79 | Anthony Johnson | 3T | 4 | LSU |
| 80 | Christian Jones | OB | 4 | Florida State |
| 81 | C.J. Fiedorowicz | TE | 5 | Iowa |
| 82 | Charles Sims | RB | 6 | West Virginia |
| 83 | Marcus Smith | ER | 9 | Louisville |
| 84 | Jack Mewhort | OT | 9 | Ohio State |
| 85 | Will Sutton | 3T | 5 | Arizona State |
| 86 | Brandon Coleman | SE | 10 | Rutgers |
| 87 | Dri Archer | SB | 1 | Kent State |
| 88 | Martavis Bryant | SE | 11 | Clemson |
| 89 | Daniel McCullers | NT | 4 | Tennessee |
| 90 | Kareem Martin | ER | 10 | North Carolina |
| 91 | Brandon Thomas | IL | 8 | Clemson |
| 92 | Terrance West | RB | 7 | Towson |
| 93 | Phillip Gaines | CB | 10 | Rice |
| 94 | A.J. McCarron | QB | 7 | Alabama |
| 95 | Carl Bradford | ER | 11 | Arizona State |
| 96 | Jackson Jeffcoat | ER | 12 | Texas |
| 97 | Jared Abbrederis | FL | 4 | Wisconsin |
| 98 | Andre Williams | RB | 8 | Boston College |
| 99 | Jaylen Watkins | CB | 11 | Florida |
| 100 | Kelcy Quarles | 3T | 6 | South Carolina |
| 101 | Josh Huff | SL | 2 | Oregon |
| 102 | Lache Seastrunk | RB | 9 | Baylor |
| 103 | Justin Ellis | NT | 5 | Louisiana Tech |
| 104 | Cameron Fleming | OT | 10 | Stanford |
| 105 | Travis Swanson | IL | 9 | Arkansas |
| 106 | Chris Smith | ER | 13 | Arkansas |
| 107 | Bruce Ellington | SL | 3 | South Carolina |
| 108 | Pierre Desir | CB | 12 | Lindenwood |
| 109 | Taylor Hart | 5T | 3 | Oregon |
| 110 | Caraun Reid | 3T | 7 | Princeton |
| 111 | Loucheiz Purifoy | CB | 13 | Florida |
| 112 | Tom Savage | QB | 8 | Pittsburgh |
| 113 | Devonta Freeman | SB | 2 | Florida State |
| 114 | Billy Turner | OT | 11 | North Dakota State |
| 115 | Telvin Smith | MB | 3 | Florida State |
| 116 | Ed Stinson | 5T | 4 | Alabama |
| 117 | Robert Herron | SL | 4 | Wyoming |
| 118 | Ed Reynolds | FS | 4 | Stanford |
| 119 | Adrian Hubbard | ER | 14 | Alabama |
| 120 | De’Anthony Thomas | SB | 3 | Oregon |
| 121 | Dion Bailey | SS | 3 | Southern California |
| 122 | Trai Turner | IL | 10 | LSU |
| 123 | Aaron Murray | QB | 9 | Georgia |
| 124 | Kevin Norwood | FL | 5 | Alabama |
| 125 | Brent Urban | 5T | 5 | Virginia |
| 126 | Terrence Brooks | FS | 5 | Florida State |
| 127 | Anthony Steen | IL | 11 | Alabama |
| 128 | Shayne Skov | MB | 4 | Stanford |
| 129 | Logan Thomas | QB | 10 | Virginia Tech |
| 130 | Deandre Coleman | 5T | 6 | California |
| 131 | Storm Johnson | RB | 10 | UCF |
| 132 | Jordan Tripp | ER | 15 | Montana |
| 133 | Seantrel Henderson | OT | 12 | Miami (Fla.) |
| 134 | Trevor Reilly | ER | 16 | Utah |
| 135 | James Hurst | OT | 13 | North Carolina |
| 136 | Craig Loston | SS | 4 | LSU |
| 137 | Aaron Colvin | CB | 14 | Oklahoma |
| 138 | E.J. Gaines | CB | 15 | Missouri |
| 139 | Lamin Barrow | MB | 5 | LSU |
| 140 | James Gayle | ER | 17 | Virginia Tech |
| 141 | Jordan Zumwalt | MB | 6 | UCLA |
| 142 | Brandon Linder | IL | 12 | Miami (Fla.) |
| 143 | Dezmen Southward | SS | 5 | Wisconsin |
| 144 | Cassius Marsh | ER | 18 | UCLA |
| 145 | Preston Brown | MB | 7 | Louisville |
| 146 | Ross Cockrell | CB | 16 | Duke |
| 147 | Rashaad Reynolds | CB | 17 | Oregon State |
| 148 | Will Clarke | 5T | 7 | West Virginia |
| 149 | Ahmad Dixon | SS | 6 | Baylor |
| 150 | Marqueston Huff | FS | 6 | Wyoming |
| 151 | Jalen Saunders | SL | 5 | Oklahoma |
| 152 | Christian Kirksey | OB | 5 | Iowa |
| 153 | Shamar Stephen | 3T | 8 | Connecticut |
| 154 | Walt Aikens | CB | 18 | Liberty |
| 155 | David Fales | QB | 11 | San Jose State |
| 156 | Chris Watt | IL | 13 | Notre Dame |
| 157 | Tajh Boyd | QB | 12 | Clemson |
| 158 | Vic Hampton | CB | 19 | South Carolina |
| 159 | Prince Shembo | OB | 6 | Notre Dame |
| 160 | Colt Lyerla | TE | 6 | Oregon |
| 161 | Jeoffrey Pagan | 5T | 8 | Alabama |
| 162 | Richard Rodgers | TE | 7 | California |
| 163 | Ronald Powell | ER | 19 | Florida |
| 164 | Wesley Johnson | IL | 14 | Vanderbilt |
| 165 | Max Bullough | MB | 8 | Michigan State |
| 166 | Gabe Ikard | IL | 15 | Oklahoma |
| 167 | Mike Davis | SE | 12 | Texas |
| 168 | Laurent Duvernay-Tardif | OT | 14 | McGill (Canada) |
| 169 | Antone Exum | CB | 20 | Virginia Tech |
| 170 | Brock Vereen | SS | 7 | Minnesota |
| 171 | T.J. Jones | SL | 6 | Notre Dame |
| 172 | Kendall James | CB | 21 | Maine |
| 173 | Zach Fulton | IL | 16 | Tennessee |
| 174 | Yawin Smallwood | MB | 9 | Connecticut |
| 175 | Andre Hal | CB | 22 | Vanderbilt |
| 176 | John Urschel | IL | 17 | Penn State |
| 177 | Russell Bodine | IL | 18 | North Carolina |
| 178 | Arthur Lynch | TE | 8 | Georgia |
| 179 | Dontae Johnson | CB | 23 | North Carolina State |
| 180 | Larry Webster | ER | 20 | Bloomsburg |
| 181 | Justin Britt | OT | 15 | Missouri |
| 182 | Morgan Breslin | ER | 21 | Southern California |
| 183 | Shaquelle Evans | SE | 13 | UCLA |
| 184 | Bryan Stork | IL | 19 | Florida State |
| 185 | A.C. Leonard | TE | 9 | Tennessee State |
| 186 | Jon Halapio | IL | 20 | Florida |
| 187 | Jeff Janis | SE | 14 | Saginaw Valley |
| 188 | Michael Sam | ER | 22 | Missouri |
| 189 | Devin Street | SE | 15 | Pittsburgh |
| 190 | John Brown | SL | 7 | Pittsburg State |
| 191 | Corey Linsley | IL | 21 | Ohio State |
| 192 | Chris Davis | CB | 24 | Auburn |
| 193 | Jerick McKinnon | SB | 4 | Georgia Southern |
| 194 | Jonathan Dowling | FS | 7 | Western Kentucky |
| 195 | Howard Jones | ER | 23 | Shepherd |
| 196 | Brett Smith | QB | 13 | Wyoming |
| 197 | Marcel Jensen | TE | 10 | Fresno State |
| 198 | Ethan Westbrooks | ER | 24 | West Texas A&M |
| 199 | Aaron Lynch | ER | 25 | South Florida |
| 200 | Lorenzo Taliaferro | RB | 11 | Coastal Carolina |
After that, you can take a look at how the evaluators graded the talent of the players they saw, and there are some pretty stark differences from the table above.
| Evaluator Consensus Board | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Name | Position | Pos Rk | School |
| 1 | Jadeveon Clowney | ER | 1 | South Carolina |
| 2 | Jake Matthews | OT | 1 | Texas A&M |
| 3 | Teddy Bridgewater | QB | 1 | Louisville |
| 4 | Khalil Mack | OB | 1 | Buffalo |
| 5 | Greg Robinson | OT | 2 | Auburn |
| 6 | Sammy Watkins | SE | 1 | Clemson |
| 7 | C.J. Mosley | MB | 1 | Alabama |
| 8 | Eric Ebron | TE | 1 | North Carolina |
| 9 | Anthony Barr | ER | 2 | UCLA |
| 10 | Aaron Donald | 3T | 1 | Pittsburgh |
| 11 | Darqueze Dennard | CB | 1 | Michigan State |
| 12 | Derek Carr | QB | 2 | Fresno State |
| 13 | Johnny Manziel | QB | 3 | Texas A&M |
| 14 | Ra’Shede Hageman | 5T | 1 | Minnesota |
| 15 | Louis Nix | NT | 1 | Notre Dame |
| 16 | Mike Evans | SE | 2 | Texas A&M |
| 17 | Taylor Lewan | OT | 3 | Michigan |
| 18 | Jason Verrett | CB | 2 | TCU |
| 19 | Zack Martin | IL | 1 | Notre Dame |
| 20 | Blake Bortles | QB | 4 | UCF |
| 21 | Odell Beckham | SE | 3 | LSU |
| 22 | Ha Ha Clinton-Dix | FS | 1 | Alabama |
| 23 | Marqise Lee | SE | 4 | Southern California |
| 24 | Kony Ealy | ER | 3 | Missouri |
| 25 | Brandin Cooks | SL | 1 | Oregon State |
| 26 | Justin Gilbert | CB | 3 | Oklahoma State |
| 27 | Bradley Roby | CB | 4 | Ohio State |
| 28 | Ryan Shazier | OB | 2 | Ohio State |
| 29 | Jace Amaro | TE | 2 | Texas Tech |
| 30 | Xavier Su’a-Filo | IL | 2 | UCLA |
| 31 | Kyle Fuller | CB | 5 | Virginia Tech |
| 32 | Calvin Pryor | SS | 1 | Louisville |
| 33 | Dominique Easley | 3T | 2 | Florida |
| 34 | Timmy Jernigan | NT | 2 | Florida State |
| 35 | Dee Ford | ER | 4 | Auburn |
| 36 | Kyle Van Noy | OB | 3 | Brigham Young |
| 37 | Jeremiah Attaochu | ER | 5 | Georgia Tech |
| 38 | Jordan Matthews | SE | 5 | Vanderbilt |
| 39 | Allen Robinson | FL | 1 | Penn State |
| 40 | Gabe Jackson | IL | 3 | Mississippi State |
| 41 | Cyrus Kouandjio | OT | 4 | Alabama |
| 42 | Kelvin Benjamin | SE | 6 | Florida State |
| 43 | David Yankey | IL | 4 | Stanford |
| 44 | Davante Adams | FL | 2 | Fresno State |
| 45 | Jimmie Ward | FS | 2 | Northern Illinois |
| 46 | Stephon Tuitt | 5T | 2 | Notre Dame |
| 47 | Carlos Hyde | RB | 1 | Ohio State |
| 48 | Lamarcus Joyner | FS | 3 | Florida State |
| 49 | Will Sutton | 3T | 3 | Arizona State |
| 50 | Austin Seferian-Jenkins | TE | 3 | Washington |
| 51 | Scott Crichton | ER | 6 | Oregon State |
| 52 | Jarvis Landry | FL | 3 | LSU |
| 53 | Troy Niklas | TE | 4 | Notre Dame |
| 54 | Pierre Desir | CB | 6 | Lindenwood |
| 55 | Bishop Sankey | RB | 2 | Washington |
| 56 | Chris Borland | MB | 2 | Wisconsin |
| 57 | Deone Bucannon | SS | 2 | Washington State |
| 58 | Marcus Smith | ER | 7 | Louisville |
| 59 | Morgan Moses | OT | 5 | Virginia |
| 60 | Cyril Richardson | IL | 5 | Baylor |
| 61 | Trent Murphy | ER | 8 | Stanford |
| 62 | DaQuan Jones | NT | 3 | Penn State |
| 63 | Antonio Richardson | OT | 6 | Tennessee |
| 64 | Telvin Smith | MB | 3 | Florida State |
| 65 | Demarcus Lawrence | ER | 9 | Boise State |
| 66 | Billy Turner | OT | 7 | North Dakota State |
| 67 | Shayne Skov | MB | 4 | Stanford |
| 68 | Jack Mewhort | OT | 8 | Ohio State |
| 69 | Tre Mason | RB | 3 | Auburn |
| 70 | Jimmy Garoppolo | QB | 5 | Eastern Illinois |
| 71 | Zach Mettenberger | QB | 6 | LSU |
| 72 | Weston Richburg | IL | 6 | Colorado State |
| 73 | Stanley Jean-Baptiste | CB | 7 | Nebraska |
| 74 | Travis Swanson | IL | 7 | Arkansas |
| 75 | Charles Sims | RB | 4 | West Virginia |
| 76 | Carl Bradford | ER | 10 | Arizona State |
| 77 | Lache Seastrunk | RB | 5 | Baylor |
| 78 | Christian Jones | OB | 4 | Florida State |
| 79 | Chris Smith | ER | 11 | Arkansas |
| 80 | Yawin Smallwood | MB | 5 | Connecticut |
| 81 | Dion Bailey | SS | 3 | Southern California |
| 82 | Jared Abbrederis | FL | 4 | Wisconsin |
| 83 | Ka’Deem Carey | RB | 6 | Arizona |
| 84 | Joel Bitonio | OT | 9 | Nevada |
| 85 | Donte Moncrief | SE | 7 | Ole Miss |
| 86 | Ja’Wuan James | OT | 10 | Tennessee |
| 87 | C.J. Fiedorowicz | TE | 5 | Iowa |
| 88 | David Fales | QB | 7 | San Jose State |
| 89 | Ego Ferguson | 3T | 4 | LSU |
| 90 | Jackson Jeffcoat | ER | 12 | Texas |
| 91 | Aaron Lynch | ER | 13 | South Florida |
| 92 | Seantrel Henderson | OT | 11 | Miami (Fla.) |
| 93 | Bruce Ellington | SL | 2 | South Carolina |
| 94 | Paul Richardson | SE | 8 | Colorado |
| 95 | Marcus Roberson | CB | 8 | Florida |
| 96 | Jeremy Hill | RB | 7 | LSU |
| 97 | E.J. Gaines | CB | 9 | Missouri |
| 98 | Logan Thomas | QB | 8 | Virginia Tech |
| 99 | Ahmad Dixon | SS | 4 | Baylor |
| 100 | Martavis Bryant | SE | 9 | Clemson |
| 101 | Jaylen Watkins | CB | 10 | Florida |
| 102 | A.J. McCarron | QB | 9 | Alabama |
| 103 | Brandon Thomas | IL | 8 | Clemson |
| 104 | Caraun Reid | 3T | 5 | Princeton |
| 105 | Devonta Freeman | SB | 1 | Florida State |
| 106 | Kareem Martin | ER | 14 | North Carolina |
| 107 | Keith McGill | CB | 11 | Utah |
| 108 | Josh Huff | SL | 3 | Oregon |
| 109 | Aaron Murray | QB | 10 | Georgia |
| 110 | Terrance Mitchell | CB | 12 | Oregon |
| 111 | Trevor Reilly | ER | 15 | Utah |
| 112 | Brett Smith | QB | 11 | Wyoming |
| 113 | Brandon Coleman | SE | 10 | Rutgers |
| 114 | Kelcy Quarles | 3T | 6 | South Carolina |
| 115 | Terrence Brooks | FS | 4 | Florida State |
| 116 | Marcus Martin | IL | 9 | Southern California |
| 117 | Jordan Zumwalt | MB | 6 | UCLA |
| 118 | Ed Reynolds | FS | 5 | Stanford |
| 119 | Vic Hampton | CB | 13 | South Carolina |
| 120 | James Hurst | OT | 12 | North Carolina |
| 121 | Andre Williams | RB | 8 | Boston College |
| 122 | Antone Exum | CB | 14 | Virginia Tech |
| 123 | Cody Latimer | SE | 11 | Indiana |
| 124 | Jordan Tripp | ER | 16 | Montana |
| 125 | Taylor Hart | 5T | 3 | Oregon |
| 126 | Isaiah Crowell | RB | 9 | Alabama State |
| 127 | Phillip Gaines | CB | 15 | Rice |
| 128 | Daniel McCullers | NT | 4 | Tennessee |
| 129 | Loucheiz Purifoy | CB | 16 | Florida |
| 130 | Anthony Steen | IL | 10 | Alabama |
| 131 | Trai Turner | IL | 11 | LSU |
| 132 | Will Clarke | 5T | 4 | West Virginia |
| 133 | Craig Loston | SS | 5 | LSU |
| 134 | Cody Hoffman | SE | 12 | Brigham Young |
| 135 | Justin Ellis | NT | 5 | Louisiana Tech |
| 136 | Adrian Hubbard | ER | 17 | Alabama |
| 137 | Richard Rodgers | TE | 6 | California |
| 138 | Andre Hal | CB | 17 | Vanderbilt |
| 139 | Aaron Colvin | CB | 18 | Oklahoma |
| 140 | Marion Grice | RB | 10 | Arizona State |
| 141 | Arthur Lynch | TE | 7 | Georgia |
| 142 | Terrance West | RB | 11 | Towson |
| 143 | Tyler Larsen | IL | 12 | Utah State |
| 144 | James Gayle | ER | 18 | Virginia Tech |
| 145 | Sean Parker | SS | 6 | Washington |
| 146 | Colt Lyerla | TE | 8 | Oregon |
| 147 | Walt Aikens | CB | 19 | Liberty |
| 148 | Michael Campanaro | SL | 4 | Wake Forest |
| 149 | Bashaud Breeland | CB | 20 | Clemson |
| 150 | Michael Sam | ER | 19 | Missouri |
| 151 | Bryan Stork | IL | 13 | Florida State |
| 152 | Robert Herron | SL | 5 | Wyoming |
| 153 | Jon Halapio | IL | 14 | Florida |
| 154 | Christian Kirksey | OB | 5 | Iowa |
| 155 | Jalen Saunders | SL | 6 | Oklahoma |
| 156 | Ronald Powell | ER | 20 | Florida |
| 157 | Dakota Dozier | IL | 15 | Furman |
| 158 | Brent Urban | 5T | 5 | Virginia |
| 159 | Storm Johnson | RB | 12 | UCF |
| 160 | Kevin Pierre-Louis | ER | 21 | Boston College |
| 161 | Avery Williamson | MB | 7 | Kentucky |
| 162 | Cameron Fleming | OT | 13 | Stanford |
| 163 | Rashaad Reynolds | CB | 21 | Oregon State |
| 164 | De’Anthony Thomas | SB | 2 | Oregon |
| 165 | George Uko | 3T | 7 | Southern California |
| 166 | James White | RB | 13 | Wisconsin |
| 167 | Dri Archer | SB | 3 | Kent State |
| 168 | Anthony Johnson | 3T | 8 | LSU |
| 169 | Tajh Boyd | QB | 12 | Clemson |
| 170 | Deandre Coleman | 5T | 6 | California |
| 171 | Crockett Gillmore | TE | 9 | Colorado State |
| 172 | Charles Leno | IL | 16 | Boise State |
| 173 | Michael Schofield | OT | 14 | Michigan |
| 174 | Ed Stinson | 5T | 7 | Alabama |
| 175 | Ross Cockrell | CB | 22 | Duke |
| 176 | Gabe Ikard | IL | 17 | Oklahoma |
| 177 | Jeff Janis | SE | 13 | Saginaw Valley |
| 178 | Xavier Grimble | TE | 10 | Southern California |
| 179 | Vinnie Sunseri | SS | 7 | Alabama |
| 180 | Jay Bromley | 3T | 9 | Syracuse |
| 181 | Zach Kerr | NT | 6 | Delaware |
| 182 | Wesley Johnson | IL | 18 | Vanderbilt |
| 183 | Nevin Lawson | CB | 23 | Utah State |
| 184 | Devin Street | SE | 14 | Pittsburgh |
| 185 | Kevin Norwood | FL | 5 | Alabama |
| 186 | Cassius Marsh | ER | 22 | UCLA |
| 187 | Chris Watt | IL | 19 | Notre Dame |
| 188 | Andrew Jackson | MB | 8 | Western Kentucky |
| 189 | T.J. Jones | SL | 7 | Notre Dame |
| 190 | Ryan Carrethers | NT | 7 | Arkansas State |
| 191 | Max Bullough | MB | 9 | Michigan State |
| 192 | Stephen Morris | QB | 13 | Miami (Fla.) |
| 193 | Jeremy Gallon | SL | 8 | Michigan |
| 194 | Tom Savage | QB | 14 | Pittsburgh |
| 195 | Tre Boston | FS | 6 | North Carolina |
| 196 | Devon Kennard | ER | 23 | Southern California |
| 197 | Spencer Long | IL | 20 | Nebraska |
| 198 | Calvin Barnett | 3T | 10 | Oklahoma State |
| 199 | Brandon Linder | IL | 21 | Miami (Fla.) |
| 200 | Keith Wenning | QB | 15 | Ball State |
In a 200-person big board, it’s difficult to really get the differences broken down at a glance, although some stand out: Teddy Bridgewater fares better with the evaluators than the projectionists. Tom Savage barely cracks the top 200 for the evaluators, while the projectionists were more optimistic. It should be noted that the forecasters had a clear split with Savage, with nearly half of them projecting a top 64 (but not top 40) appearance, and some others ranking him well outside the top 100.
At first, it might seem intuitive to simply look at the differences in rankings to see who disagrees with who the most, but it’s not particularly interesting if a player ranked 500th by one set of people gets ranked 400th by the other. The disagreements are magnified at the top—seeing a Top Five player in one board going in the second round of the other is more dramatic than 300 to 400. Talent distribution at the bottom is a little flatter, so smaller things can sway decisions than at the top, where it takes a generally big difference of opinion to matter.
So, I’ve largely corrected for that phenomenon with some dirty math and found the 42 biggest sticking points in the Top 300 of both boards, ranked in order of largest disagreement relative to their draft position:
| Biggest Disagreements | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Difference Rank | Name | Position | School | Evaluators | Forecasters | Overall Rank |
| 1 | Michael Campanaro | SL | Wake Forest | 148 | 342 | 199 |
| 2 | Teddy Bridgewater | QB | Louisville | 3 | 18 | 6 |
| 3 | Sean Parker | SS | Washington | 145 | 315 | 197 |
| 4 | Aaron Lynch | ER | South Florida | 91 | 199 | 112 |
| 5 | Cody Hoffman | SE | Brigham Young | 134 | 274 | 174 |
| 6 | Yawin Smallwood | MB | Connecticut | 80 | 174 | 100 |
| 7 | Terrance Mitchell | CB | Oregon | 110 | 226 | 140 |
| 8 | Anthony Johnson | 3T | LSU | 168 | 78 | 133 |
| 9 | Jeoffrey Pagan | 5T | Alabama | 306 | 161 | 241 |
| 10 | Tyler Larsen | IL | Utah State | 143 | 269 | 170 |
| 11 | Dezmen Southward | SS | Wisconsin | 268 | 143 | 214 |
| 12 | Justin Gilbert | CB | Oklahoma State | 26 | 9 | 22 |
| 13 | Dri Archer | SB | Kent State | 167 | 87 | 132 |
| 14 | Kendall James | CB | Maine | 304 | 172 | 274 |
| 15 | Derek Carr | QB | Fresno State | 12 | 31 | 21 |
| 16 | Bashaud Breeland | CB | Clemson | 149 | 78 | 117 |
| 17 | Isaiah Crowell | RB | Alabama State | 126 | 227 | 164 |
| 18 | Pierre Desir | CB | Lindenwood | 54 | 108 | 65 |
| 19 | Shayne Skov | MB | Stanford | 67 | 128 | 81 |
| 20 | Taylor Lewan | OT | Michigan | 17 | 6 | 13 |
| 21 | Joel Bitonio | OT | Nevada | 84 | 42 | 67 |
| 22 | Zach Kerr | NT | Delaware | 181 | 303 | 215 |
| 23 | Brett Smith | QB | Wyoming | 112 | 196 | 138 |
| 24 | Tom Savage | QB | Pittsburgh | 194 | 112 | 145 |
| 25 | David Fales | QB | San Jose State | 88 | 155 | 108 |
| 26 | Telvin Smith | MB | Florida State | 64 | 115 | 75 |
| 27 | Shamar Stephen | 3T | Connecticut | 247 | 153 | 211 |
| 28 | Jason Verrett | CB | TCU | 18 | 37 | 23 |
| 29 | John Urschel | IL | Penn State | 279 | 176 | 239 |
| 30 | Lamin Barrow | MB | LSU | 225 | 139 | 171 |
| 31 | Jeremy Hill | RB | LSU | 96 | 54 | 82 |
| 32 | Avery Williamson | MB | Kentucky | 161 | 256 | 182 |
| 33 | Billy Turner | OT | North Dakota State | 66 | 114 | 73 |
| 34 | Justin Britt | OT | Missouri | 281 | 181 | 240 |
| 35 | Mike Evans | SE | Texas A&M | 16 | 7 | 11 |
| 36 | Cody Latimer | SE | Indiana | 123 | 74 | 99 |
| 37 | Will Sutton | 3T | Arizona State | 49 | 85 | 57 |
| 38 | Louis Nix | NT | Notre Dame | 14 | 28 | 20 |
| 39 | Marion Grice | RB | Arizona State | 140 | 216 | 165 |
| 40 | Keith McGill | CB | Utah | 107 | 65 | 90 |
| 41 | Calvin Pryor | SS | Louisville | 32 | 17 | 28 |
| 42 | Cameron Fleming | OT | Stanford | 162 | 104 | 134 |
The top disagreements by the forecasting crowd of the evaluators are all of players that are technicians with athletic or size-related deficiencies. Campanaro is an excellent and profoundly intelligent receiver with a good combine, but came in at 5’9″. Yawin Smallwood is instinctive and quick, but weighs less than 240 pounds. We all have had enough of the Teddy Bridgewater talk to be hardly surprised at the differences here, and Cody Hoffman’s prototypical size seems to impress the NFL (by proxy) but not the third-party draft services.
Just barely missing the cut were Jake Matthews and Greg Robinson, surprisingly enough, but that is largely because the differences between #2 and #5 are fairly big in this formula, and each group had one of the two tackles ranked at those spots (Matthews at #2 for the evaluators with Robinson at #5, and the reverse for the forecasters).
The other general category of differences include small-schoolers, where the evaluators were far more willing to bet on players from lesser-known foobtall factories than the forecasters.
The two groups are not constantly warring in their evals, though. They agreed far more often than disagreed (if that wasn’t the case, this would all be useless and no one knows anything. Even though we like to say that, the clear pick-by-pick performance curve tells us we know a few things), and the biggest agreements happened all over the board.
The most impressive even evaluations are usually through chance—you’re always going to end up with a number of players that happen to be in similar spots on the boards, just because over 1120 players were evaluated, and the amount of skill that the players possess is not random. Still, the amount of times they agreed by just a few positions is impressive. The biggest 44 agreements (again, through the quick math formula mentioned above) are below:
| Biggest Agreements | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Similarity Rank | Name | Position | School | Evaluators | Forecastors | Overall Rank |
| 1 | Christian Kirksey | OB | Iowa | 154 | 152 | 150 |
| 2 | Zach Mettenberger | QB | LSU | 71 | 70 | 72 |
| 3 | Aaron Colvin | CB | Oklahoma | 139 | 137 | 139 |
| 4 | Ryan Grant | SL | Tulane | 208 | 205 | 196 |
| 5 | Jaylen Watkins | CB | Florida | 101 | 99 | 98 |
| 6 | Christian Jones | OB | Florida State | 78 | 80 | 79 |
| 7 | Anthony Steen | IL | Alabama | 130 | 127 | 130 |
| 8 | Marqise Lee | SE | Southern California | 23 | 23 | 24 |
| 9 | Joe Don Duncan | TE | Dixie St | 246 | 251 | 251 |
| 10 | Stanley Jean-Baptiste | CB | Nebraska | 73 | 71 | 71 |
| 11 | Dee Ford | ER | Auburn | 35 | 36 | 34 |
| 12 | Jalen Saunders | SL | Oklahoma | 155 | 151 | 148 |
| 13 | Devin Street | SE | Pittsburgh | 184 | 189 | 178 |
| 14 | Jimmie Ward | FS | Northern Illinois | 45 | 47 | 46 |
| 15 | Matt Hazel | SE | Coastal Carolina | 209 | 203 | 195 |
| 16 | Tevin Reese | SL | Baylor | 232 | 225 | 238 |
| 17 | Antonio Richardson | OT | Tennessee | 63 | 60 | 60 |
| 18 | Trent Murphy | ER | Stanford | 61 | 58 | 58 |
| 19 | Troy Niklas | TE | Notre Dame | 53 | 50 | 50 |
| 20 | Ronald Powell | ER | Florida | 156 | 163 | 153 |
| 21 | Davante Adams | FL | Fresno State | 44 | 41 | 42 |
| 22 | Caraun Reid | 3T | Princeton | 104 | 110 | 101 |
| 23 | Deone Bucannon | SS | Washington State | 57 | 61 | 56 |
| 24 | Scott Crichton | ER | Oregon State | 51 | 55 | 52 |
| 25 | Josh Huff | SB | Oregon | 108 | 101 | 105 |
| 26 | Ka’Deem Carey | RB | Arizona | 83 | 77 | 81 |
| 27 | Jordan Tripp | ER | Montana | 124 | 132 | 122 |
| 28 | Tre Boston | FS | North Carolina | 195 | 206 | 192 |
| 29 | Aaron Donald | 3T | Pittsburgh | 10 | 11 | 9 |
| 30 | Devonta Freeman | SB | Florida State | 105 | 113 | 104 |
| 31 | A.J. McCarron | QB | Alabama | 102 | 94 | 96 |
| 32 | Josh Mauro | 5T | Stanford | 201 | 215 | 208 |
| 33 | Tajh Boyd | QB | Clemson | 169 | 157 | 164 |
| 34 | Terrence Brooks | FS | Florida State | 115 | 126 | 113 |
| 35 | Brandon Thomas | IL | Clemson | 103 | 91 | 100 |
| 36 | Ben Gardner | ER | Stanford | 233 | 207 | 232 |
| 37 | Bruce Ellington | SL | South Carolina | 93 | 107 | 94 |
| 38 | Loucheiz Purifoy | CB | Florida | 129 | 111 | 121 |
| 39 | Trey Millard | FB | Oklahoma | 274 | 239 | 267 |
| 40 | Jadeveon Clowney | ER | South Carolina | 1 | 1 | 1 |
It’s hardly surprising that Jadeveon Clowney is the consensus #1 on every group of boards, and that Aaron Donald is a top ten pick to both groups, but it is sort of interesting that Dee Ford is just barely in the top 40, while Jimmie Ward and Davante Adams are just out. There’s a cluster around pick 100, as a bunch of players that are supposed to be “top 100″ talents could potentially get shoehorned in by both groups, and the players at the top seem to be barely draftable.
Here, the patterns aren’t clear. There’s a decent mix of small-school and big-school players, as well as a good mix of positions. Certainly, none of the top qurterbacks made the list, but McCarron and Mettenberger solidified their 96th and 72nd overall rankings.
Some players are easy to evaluate, and it just so happens that you’ll find a lot of agreements among the different Boards—no need to incoprorate an overriding reason or pattern.
That said, there were definitely a lot of players who caused a lot of consternation among the 34 different boards. By comparing the squared difference in their rankings to the overall likelihood of disagreement for a generalized pick spot, you can see which players are the most polarizing. It was important not to take the worst ranking and the best ranking and get the difference (though displayed here), simply because one off grade will throw the whole thing out of whack when really there is general consensus on a player.
Some are obvious, but some may catch you by surprise (again, the list below looked at all 34 boards, not just an average of the two consensus boards, so it’s not the same as above):
| Most Polarizing Players | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Polarity Rank | Name | Worst Rank | Best Rank | Overall Rank |
| 1 | Michael Campanaro | 744 | 58 | 199 |
| 2 | Lamarcus Joyner | 176 | 17 | 53 |
| 3 | Aaron Murray | 325 | 29 | 111 |
| 4 | Dominique Easley | 111 | 4 | 36 |
| 5 | Teddy Bridgewater | 35 | 1 | 6 |
| 6 | Will Sutton | 187.5 | 15 | 57 |
| 7 | Dion Bailey | 227 | 42 | 91 |
| 8 | Ed Reynolds | 290 | 64 | 118 |
| 9 | Jon Halapio | 379 | 48 | 160 |
| 10 | Nevin Lawson | 429 | 75 | 185 |
| 11 | Arthur Lynch | 336 | 52 | 150 |
| 12 | Jackson Jeffcoat | 249 | 37 | 89 |
| 13 | Sean Parker | 472.5 | 58 | 197 |
| 14 | Kyle Van Noy | 95 | 8 | 37 |
| 15 | Aaron Lynch | 344 | 29 | 112 |
| 16 | Brett Smith | 312 | 59 | 138 |
| 17 | Cody Hoffman | 453 | 63 | 174 |
| 18 | David Fales | 260 | 27 | 108 |
| 19 | James Hurst | 252 | 58 | 128 |
| 20 | Kelcy Quarles | 249 | 43 | 107 |
| 21 | Lache Seastrunk | 172 | 35 | 86 |
| 22 | Bryan Stork | 300 | 61 | 159 |
| 23 | Jordan Tripp | 298.5 | 61 | 131 |
| 24 | Ahmad Dixon | 259 | 40 | 114 |
| 25 | Michael Sam | 299 | 58 | 162 |
| 26 | Marion Grice | 304 | 64 | 165 |
| 27 | Jace Amaro | 151.5 | 15 | 33 |
| 28 | Yawin Smallwood | 453 | 39 | 100 |
| 29 | George Uko | 453 | 40 | 195 |
| 30 | Xavier Grimble | 338 | 75 | 188 |
| 31 | Josh Mauro | 390 | 72 | 194 |
| 32 | Carl Bradford | 210 | 19 | 78 |
| 33 | Walt Aikens | 390 | 70 | 148 |
| 34 | Will Clarke | 298.5 | 68 | 136 |
| 35 | Darqueze Dennard | 67 | 6 | 12 |
| 36 | Weston Richburg | 151.5 | 32 | 68 |
| 37 | Robert Herron | 231 | 75 | 135 |
| 38 | Billy Turner | 210 | 13 | 73 |
| 39 | Paul Richardson | 229 | 38 | 87 |
| 40 | Jimmie Ward | 150 | 12 | 46 |
| 41 | E.J. Gaines | 225 | 64 | 110 |
| 42 | Chris Borland | 210 | 25 | 59 |
| 43 | Khalil Mack | 10 | 2 | 2 |
| 44 | Johnny Manziel | 62 | 1 | 14 |
| 45 | James White | 322 | 58 | 193 |
Players well known for causing controversy didn’t necessarily score high on the list. As you’ll see in a moment, one of the most controversial players in the draft is Jadeveon Clowney, but he is the least polarizing player in the rankings. Johnny Manziel barely made the cutoff, and was about as polarizing as “safe” pick Khalil Mack—who got every rank between 10 and 2 from the 34 boards (again, because of the difference of value between #2 and #10, volatility in the rankings mean more here than they do for a player ranked 14th overall bouncing between first and sixty-second).
There are a few basic things that get a player on this list: excellent play, but poor measureables (Lamarcus Joyner), injury (Dominique Easley), an uneven career (Will Sutton), and insane bullshit (Teddy Bridgewater).
For me, a big surprise was not seeing Telvin Smith, whose on-field play has been electric, but is well outside the size demands traditionally fit for his position. He just missed the cut off here, but the general thought on him seems more settled than I thought (which is still not very settled).
While the most polarizing players list doesn’t look much like the “biggest disagreements” list, the least polarizing players list does look like the “biggest agreements” list, which makes a lot of sense. The difference between “worst” and “best” rank doesn’t mean much here, largely because they were outliers instead of a good demonstration of the volatility.
| Least Polarizing Players | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amity Rank | Name | Worst Rank | Best Rank | Overall Rank |
| 1 | Jadeveon Clowney | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | Greg Robinson | 18 | 1 | 3 |
| 3 | Calvin Pryor | 180 | 11 | 28 |
| 4 | Justin Gilbert | 139 | 7 | 22 |
| 5 | Sammy Watkins | 24 | 2 | 5 |
| 6 | Demarcus Lawrence | 187.5 | 16 | 60 |
| 7 | Ryan Shazier | 94 | 5 | 26 |
| 8 | Deandre Coleman | 298.5 | 68 | 157 |
| 9 | A.J. McCarron | 257 | 44 | 97 |
| 10 | Donte Moncrief | 151.5 | 33 | 71 |
| 11 | Carlos Hyde | 92 | 21 | 43 |
| 12 | Ed Stinson | 390 | 67 | 147 |
| 13 | Andre Williams | 249 | 52 | 109 |
| 14 | Anthony Johnson | 390 | 49 | 133 |
| 15 | Stephon Tuitt | 219 | 12 | 42 |
| 16 | Daniel McCullers | 298.5 | 57 | 116 |
| 17 | Anthony Barr | 93 | 3 | 9 |
| 18 | Rashaad Reynolds | 298.5 | 37 | 152 |
| 19 | Dri Archer | 232 | 59 | 132 |
| 20 | Shaquelle Evans | 298.5 | 75 | 187 |
| 21 | Trai Turner | 390 | 34 | 122 |
| 22 | Bradley Roby | 53 | 11 | 30 |
| 23 | Brock Vereen | 453 | 75 | 190 |
| 24 | Marqise Lee | 90 | 9 | 24 |
| 25 | Kareem Martin | 210 | 16 | 95 |
| 26 | Marcus Martin | 210 | 21 | 96 |
| 27 | Joel Bitonio | 171 | 12 | 67 |
| 28 | Mike Evans | 123 | 3 | 11 |
| 29 | Chris Watt | 298.5 | 75 | 168 |
| 30 | Tre Mason | 225 | 15 | 58 |
| 31 | Kelvin Benjamin | 145 | 12 | 39 |
| 32 | Lamin Barrow | 390 | 73 | 171 |
| 33 | Ja’Wuan James | 150 | 17 | 70 |
| 34 | Jimmy Garoppolo | 154 | 18 | 63 |
Don’t worry about the “.5″ rankings—they were part of a system to assign players a rank to be averaged when a particular big board in question was too small to include them (I did not take any boards with fewer than 50 players, and even then only one). All that means is that at least one big board chose not to include them, and they therefore were penalized (the size of the penalty was directly proportional to the size of the big board).
Despite the fact that Greg Robinson was a point of contention between the two different sets of boards, there was still significant agreement that he was a top pick, and he generally floated in between two and six—unlike Khalil Mack, who was all over the top ten.
I didn’t expect to see Kelvin Benjamin, who’s movement in the first round halfway through the offseason was criticized by a number of people, given the fact that he has inconsistent hands, is a mediocre route-runner and has shown limited versatility despite incredible production at Florida State. It seems that even in a rich receiver class, people of all flavors were willing to forgive his spotty development for his size and speed.
Finally, you can look at the full consensus of picks. There are two separate Top 200 charts that are consensus, because we can either treat each category separately (the average of the “forecasters” and “evaluators”) or treat each board separately (averaging all 34 draft boards). Below is that first board, the average of the two consensus boards:
| Evaluator and Forecaster Consensus Board | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Name | Position | Pos Rk | School |
| 1 | Jadeveon Clowney | ER | 1 | South Carolina |
| 2 | Greg Robinson | OT | 1 | Auburn |
| 3 | Jake Matthews | OT | 2 | Texas A&M |
| 4 | Khalil Mack | OB | 1 | Buffalo |
| 5 | Sammy Watkins | SE | 1 | Clemson |
| 6 | Anthony Barr | ER | 2 | UCLA |
| 7 | C.J. Mosley | MB | 1 | Alabama |
| 8 | Eric Ebron | TE | 1 | North Carolina |
| 9 | Aaron Donald | 3T | 1 | Pittsburgh |
| 10 | Teddy Bridgewater | QB | 1 | Louisville |
| 11 | Taylor Lewan | OT | 3 | Michigan |
| 12 | Mike Evans | SE | 2 | Texas A&M |
| 13 | Darqueze Dennard | CB | 1 | Michigan State |
| 14 | Ha Ha Clinton-Dix | FS | 1 | Alabama |
| 15 | Justin Gilbert | CB | 2 | Oklahoma State |
| 16 | Zack Martin | IL | 1 | Notre Dame |
| 17 | Johnny Manziel | QB | 2 | Texas A&M |
| 18 | Odell Beckham | SE | 3 | LSU |
| 19 | Blake Bortles | QB | 3 | UCF |
| 20 | Ra’Shede Hageman | 5T | 1 | Minnesota |
| 21 | Louis Nix | NT | 1 | Notre Dame |
| 22 | Derek Carr | QB | 4 | Fresno State |
| 23 | Brandin Cooks | SL | 1 | Oregon State |
| 24 | Marqise Lee | SE | 4 | Southern California |
| 25 | Ryan Shazier | OB | 2 | Ohio State |
| 26 | Calvin Pryor | SS | 1 | Louisville |
| 27 | Kony Ealy | ER | 3 | Missouri |
| 28 | Jason Verrett | CB | 3 | TCU |
| 29 | Kyle Fuller | CB | 4 | Virginia Tech |
| 30 | Timmy Jernigan | NT | 2 | Florida State |
| 31 | Bradley Roby | CB | 5 | Ohio State |
| 32 | Xavier Su’a-Filo | IL | 2 | UCLA |
| 33 | Jace Amaro | TE | 2 | Texas Tech |
| 34 | Dee Ford | ER | 4 | Auburn |
| 35 | Cyrus Kouandjio | OT | 4 | Alabama |
| 36 | Stephon Tuitt | 5T | 2 | Notre Dame |
| 37 | Kelvin Benjamin | SE | 5 | Florida State |
| 38 | Carlos Hyde | RB | 1 | Ohio State |
| 39 | Allen Robinson | FL | 1 | Penn State |
| 40 | Jordan Matthews | SE | 6 | Vanderbilt |
| 41 | Kyle Van Noy | OB | 3 | Brigham Young |
| 42 | Davante Adams | FL | 2 | Fresno State |
| 43 | Dominique Easley | 3T | 2 | Florida |
| 44 | Jeremiah Attaochu | ER | 5 | Georgia Tech |
| 45 | Austin Seferian-Jenkins | TE | 3 | Washington |
| 46 | Jimmie Ward | FS | 2 | Northern Illinois |
| 47 | Gabe Jackson | IL | 3 | Mississippi State |
| 48 | Morgan Moses | OT | 5 | Virginia |
| 49 | Bishop Sankey | RB | 2 | Washington |
| 50 | Troy Niklas | TE | 4 | Notre Dame |
| 51 | David Yankey | IL | 4 | Stanford |
| 52 | Scott Crichton | ER | 6 | Oregon State |
| 53 | Lamarcus Joyner | FS | 3 | Florida State |
| 54 | Jarvis Landry | FL | 3 | LSU |
| 55 | Tre Mason | RB | 3 | Auburn |
| 56 | Deone Bucannon | SS | 2 | Washington State |
| 57 | Demarcus Lawrence | ER | 7 | Boise State |
| 58 | Trent Murphy | ER | 8 | Stanford |
| 59 | Jimmy Garoppolo | QB | 5 | Eastern Illinois |
| 60 | Antonio Richardson | OT | 6 | Tennessee |
| 61 | Chris Borland | MB | 2 | Wisconsin |
| 62 | Joel Bitonio | OT | 7 | Nevada |
| 63 | DaQuan Jones | NT | 3 | Penn State |
| 64 | Cyril Richardson | IL | 5 | Baylor |
| 65 | Weston Richburg | IL | 6 | Colorado State |
| 66 | Ja’Wuan James | OT | 8 | Tennessee |
| 67 | Will Sutton | 3T | 3 | Arizona State |
| 68 | Jack Mewhort | OT | 9 | Ohio State |
| 69 | Donte Moncrief | SE | 7 | Ole Miss |
| 70 | Marcus Smith | ER | 9 | Louisville |
| 71 | Stanley Jean-Baptiste | CB | 6 | Nebraska |
| 72 | Zach Mettenberger | QB | 6 | LSU |
| 73 | Pierre Desir | CB | 7 | Lindenwood |
| 74 | Jeremy Hill | RB | 4 | LSU |
| 75 | Charles Sims | RB | 5 | West Virginia |
| 76 | Ego Ferguson | 3T | 4 | LSU |
| 77 | Paul Richardson | SE | 8 | Colorado |
| 78 | Carl Bradford | ER | 10 | Arizona State |
| 79 | Christian Jones | OB | 4 | Florida State |
| 80 | C.J. Fiedorowicz | TE | 5 | Iowa |
| 81 | Ka’Deem Carey | RB | 6 | Arizona |
| 82 | Keith McGill | CB | 8 | Utah |
| 83 | Billy Turner | OT | 10 | North Dakota State |
| 84 | Chris Smith | ER | 11 | Arkansas |
| 85 | Marcus Roberson | CB | 9 | Florida |
| 86 | Telvin Smith | MB | 3 | Florida State |
| 87 | Martavis Bryant | SE | 9 | Clemson |
| 88 | Kareem Martin | ER | 12 | North Carolina |
| 89 | Travis Swanson | IL | 7 | Arkansas |
| 90 | Lache Seastrunk | RB | 7 | Baylor |
| 91 | Cody Latimer | SE | 10 | Indiana |
| 92 | Jackson Jeffcoat | ER | 13 | Texas |
| 93 | Jared Abbrederis | FL | 4 | Wisconsin |
| 94 | Bruce Ellington | SL | 2 | South Carolina |
| 95 | Marcus Martin | IL | 8 | Southern California |
| 96 | A.J. McCarron | QB | 7 | Alabama |
| 97 | Shayne Skov | MB | 4 | Stanford |
| 98 | Jaylen Watkins | CB | 10 | Florida |
| 99 | Brandon Coleman | SE | 11 | Rutgers |
| 100 | Brandon Thomas | IL | 9 | Clemson |
| 101 | Caraun Reid | 3T | 5 | Princeton |
| 102 | Andre Williams | RB | 8 | Boston College |
| 103 | Dion Bailey | SS | 3 | Southern California |
| 104 | Devonta Freeman | SB | 1 | Florida State |
| 105 | Josh Huff | SL | 3 | Oregon |
| 106 | Daniel McCullers | NT | 4 | Tennessee |
| 107 | Kelcy Quarles | 3T | 6 | South Carolina |
| 108 | Phillip Gaines | CB | 11 | Rice |
| 109 | Seantrel Henderson | OT | 11 | Miami (Fla.) |
| 110 | Bashaud Breeland | CB | 12 | Clemson |
| 111 | Aaron Murray | QB | 8 | Georgia |
| 112 | Logan Thomas | QB | 9 | Virginia Tech |
| 113 | Terrence Brooks | FS | 4 | Florida State |
| 114 | Ed Reynolds | FS | 5 | Stanford |
| 115 | Terrance West | RB | 9 | Towson |
| 116 | Taylor Hart | 5T | 3 | Oregon |
| 117 | Ahmad Dixon | SS | 4 | Baylor |
| 118 | E.J. Gaines | CB | 13 | Missouri |
| 119 | Trai Turner | IL | 10 | LSU |
| 120 | Justin Ellis | NT | 5 | Louisiana Tech |
| 121 | Loucheiz Purifoy | CB | 14 | Florida |
| 122 | Jordan Tripp | ER | 14 | Montana |
| 123 | Trevor Reilly | ER | 15 | Utah |
| 124 | Anthony Johnson | 3T | 7 | LSU |
| 125 | Dri Archer | SB | 2 | Kent State |
| 126 | Jordan Zumwalt | MB | 5 | UCLA |
| 127 | Cameron Fleming | OT | 12 | Stanford |
| 128 | David Fales | QB | 10 | San Jose State |
| 129 | Adrian Hubbard | ER | 16 | Alabama |
| 130 | Anthony Steen | IL | 11 | Alabama |
| 131 | Robert Herron | SL | 4 | Wyoming |
| 132 | Craig Loston | SS | 5 | LSU |
| 133 | James Hurst | OT | 13 | North Carolina |
| 134 | Brent Urban | 5T | 4 | Virginia |
| 135 | Vic Hampton | CB | 15 | South Carolina |
| 136 | Will Clarke | 5T | 5 | West Virginia |
| 137 | Yawin Smallwood | MB | 6 | Connecticut |
| 138 | James Gayle | ER | 17 | Virginia Tech |
| 139 | Aaron Colvin | CB | 16 | Oklahoma |
| 140 | Aaron Lynch | ER | 18 | South Florida |
| 141 | De’Anthony Thomas | SB | 3 | Oregon |
| 142 | Ed Stinson | 5T | 6 | Alabama |
| 143 | Storm Johnson | RB | 10 | UCF |
| 144 | Walt Aikens | CB | 17 | Liberty |
| 145 | Kevin Norwood | FL | 5 | Alabama |
| 146 | Antone Exum | CB | 18 | Virginia Tech |
| 147 | Tom Savage | QB | 11 | Pittsburgh |
| 148 | Jalen Saunders | SL | 5 | Oklahoma |
| 149 | Brett Smith | QB | 12 | Wyoming |
| 150 | Christian Kirksey | OB | 5 | Iowa |
| 151 | Rashaad Reynolds | CB | 19 | Oregon State |
| 152 | Deandre Coleman | 5T | 7 | California |
| 153 | Ronald Powell | ER | 19 | Florida |
| 154 | Arthur Lynch | TE | 6 | Georgia |
| 155 | Richard Rodgers | TE | 7 | California |
| 156 | Colt Lyerla | TE | 8 | Oregon |
| 157 | Ross Cockrell | CB | 20 | Duke |
| 158 | Andre Hal | CB | 21 | Vanderbilt |
| 159 | Terrance Mitchell | CB | 22 | Oregon |
| 160 | Brandon Linder | IL | 12 | Miami (Fla.) |
| 161 | Gabe Ikard | IL | 13 | Oklahoma |
| 162 | Cassius Marsh | ER | 20 | UCLA |
| 163 | Chris Watt | IL | 14 | Notre Dame |
| 164 | Tajh Boyd | QB | 13 | Clemson |
| 165 | Jeff Janis | SE | 12 | Saginaw Valley |
| 166 | Bryan Stork | IL | 15 | Florida State |
| 167 | T.J. Jones | SL | 6 | Notre Dame |
| 168 | Max Bullough | MB | 7 | Michigan State |
| 169 | Isaiah Crowell | RB | 11 | Alabama State |
| 170 | Michael Sam | ER | 21 | Missouri |
| 171 | Lamin Barrow | MB | 8 | LSU |
| 172 | Marion Grice | RB | 12 | Arizona State |
| 173 | Wesley Johnson | IL | 16 | Vanderbilt |
| 174 | Jon Halapio | IL | 17 | Florida |
| 175 | Marqueston Huff | FS | 6 | Wyoming |
| 176 | Preston Brown | MB | 9 | Louisville |
| 177 | Dakota Dozier | IL | 18 | Furman |
| 178 | Devin Street | SE | 13 | Pittsburgh |
| 179 | Laurent Duvernay-Tardif | OT | 14 | McGill (Canada) |
| 180 | Shaquelle Evans | SE | 14 | UCLA |
| 181 | Crockett Gillmore | TE | 9 | Colorado State |
| 182 | Mike Davis | SE | 15 | Texas |
| 183 | Brock Vereen | SS | 6 | Minnesota |
| 184 | Vinnie Sunseri | SS | 7 | Alabama |
| 185 | Nevin Lawson | CB | 23 | Utah State |
| 186 | Prince Shembo | OB | 6 | Notre Dame |
| 187 | James White | RB | 13 | Wisconsin |
| 188 | Michael Schofield | OT | 15 | Michigan |
| 189 | Kevin Pierre-Louis | ER | 22 | Boston College |
| 190 | Charles Leno | IL | 19 | Boise State |
| 191 | Marcel Jensen | TE | 10 | Fresno State |
| 192 | Tre Boston | FS | 7 | North Carolina |
| 193 | Larry Webster | ER | 23 | Bloomsburg |
| 194 | Shamar Stephen | 3T | 8 | Connecticut |
| 195 | Matt Hazel | SE | 16 | Coastal Carolina |
| 196 | Ryan Grant | SL | 7 | Tulane |
| 197 | Xavier Grimble | TE | 11 | Southern California |
| 198 | Dezmen Southward | SS | 8 | Wisconsin |
| 199 | Russell Bodine | IL | 20 | North Carolina |
| 200 | Jonathan Dowling | FS | 8 | Western Kentucky |
That board corrects for the fact that there were almost twice as many “evaluator” boards as “forecaster” boards, by weighting the two groups equally. On the other hand, you could avoid that and simply average out every board (functionally weighting the evaluators 67% and the forecasters 33%):
| Full Consensus Board | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Name | Position | Pos Rk | School |
| 1 | Jadeveon Clowney | ER | 1 | South Carolina |
| 2 | Khalil Mack | OB | 1 | Buffalo |
| 3 | Jake Matthews | OT | 1 | Texas A&M |
| 4 | Greg Robinson | OT | 2 | Auburn |
| 5 | Sammy Watkins | SE | 1 | Clemson |
| 6 | Teddy Bridgewater | QB | 1 | Louisville |
| 7 | C.J. Mosley | MB | 1 | Alabama |
| 8 | Eric Ebron | TE | 1 | North Carolina |
| 9 | Anthony Barr | ER | 2 | UCLA |
| 10 | Aaron Donald | 3T | 1 | Pittsburgh |
| 11 | Mike Evans | SE | 2 | Texas A&M |
| 12 | Darqueze Dennard | CB | 1 | Michigan State |
| 13 | Taylor Lewan | OT | 3 | Michigan |
| 14 | Johnny Manziel | QB | 2 | Texas A&M |
| 15 | Blake Bortles | QB | 3 | UCF |
| 16 | Zack Martin | IL | 1 | Notre Dame |
| 17 | Ra’Shede Hageman | 5T | 1 | Minnesota |
| 18 | Odell Beckham | SE | 3 | LSU |
| 19 | Ha Ha Clinton-Dix | FS | 1 | Alabama |
| 20 | Louis Nix | NT | 1 | Notre Dame |
| 21 | Derek Carr | QB | 4 | Fresno State |
| 22 | Justin Gilbert | CB | 2 | Oklahoma State |
| 23 | Jason Verrett | CB | 3 | TCU |
| 24 | Marqise Lee | SE | 4 | Southern California |
| 25 | Brandin Cooks | SL | 1 | Oregon State |
| 26 | Ryan Shazier | OB | 2 | Ohio State |
| 27 | Kony Ealy | ER | 3 | Missouri |
| 28 | Calvin Pryor | SS | 1 | Louisville |
| 29 | Kyle Fuller | CB | 4 | Virginia Tech |
| 30 | Bradley Roby | CB | 5 | Ohio State |
| 31 | Timmy Jernigan | NT | 2 | Florida State |
| 32 | Xavier Su’a-Filo | IL | 2 | UCLA |
| 33 | Jace Amaro | TE | 2 | Texas Tech |
| 34 | Dee Ford | ER | 4 | Auburn |
| 35 | Cyrus Kouandjio | OT | 4 | Alabama |
| 36 | Dominique Easley | 3T | 2 | Florida |
| 37 | Kyle Van Noy | OB | 3 | Brigham Young |
| 38 | Jeremiah Attaochu | ER | 5 | Georgia Tech |
| 39 | Kelvin Benjamin | SE | 5 | Florida State |
| 40 | Allen Robinson | FL | 1 | Penn State |
| 41 | Jordan Matthews | SE | 6 | Vanderbilt |
| 42 | Stephon Tuitt | 5T | 2 | Notre Dame |
| 43 | Carlos Hyde | RB | 1 | Ohio State |
| 44 | Davante Adams | FL | 2 | Fresno State |
| 45 | Gabe Jackson | IL | 3 | Mississippi State |
| 46 | Jimmie Ward | FS | 2 | Northern Illinois |
| 47 | Austin Seferian-Jenkins | TE | 3 | Washington |
| 48 | David Yankey | IL | 4 | Stanford |
| 49 | Morgan Moses | OT | 5 | Virginia |
| 50 | Scott Crichton | ER | 6 | Oregon State |
| 51 | Troy Niklas | TE | 4 | Notre Dame |
| 52 | Bishop Sankey | RB | 2 | Washington |
| 53 | Lamarcus Joyner | FS | 3 | Florida State |
| 54 | Jarvis Landry | FL | 3 | LSU |
| 55 | Deone Bucannon | SS | 2 | Washington State |
| 56 | Trent Murphy | ER | 7 | Stanford |
| 57 | Will Sutton | 3T | 3 | Arizona State |
| 58 | Tre Mason | RB | 3 | Auburn |
| 59 | Chris Borland | MB | 2 | Wisconsin |
| 60 | Demarcus Lawrence | ER | 8 | Boise State |
| 61 | Antonio Richardson | OT | 6 | Tennessee |
| 62 | DaQuan Jones | NT | 3 | Penn State |
| 63 | Jimmy Garoppolo | QB | 5 | Eastern Illinois |
| 64 | Cyril Richardson | IL | 5 | Baylor |
| 65 | Pierre Desir | CB | 6 | Lindenwood |
| 66 | Marcus Smith | ER | 9 | Louisville |
| 67 | Joel Bitonio | OT | 7 | Nevada |
| 68 | Weston Richburg | IL | 6 | Colorado State |
| 69 | Jack Mewhort | OT | 8 | Ohio State |
| 70 | Ja’Wuan James | OT | 9 | Tennessee |
| 71 | Donte Moncrief | SE | 7 | Ole Miss |
| 72 | Zach Mettenberger | QB | 6 | LSU |
| 73 | Billy Turner | OT | 10 | North Dakota State |
| 74 | Stanley Jean-Baptiste | CB | 7 | Nebraska |
| 75 | Telvin Smith | MB | 3 | Florida State |
| 76 | Charles Sims | RB | 4 | West Virginia |
| 77 | Christian Jones | OB | 4 | Florida State |
| 78 | Carl Bradford | ER | 10 | Arizona State |
| 79 | Ka’Deem Carey | RB | 5 | Arizona |
| 80 | Ego Ferguson | 3T | 4 | LSU |
| 81 | Shayne Skov | MB | 4 | Stanford |
| 82 | Jeremy Hill | RB | 6 | LSU |
| 83 | Chris Smith | ER | 11 | Arkansas |
| 84 | Travis Swanson | IL | 7 | Arkansas |
| 85 | C.J. Fiedorowicz | TE | 5 | Iowa |
| 86 | Lache Seastrunk | RB | 7 | Baylor |
| 87 | Paul Richardson | SE | 8 | Colorado |
| 88 | Jared Abbrederis | FL | 4 | Wisconsin |
| 89 | Jackson Jeffcoat | ER | 12 | Texas |
| 90 | Keith McGill | CB | 8 | Utah |
| 91 | Dion Bailey | SS | 3 | Southern California |
| 92 | Marcus Roberson | CB | 9 | Florida |
| 93 | Martavis Bryant | SE | 9 | Clemson |
| 94 | Bruce Ellington | SL | 2 | South Carolina |
| 95 | Kareem Martin | ER | 13 | North Carolina |
| 96 | Marcus Martin | IL | 8 | Southern California |
| 97 | A.J. McCarron | QB | 7 | Alabama |
| 98 | Jaylen Watkins | CB | 10 | Florida |
| 99 | Cody Latimer | SE | 10 | Indiana |
| 100 | Yawin Smallwood | MB | 5 | Connecticut |
| 101 | Seantrel Henderson | OT | 11 | Miami (Fla.) |
| 102 | Caraun Reid | 3T | 5 | Princeton |
| 103 | Brandon Thomas | IL | 9 | Clemson |
| 104 | Brandon Coleman | SE | 11 | Rutgers |
| 105 | Josh Huff | SL | 3 | Oregon |
| 106 | Devonta Freeman | SB | 1 | Florida State |
| 107 | Kelcy Quarles | 3T | 6 | South Carolina |
| 108 | David Fales | QB | 8 | San Jose State |
| 109 | Andre Williams | RB | 8 | Boston College |
| 110 | E.J. Gaines | CB | 11 | Missouri |
| 111 | Aaron Murray | QB | 9 | Georgia |
| 112 | Aaron Lynch | ER | 14 | South Florida |
| 113 | Logan Thomas | QB | 10 | Virginia Tech |
| 114 | Ahmad Dixon | SS | 4 | Baylor |
| 115 | Terrence Brooks | FS | 4 | Florida State |
| 116 | Daniel McCullers | NT | 4 | Tennessee |
| 117 | Bashaud Breeland | CB | 12 | Clemson |
| 118 | Ed Reynolds | FS | 5 | Stanford |
| 119 | Phillip Gaines | CB | 13 | Rice |
| 120 | Taylor Hart | 5T | 3 | Oregon |
| 121 | Trevor Reilly | ER | 15 | Utah |
| 122 | Trai Turner | IL | 10 | LSU |
| 123 | Justin Ellis | NT | 5 | Louisiana Tech |
| 124 | Terrance West | RB | 9 | Towson |
| 125 | Loucheiz Purifoy | CB | 14 | Florida |
| 126 | Adrian Hubbard | ER | 16 | Alabama |
| 127 | Vic Hampton | CB | 15 | South Carolina |
| 128 | James Hurst | OT | 12 | North Carolina |
| 129 | Jordan Zumwalt | MB | 6 | UCLA |
| 130 | Anthony Steen | IL | 11 | Alabama |
| 131 | Jordan Tripp | ER | 17 | Montana |
| 132 | Dri Archer | SB | 2 | Kent State |
| 133 | Anthony Johnson | 3T | 7 | LSU |
| 134 | Cameron Fleming | OT | 13 | Stanford |
| 135 | Robert Herron | SL | 4 | Wyoming |
| 136 | Will Clarke | 5T | 4 | West Virginia |
| 137 | Craig Loston | SS | 5 | LSU |
| 138 | Brett Smith | QB | 11 | Wyoming |
| 139 | James Gayle | ER | 18 | Virginia Tech |
| 140 | Terrance Mitchell | CB | 16 | Oregon |
| 141 | Brent Urban | 5T | 5 | Virginia |
| 142 | Antone Exum | CB | 17 | Virginia Tech |
| 143 | Aaron Colvin | CB | 18 | Oklahoma |
| 144 | De’Anthony Thomas | SB | 3 | Oregon |
| 145 | Tom Savage | QB | 12 | Pittsburgh |
| 146 | Christian Kirksey | OB | 5 | Iowa |
| 147 | Ed Stinson | 5T | 6 | Alabama |
| 148 | Walt Aikens | CB | 19 | Liberty |
| 149 | Jalen Saunders | SL | 5 | Oklahoma |
| 150 | Arthur Lynch | TE | 6 | Georgia |
| 151 | Ronald Powell | ER | 19 | Florida |
| 152 | Rashaad Reynolds | CB | 20 | Oregon State |
| 153 | Colt Lyerla | TE | 7 | Oregon |
| 154 | Kevin Norwood | FL | 5 | Alabama |
| 155 | Richard Rodgers | TE | 8 | California |
| 156 | Storm Johnson | RB | 10 | UCF |
| 157 | Deandre Coleman | 5T | 7 | California |
| 158 | Andre Hal | CB | 21 | Vanderbilt |
| 159 | Bryan Stork | IL | 12 | Florida State |
| 160 | Jon Halapio | IL | 13 | Florida |
| 161 | Ross Cockrell | CB | 22 | Duke |
| 162 | Michael Sam | ER | 20 | Missouri |
| 163 | Dakota Dozier | IL | 14 | Furman |
| 164 | Isaiah Crowell | RB | 11 | Alabama State |
| 165 | Marion Grice | RB | 12 | Arizona State |
| 166 | Gabe Ikard | IL | 15 | Oklahoma |
| 167 | Cassius Marsh | ER | 21 | UCLA |
| 168 | Chris Watt | IL | 16 | Notre Dame |
| 169 | Tajh Boyd | QB | 13 | Clemson |
| 170 | Tyler Larsen | IL | 17 | Utah State |
| 171 | Lamin Barrow | MB | 7 | LSU |
| 172 | Marqueston Huff | FS | 6 | Wyoming |
| 173 | Max Bullough | MB | 8 | Michigan State |
| 174 | Cody Hoffman | SE | 12 | Brigham Young |
| 175 | Devin Street | SE | 13 | Pittsburgh |
| 176 | T.J. Jones | SL | 6 | Notre Dame |
| 177 | Jeff Janis | SE | 14 | Saginaw Valley |
| 178 | Brandon Linder | IL | 18 | Miami (Fla.) |
| 179 | Kevin Pierre-Louis | ER | 22 | Boston College |
| 180 | Preston Brown | MB | 9 | Louisville |
| 181 | Michael Schofield | OT | 14 | Michigan |
| 182 | Avery Williamson | MB | 10 | Kentucky |
| 183 | Wesley Johnson | IL | 19 | Vanderbilt |
| 184 | Vinnie Sunseri | SS | 6 | Alabama |
| 185 | Nevin Lawson | CB | 23 | Utah State |
| 186 | Mike Davis | SE | 15 | Texas |
| 187 | Shaquelle Evans | SE | 16 | UCLA |
| 188 | Xavier Grimble | TE | 9 | Southern California |
| 189 | Charles Leno | IL | 20 | Boise State |
| 190 | Brock Vereen | SS | 7 | Minnesota |
| 191 | Prince Shembo | OB | 6 | Notre Dame |
| 192 | Marcel Jensen | TE | 10 | Fresno State |
| 193 | James White | RB | 13 | Wisconsin |
| 194 | Josh Mauro | 5T | 8 | Stanford |
| 195 | George Uko | 3T | 8 | Southern California |
| 196 | Crockett Gillmore | TE | 11 | Colorado State |
| 197 | Sean Parker | SS | 8 | Washington |
| 198 | Jonathan Dowling | FS | 7 | Western Kentucky |
| 199 | Michael Campanaro | SL | 7 | Wake Forest |
| 200 | Ryan Carrethers | NT | 6 | Arkansas State |
I used a lot of Big Boards for this work, naturally. The online resources used were Eric Galko’s Optimum Scouting, Dan Kadar and Matthew Fairburn’s SB Nation Mocking the Draft site, the National Football Post, Rob Rang’s Big Board at CBS, the eDraft family of boards (Vincent Frank, Luke Inman, Josh Collacchi, Matt Johnson, Derrik Klassen, Blake Meek, Vance Meek, Blake Arnold, Ryan Ratty, Patrick Conn and Richard Gatenby), Ben Natan’s board at With the First Pick, Andrew Parson’s board at Draft Mecca, Drafttek’s Big Board, James Christensen’s board at NEPatriotsDraft, Mel Kiper’s Big Board at ESPN Insider, Todd McShay’s Big Board with Scouts, Inc. at ESPN Insider, Jon Dove’s Big Board at Draft Breakdown, Tony Pauline’s board at Draft Insider, Ryan McCrystal’s Big Board at Draft Ace, Josh Norris’ Big Board at Rotoworld, Charlie Campbell’s Big Board at Walter Football, Path to the Draft’s Daniel Jeremiah’s Big Board at NFL.com, Gil Brandt’s Big Board at NFL.com, and the NFL.com official rankings (run by Nolan Nawrocki—they match his published big boards 1-for-1).
I also purchased draft guides from Bryan Perez at First Round Grade (purchase here for $4.99), Dan Shonka at Ourlads (purchase here for $32.00), Mike Loyko at NEPatriotsDraft (purchase here for $16.00), Kyle Crabbs at NDT Scouting (purchase here for $10.00) and Dane Brugler at SportsXchange and CBS (purchase here for $4.99 – but you can find his top 100 here with a short blurb for each of the 100 here).
I also purchased two draft guides (Rookie Scouting Portfolio from Matt Waldman and Chris Trapasso’s Guide—email him for it at Chris.Trapasso@gmail.com), but they do not have an overall Big Board I could include (Waldman only sells work done for offensive skill players because it has a dynasty fantasy football focus).
If you’re interested in going against the grain, the most divergent ratings were from NDT Scouting’s report, the National Football Post and Ben Natan in that order. If you’d rather find a few people who better reflect the consensus of peers, Daniel Jeremiah ranks first, followed by Mike Loyko and Tony Pauline.
My advice: just print off the last table as a quick cheat sheet when you head into whatever draft party you’re hanging out at. Printable copy here.