Ravi's wrong on this. He's using one anecdotal piece of evidence to say it proves the rule but he then disproves it by citing Sheldon Richardson as on a whole different level.
The fact is that there is a wide discrepancy between how first rounds picks perform a lot of the time. And we reflect that by trying to rank them ahead of time.
Some players are better than others, like Khahlil Mack being better than Ryan Shazier or Aaron Donald being better than Ra'Shede Hageman. They just are.
I'm saying after the obvious great prospects there really IS no rule, and draft publications, websites, and sports programs have jobs to do and a product to hype.
Most of the top-40 players each year are so close in ability that the value of six draft slots is not really worth what conventional wisdom says it is. It only makes some pundit out there sound smart.
Half of every year's "top ten" seem to fail anyways, so mission one becomes: find a non-bust, period. Ignore the bullshit "athletic freak" labels and find a guy you know will help your team. Bo Jackson, Herschel Walker -- THOSE were athletic freaks. They weren't just better, they destroyed college competition. Anthony Barr isn't a freak, he's a guy with good size/speed ratio. I don't recall him wreaking havoc and making UCLA a great team, so why all the hype?
If a prospect didn't obviously dominate college competition then the evaluation of him is a projection based on a *very wide range* of opinions. Did Lewan really dominate, or did he just do his job? I
know Mike Evans dominated. It was obvious.
Kony Ealy's drop of ten projected draft slots in the last two months has everything to do with running a 4.91 40 at the combine and a major negative ad campaign by boozeman of dccforums.
Kony Ealy kept making plays at Mizz, actually improved after Sheldon Richardson left, and fell because he's not a track star. He improved to 4.6 at his pro day, but he must be thinking WTF does running track have to do with fucking football?