The Epidemic of NFL Draft Analysis
The way much of the media analyzes the NFL Draft is simply awful. Why?
Particularly in this era of social media and the increasing number of individual creators, we have an epidemic on our hands.
As stated, this era specifically seems to be worse. Mostly because there is an ever increasing amount of opinions and information on the internet. And the fact that getting clicks is incentivized only makes this issue worse.
"WHAT ARE THE ____ DOING!" A social media creator screams, soullessly into their phone camera. Or posts vaguely onto their twitter account.
Well, let me tell you what they're doing, creator that somehow has a following in the hundreds of thousands.
This team, and every team, is following their draft board. And every draft board looks different.
Some just happen to look more like the consensus board, or the list you're used to seeing.
And no matter how it looks, each team is going to draft based on their board.
So yes, a team just took someone you were convinced was the 90th best player in the draft at pick 45. Oh, the horror, this must be the worst pick ever. Clearly this team had no idea that they could have traded back and selected this guy 45 picks later!
Unfortunately, that is not how the NFL Draft works.
Like I said, every team has a different draft board. And yes, another team probably thought they could draft said hypothetical player at pick 90. Another team wanted him at pick 100. But, another team wanted him at pick 50.
You, you being the individual with no insider draft knowledge, have no idea what teams think of players.
The consensus 90th player on the media boards may be much, much higher on the NFL teams boards. Or maybe it swings the other way!
And forget team boards. Let's talk about player grading. I want to bring up nfl.com Lance Zierlein's player grades. Here's his system:
Grades range from 5.50 to 8.0.
This is for a reason. These are NFL draft prospects.
You cannot be a 10.0. Patrick Mahomes is a 10.0, no draft prospect is Patrick Mahomes. And you can't be below 5.50. Myself, I'd be a 1.0.
The range is so narrow because the range of outcomes for every single prospect is truly not that wide.
In the grand scheme of things, the 45th player taken is truly not that much different than the 90th player taken.
Now, this varies draft to draft, with different levels of talent entering each year. But even then, in the so-called "great" draft classes, that doesn't guarantee their will be more Pro Bowlers or All-Pros.
The point being, if you are getting upset about a team trusting their scouting and draft board, I don't think you understand how the process of the NFL draft works. The players being selected should not be criticized.
However...
If you want to get upset with a draft, even though we can not truly know how any of these picks will turn out, you should start criticizing teams' processes.
The roster management, team building, draft process, etc. These are the things that are more valid to criticize.
Because, like I said, what's truly the difference between taking player 45 versus player 90? Even if the public is right about where they rank, in the end, the difference may not be that large.
But if a team is in a position where they are drafting players that never see the field, or consistently have issues with the same position groups, then a valid thing to criticize exists.
So while there's nothing inherently wrong with grading draft picks, doing so based on "oh my goodness, why did they take that player here, what are they doing?!" is the wrong way to go about it.
And a quick note on the Zierlein draft grades, maybe my 10.0 and 1.0 examples are inaccurate, but you get the point.
If you are going to criticize the draft, you should not be criticizing who is drafted, but rather the process of how the team came to that result.
Thank you for reading through this rant.
Stay tuned for more NFL and 49ers articles, news, and opinions!
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