The NFL draft can feel like a crapshoot to predict. It’s especially goofy when people foresee trades, as if ‘Insiders’ could ever have enough knowledge to decipher every team’s player evals plus the terms they’d agree to on trades.

However, attempting to quantify prospect potential is a fun idea to me. Last year I used a plethora of metrics with subjective weights on them to output my own personal grade on the QBs. I tried a similar project this year for other position groups.

I watched clips and analysis on a wide range of players, instituting a grading system based on key attributes for the position.

For example, for the RBs below, I put 50% more weight on speed / acceleration than power/balance in the calculation of the Score.

RB:

Ashton Jeanty looks like a special player all-round. His contact balance makes him a unique running back. Weights: 1.5 – Speed/Acceleration, 1 – Power/Balance, .8 – Vision.

The standardized score tells you how many standard deviations above/below the mean their score is. To me, I estimated that a >1.5 equates to elite ceiling based on normal distributions.

WR:

Weights: 1.25 – Speed/Acceleration, 1 – Releases/Agility, .5 – Catch / Physicality

OT:

Weights: 1 – Quickness, .75 – Strength/Build, .5 – Technique

DE (didn’t include Jalon Walker here):

Weights: 1 – Speed/Acceleration, .75 – Strength, .75 – Finesse/Moves

DT:

Weights: 1 – Size/Strength, .75 – Speed/Acceleration, .75 – Moves

CB:

Weights: 1.25 – Speed/Acceleration, 1 – Ball Skills/Agility, .75 – Size/Strength, .5 – Tackling

Big Board: