Hi everyone,
I'm unfortunately way behind in any player evaluations this year -- hence my passing this feature on to better hands. I think Jeff and John have done a very good job of recreating the spirit of the article and adding some great features to the individual position sections.
What I tried to do with the feature (recognizing I prefer tiers and not ordered rank lists):
- Rank players in tiers within each position group
- Compare players across positional tiers to gauge relative value then approximate draft value
- Display that visually in spreadsheet style format for use in all my rookie drafts
Over the years, I relied more and more on a consensus of writers and evaluators I trusted but the final draft board in this feature was my own. It's what I used to draft from every spring and summer. In some years, my board would be fairly close to ADP in the early rounds. In other years, it would deviate considerably -- and I'd tell you why. The middle rounds were rarely in line with consensus ADP but rather reflected my particular drafting philosophy.
If I didn't have 12 players in an appropriately high tier, there wouldn't be 12 players assigned to that round and the recommendation would be to trade out of the pick if possible. If I had a couple of deep tiers in a given range, I might assign more than 14 players to a given round -- reflecting the fact, for example, that WR5 value was close enough to WR9 (and LB2 and RB5 and QB2) to slot them all in that round. But it'd be rare to have 30+ players given a Rd 2+ grade, etc.
That looks like what Jeff and John did this year, too.
It was never meant to be a "consensus ADP draft board" -- it was always tailored to my own thoughts. It's also easy to customize to fit your own thoughts if you have strong feelings on a player or tier.
So...if you don't believe James Cook has late round value, you can slot him elsewhere. I do agree, however, that I wouldn't give Cook a Tier 1 recommendation but list him so far past the other Tier 1 options. And if you don't agree that the third tier of wide receivers should be drafted in X round, you can move that group up or down in line with your personal preference.
I suspect more of you than usual will want to modify this board this year because of the lack of consensus in the NFL, on our staff, and across the industry.
If that's not where Jeff and John are taking this feature -- and it's to be tailored to FBG staff consensus moving forward -- it'll likely look more like our staff rankings and skew closely toward 12 players per round.
