What a unique and interesting draft this really was. It might not have felt like you were right in the middle of the action as fans gather around an actual stage, but it definitely was a more intimate experience as you saw all the coaches and general managers working from home. As I do every year, I wanted to give an extensive recap of what happened over those three days.

However, I don’t like handing out grades, because they don’t encapsulate the real value of a pick in my opinion. You have to consider the fit and needs for a team, but at the same time we don’t fully understand the role a player will have with his new team and the whole thing is just too complex to define with just a one-letter grade.

Instead I wanted to identify some of the biggest winners and losers, steals and reaches coming out of the draft. That means looking at the prospects selected compared to where I have them in my overall rankings, analyzing how teams worked the board, how they positioned themselves and how it made their team better. Yet, I didn’t only look at the different clubs, but I also included certain players and how it affected them. Just as a side note – I didn’t want to talk about too many prospects who mostly fell due to injury concerns among my steals.

You can check out my positional rankings and big board to read up more in depth about these prospects and see how they stack up for me. This breakdown is also available in video format right here.

Continue reading →

Another draft is in the books and once again there are all these grades being handed out and experts criticizing what teams did. While I don’t think you can properly evaluate prospects until they turn into actual player on the field and even then it takes some time, I do believe we can look at how these teams stuck with the principle of “best player available”, if they reached to fill needs and how their draft picks could help them out going forward. Not only that, we can also look at specific players or coaches and how these selections will impact them directly. Therefore, I listed my biggest winners, losers, steals and reaches from draft weekend, considering the information we have at this moment and the rankings I had put together.

Continue reading →