NFL

For example: A rivalry game atmosphere in college is unmatched compared to the NFL. On the flip side, the NFL post season is miles better than whatever college is up to. What are some others?

• 1- Caleb Williams (QB)- Chicago Bears (via CAR)

• 2- Drake Maye (QB)- Washington Commanders

• 3- Jayden Daniels (QB)- New England Patriots

• 4- Malik Nabers (WR)- Arizona Cardinals (surprise pick; Cardinals pass on MHJ to take Nabers in this mock)

• 5- Marvin Harrison Jr (WR)- Los Angeles Chargers (MHJ goes to the Chargers and he gets paired up with Justin Herbert; which will make for a pretty interesting QB/WR combo)

• 6- (Projected trade)- JJ McCarthy (QB)- Minnesota Vikings via New York Giants

• 7- Joe Alt (OT)- Tennessee Titans

• 8- Dallas Turner (EDGE)- Atlanta Falcons

• 9- Brock Bowers (TE)- Chicago Bears

• 10- Rome Odunze (WR)- New York Jets

• 11- JC Latham (OT)- New York Giants via projected mock trade with Minnesota Vikings; Giants go O line and they need to protect Daniel Jones; so they trade down

• 12- Bo Nix (QB)- Denver Broncos; Broncos do not wait to draft their QB for the future because it is a pressing need for their team; Nix gets paired up with Payton as his coach

• 13- Olu Fashanu (OT)- Las Vegas Raiders

• 14- Jared Verse (EDGE)- New Orleans Saints

• 15- Terrion Arnold (CB)- Indianapolis Colts

• 16- Troy Fautanu (G/OT)- Seattle Seahawks

• 17- Nate Wiggins (CB)- Jacksonville Jaguars

• 18- Taliese Fuaga (OT)- Cincinnati Bengals

• 19- Byron Murphy II (DT)- Los Angeles Rams

• 20- Jackson Powers-Johnson (C)- Pittsburgh Steelers

• 21- Laiatu Latu (EDGE)- Miami Dolphins

• 22- Kamari Lassiter (CB)- Philadelphia Eagles

• 23- Kris Jenkins (DT)- New York Giants via projected mock trade with Vikings; Giants also get this pick as well in the trade and load up on defense

• 24- Brian Thomas Jr (WR)- Dallas Cowboys

• 25- Kool-Aid McKinstry (CB)- Green Bay Packers

• 26- Amarius Mims (OT)- Tampa Bay Buccaneers

• 27- Quinyon Mitchell (CB)- Arizona Cardinals via Houston Texans

• 28- Adonai Mitchell (WR)- Buffalo Bills

• 29- Cooper DeJean (CB)- Detroit Lions

• 30- Tyler Guyton (OT)- Baltimore Ravens

• 31- Jordan Morgan (OT)- San Francisco 49ers

• 32- Kingsley Suamataia (OT)- Kansas City Chiefs

I'm sure someone has attempted something similar in the past, but I haven't found anything like it, so I decided to take some time to analyze the hit rate of some notable NFL draft "experts" when it comes to ranking QB draft classes. Before I get into my scoring system, I should note a few things:

1. I limited the scope of my review to the "top 5" performing QBs of each class. As far as what "top 5" constitutes, this was admittedly subjective. I'll explain my rationale for each below.

2. I also limited my review to draft years 2018 through 2022. 2018 was a logical cutoff because it became increasingly difficult to find projections for analysts that were older than that.

3. My rankings for Kiper and McShay may not be 100% accurate. I had difficulty sourcing their rankings and didn't want to pay for ESPN+. It was a bit frustrating that they keep old content behind a paywall. I am more confident in Kiper than McShay, and I mainly had issues finding information related to the poor 2022 class.

So, without further adieu, here goes:

I. Scoring System:

After much consideration, I decided to use a relatively simple scoring system, whereunder I rewarded correct rankings equally with a score of 25 points. From there, the points decrease based on the number of "spots" that an analyst was off in their rankings. For sake of simplicity, the range of scoring was limited to QB1 through QB5 and then any QB beyond QB5 was lumped together as "NR". A table outlining the scoring is below:

II. QB Rankings Based on Current Careers:

III. Analyst Performance:

Rank by Score:

1. PFF (Palazzo/Renner)

2. Mel Kiper

3. The Ringer (Danny Kelly)

4. Chris Simms

5. Walter Football (C. Campbell)

6. Daniel Jeremiah

7. Lance Zierlein

8. Todd McShay

A few observations stuck out to me. One being that analysts were actually very consistent at identifying QB1 in most classes. The only times they struggled were in classes without a consensus pro-ready talent. This bodes well for Caleb Williams. On the other hand, the hit rate for non-consensus prospects is incredibly low, which does not bode well for other guys in this draft (unless this year is like 2020, which it may be).

Lastly, most beyond QB1, most of these analysts are guessing as much as anyone else when projecting how QBs will fare in the NFL. There wasn't a huge separation here, but McShay was a consistently bad exception.

IV. Actual Analyst Rankings:

To make the data more digestible, below is a table of the actual rankings I found for each analyst:

Wentz move to the Chiefs has to put him up there.

I mean. It seems like a recent boom.

If you look at the end date there are tons of dudes in the NFL

But if you look at previous years. It was never like this.

Example iowa only has 1 HOFer in Kurt Warner.

Misssippi with a similar population has 9 as of 2016. Louisiana with a population of 4.5 million, not even 50 percent more than Iowa has a ton. Including Peyton Manning. Alan Faneca. Jim Taylor and Terry Bradshaw.

So what's caused this boom?

Clearly something has changed in Iowa.

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