2015 NFL DRAFT POSITION RANKINGS GUIDE
Information packed snapshots of the players
As far back as the 1960's the NFL Draft was referred to as a "crapshoot" and this appears to still be the case today, and this despite all of the advanced scouting methods employed by the NFL teams. Back then, the draft was held in late February and it was fun to watch the teams grapple with the process and the mistakes were plentiful. For instance the Buffalo Bills had the 1st overall pick in 1972 and selected Walt Patulski, DE from Notre Dame, who did play for a few years and had some success but has been included in the top busts lists of the NFL draft. Somewhere in that period the then St. Louis Cardinals selected a player in the 2nd round, and the player signed a contract, received a signing bonus and never reported to camp. That prompted the teams to change the contracts so that a signing bonus became a reporting bonus.
Some of the not so long ago 'BUSTS" have been the choice of QB Jamarcus Russell of LSU as the first overall choice in the 2007 draft to LB Vernon Gholston, No. 6 overall in the 2008 draft to the more recent Jonathan Martin, drafted in the 2nd round (42 overall), in the 2012 draft. Martin was the victim in the Bullygate scandal with the Dolphins last year, then dealt to the 49ers, who recently released him. And picked right after Martin in the 2nd Round with Pick No. 43 was Stephen Hill, a WR from Georgia Tech, chosen by the Jets and he is no longer with the team. There are many others which support the thinking that the draft is a "crapshoot" but the jury is still out. These would include: E.J. Manuel the 16th pick in the 1st round in 2013 by the Bills, Geno Smith, 2nd round and 39th overall, by the Jets and just last year, with some analysts having already declared both of the Cleveland Browns two 1st round picks, Justin Gilbert and Johnny Manziel, to have been drafted too high.
In last year's draft the NY Jets selected WR Shaq Evans from UCLA in the 4th round and three picks later the Steelers selected WR Martavis Bryant from Clemson, who is an emerging star. And this raises the question, would Rex Ryan still be the coach of the Jets if the Jets had selected Bryant rather than Evans?
In any event, the uncertainty and intrigue has generated a huge interest in the NFL Draft and to that end I have assembled a position guide which amounts to a snapshot bio on each player; and for which there are some abbreviations and symbols which may require further explanation. And they are as follows:
For the Quarterbacks, I use YPC which is Yards per Completions as opposed to Yards per Attempt just because I think that it is a better metric to use, one reason being that YPA factors in dropped passes and balls thrown away, which is unfair to the QB. The numbers in green are Completion Percentage.
For the players at the Combine an example of: 4.62 4.73 4.61 1.61 1.71 2.44 23B or 23BP 34V 9'11"BJ 4.22ss 7.03-3C 11.62-60S - the first two are hand held forty times, the green is the best of the two forty times electronically, then the two ten yard spilts time, the 2.44 would be the 20 yard split, B or BP would be Bench Press of the 225 lb. bar, 34 is Vertical Jump, 9'11" is Broad Jump, 4.22ss is the 20 yd. Short Shuttle, 7.03-3C is the three cone drill and the last number is the 60 yard shuttle, which many of the players opt out of as it is a tough drill. A point of interest is that for some positions many teams are more interested in the 10 yard split rather than the 40 yard time. They call it "Split" as it is taken at the same time that the forties are run and split out of the 40 time. The green electronically time was the only one reported that I found even though they ran two forties and had two ten yard splits and one twenty yard split reported.
On the upper right, for many of the players there will be either: SB (Senior Bowl), E/W is the East/West Shrine Game, NFLPA is the NFL Players Assoc. game, MHB is for the Medal of Honor Bowl, and CGS is for the College Gridiron Showcase game, and SB, E/W, NFLPA, MHB and CGS is generally considered to be the order of importance of these games. For the early entrants I showed JR. or SOr which indicates that they were not eligible for those all-star games.
Also in the right bracket is the performance layout for each player, which gives the year and then 11/13 would be the number of starts followed by the number of games that he played in for that particular year. That is many times followed by the honors a player received such as All-Conference would be AC, AC2 is Second Team and ACHM is Honorable Mention and thus AC2-C or AC2-M would be Second Team selected by the Coaches or M by the Media (AP). The H.S. 3* is the Rivals rating from High School with 5 being the highest, NR means No Rating and then where there is |2014- 4.42 - 4.58|, those are forty times from best to worst taken at the colleges. Instead of one forty time, say 4.56, my preference is to see the forty time range of each player.
For the defensive players, it is Solo Tackles, Assisted Tackles, Total Tackles, Sacks, Tackles for Loss, Interceptions, Passes Defended, Quarterback Hurries, Fumble Recovered and Forced Fumbles. One difference that I have made with all of the college stat sheets is that I have separated Sacks from Tackles for Loss. For instance, any college stat sheet will include Sacks with Tackles for Loss, which I think is misleading unless you are aware of that. So I may have in green 6.0-8.0 which is 6 Sacks and separately 8 Tackles for Loss while a college stat sheet would show 6 Sacks and 14 Tackles for Loss.
And since everybody loves Sleepers, I have included an S next to some players to indicate that they are Sleepers, and most of these would be considered to be long shots.
