Comparative rankings of DEs acoss various Big Boards (Consensus Top 20 DEs)

[KB_fan]

This is my first year paying any attention at all to various pre-draft rankings of prospects or playing around with draft simulators.  I've enjoyed playing with the "On the Clock" simulator at Fanspeak. ( fanspeak.com/ontheclock/ )  It's been a fun way to learn about various players who could be Panthers' draft prospects.

One thing that's surprised me as I've done a bunch of mock drafts, is how divergent some of the player rankings are.  Just looking at the DEs, for instance.  One board has Shaq Lawson ranked 4th, another 40th.  Or Carl Nassib.  One board has him ranked 30th, another at 106.

There are 8 draft boards included at Fanspeak, 7 of which have been updated in the last week following the Combine:

1. Fanspeak 3/8
2. Drafttek 3/10
3. CBS 3/4
4. Matt Miller  3/10
5. Walter Football 3/10
6. Jeff Risdon 3/10
7. NFL Mock  3/10

I thought it would be an interesting exercise to try and come up with something of a "consensus" Big Board for various positions, comparing these draft boards.  I started with DE since I think that's a position many Huddlers are extremely interested in.  I compiled the top 20 DEs from each draft board* (see note at bottom if you want to know how to do this) and then I sorted and compared the lists, coming up with an average ranking for all of the players. 

Here's what I found for DE.  There were a total of 34 players ranked among the top 20 DEs by various boards.  For 22 of those there was high consensus (included on at least 3 boards).  For 12 others they were outliers, included in the top 20 DEs for just 1 or 2 boards.

Here's the consensus listing:

Not all boards identify a player at the same position.  Some boards may list a player as a DE, others as a DT or an OLB.  That's why even for some of the top players, not all 7 draft boards included a player.

 

*Note:  For those who might want to do these types of comparisons yourself, here are a few tips.  Choose Tennessee as the team you're drafting for, so that you'll have the #1 pick, preventing the simulator from running.  The entire draft board will then come up when the simulator starts.  You can select different positions to look at.  Click on DE, you then get a list of all the DEs in order of their ranking on that draft board), etc.

[KB_fan]

So Huddle, some questions:

1) Is this type of comparative consensus ranking of players by position across various Big Boards helpful? [If you all like this, I'm willing to do more such lists, for at least several key positions (DE, DT, CB, S, WR, OT might be my priority), but I likely can't do any more posts like this until after March 25 as I've got very major work responsibilities ahead for the next 2 weeks.]

2) Are there other big boards I should include?  What boards / sites are generally most reputable / accurate? [Are there any sites you've found to do a particularly good job of reflecting Panthers' priorities and rankings?]  If so, please provide links.  Fanspeak makes it easy to sort by position.  That's why I've used their boards to compile this list.  But if there's another board I really should be looking at, I'm willing to try to include it.

3) What do you think of this ranking of DEs?  Which players among the top 22 would you see us targeting if they fell to us? 

4) Which players surprise you in this list of the highest ranked DEs?  Who is missing from this list?  (There are "DEs" who might be listed as DTs or OLBs on some of the boards.  If there are other names Panthers should be looking at for DE, please mention them!)

[KB_fan]

There were a couple of names in the high consensus list of DEs that I don't recall folks here mentioning.  Most of the top 20 names were at least slightly familiar, but not all.  Here are five names of DEs, included in the top 20 on 5 or more boards, about whom I know very little and would love to learn more.

DE  SHAWN OAKMAN - BAYLOR

DE  CHARLES TAPPER - OKLAHOMA

DE  JAMES COWSER - SOUTHERN UTAH

DE  ANTHONY ZETTEL - PENN STATE

DE  JASON FANAIKA - UTAH

 

Based on these rankings, all could possibly be available to us in rounds 3 or below.

 

Any worth a look? 

 

I know in one thread recently there'd been talk about how great a pipeline Utah has been for us.  Anyone know anything about this DE from Utah?  (Obviously Star is from there.... that bodes well.)

[Riverboat Ron]

I really like this idea and was hoping someone would startup a thread for it. I can assist with these consensus rankings, also don't think it would be a bad idea for people to do a couple write-ups on players so that others in the forum who don't follow the draft as closely get a better idea of prospects.

 

I think either Lawson or Dodd falls to us at #30 and guys like Bosa, Buckner, Ogbah and Bullard are gone at #30. I don't think Lawson fits at 3-4 OLB and might fall like Ealy did back in 2014 who some thought might end up as a 3-4 OLB. While Dodd is possibly the most NFL ready 4-3 DE, he'll be 24 at the start of the season which might cause him to drop. I think Spence falls out of the 1st round but gets taken with the #32 pick in a trade up. Calhoun could go earlier than projected to a 3-4 team like the Cardinals and Nassib goes early to mid 2nd.  

[JawnyBlaze]

Shawn Oakman's got the tools to be dominant, but for whatever reason isn't.  I'd use a later round pick on him, but probably not in the 3rd.  He'd be a big project.  Tapper is a combine stud, haven't watched his breakdowns myself so I don't have a strong opinion, but based on his measurables I'm not super interested.  I'm not familiar with any of the others enough to comment at all.

[KB_fan]

7 minutes ago, JawnyBlaze said:

based on his measurables I'm not super interested. 

Thanks for the reminder that measurables are important.  I didn't have time today to do any research on these players to include any measurables data or stats (sacks, etc.).  Mostly I just wanted to see how easy it would be / how well it would work to produce such a consensus listing, and what all y'all think of such a list - if it's helpful.

If there's a lot of interest, later this month I'd be willing to attempt to produce lists for maybe 5 or 6 positions, and include some measurables and stats for each of the top ranked players, as well....

[JawnyBlaze]

Of the top guys, Bosa's gonna be gone so not really an option for us regardless, but I'm less sold on him than most of the analysts.  Lawson reminds me of Melvin Ingram, a man without a position.  Too stocky and not fluid enough to thrive as a 3-4 OLB, but too stocky and not tall/long armed enough to thrive as a 4-3 DE.  Maybe if he put on 30-40 lbs he'd be a good UT, but that's not really realistic.  Dodd I think has all the tools to succeed and I think will be a Kony Ealy-like gradual developer.  Not late developer, but not game 1 dominant either.  Ogbah I think has the highest potential of all DEs in this draft.  The kid is lightning quick and good size.  He's raw right now though.  Not game 1 dominant either, but if his work ethic is there I think he could be an All Pro within 3 years.  Calhoun is a bean pole and will get manhandled by NFL LT's if he's playing with his hand in the dirt.  Spence is strictly a 3-4 OLB.  Nassib is stiff, but has some power and eventual speed, he could be good, but I dunno.  I'd look at him as Dodd-lite.  I like Bullard, he's got great efford but he's a little on the shorter side.  Reminds me a little of young Charles Johnson, so he'd be a solid pick too, imo.  I liked what I watched of Kaufusi, I think I like him better than most.  Maybe I just haven't watched enough on him.  I think he'd be a solid 2nd or 3rd round pick.

That's my 2 cents on most of the upper echelon of DEs.

[Adb6368]

I would love Oakman in the third. He reminds me of Nkemdiche but much more raw. I remember last year people were talking about him as a surefire first round pick. For whatever reason, he didn't live up to expectations this year. Looking quickly through his draft story on nfl.com i found this tid-bit

"He almost lost his way during his redshirt season at Penn State, where he was kicked off the team after attempting to steal a sandwich from a campus cafeteria because he was out of meal credits. "

Obviously this guy has had a rough go of it in his childhood but give him a year under CJ and time to develop and this guy could be a monster. 

[shaqattaq]

1 hour ago, Riverboat Ron said:

and Nassib goes early to mid 2nd.  

So if BPA in the first is not a DE, there is very real chance that G-man could trade up and still land Nassib (who I like) in the second. Some boards have him dropping to the 3rd, but I doubt he'll be on the board at 62.

[KB_fan]

I just took the time to create a "Big Board" using NFL.com's draft tracker, sorting all players by grade, and then giving the top 325 (players graded 5.0 or higher) a consecutive numeric ranking, thus allowing me to eventually add NFL.com's rankings to the consensus list for DEs.   I'll try to come up with an updated consensus table later today.

In the meantime, here are all the top DEs according to NFL.com

"rank"         Name                                 Pos    Ht       Wt       School                           Grade

 

You can see all the Dline players and their grades at NFL.com here:

http://www.nfl.com/draft/2016/tracker?icampaign=draft-sub_nav_bar-drafteventpage-tracker#dt-tabs:dt-by-position/dt-by-grade-input:18/dt-by-position-input:dl

 

[Technical Question:  Does anyone know how I can post this as a formatted table here in such a way that folks can click on the links and/or sort by height, weight, school?  I don't know how to be able to preserve the table formatting while posting here.]

[KB_fan]

Here's a breakdown of how the top 325 graded draft prospects (those graded 5.0 or better) listed at NFL.com shake out by position, in case it's of interest.  [There are 430 players included in the NFL draft tracker]

Defense:

• CB   38
• DE   29
• DT   26   [NT  5]
• OLB 27
• ILB   17
• FS    8  /  SS  6  /  S  7

 

Offense:

• C      9
• OG   24
• OT   22
• QB   16
• RB   21
• FB   4
• TE   16
• WR  40

 

Wow.  38 CBs in the top 300 or so players.  Should mean we can find a good one..., I hope.

[Untouchable]

We seems to love length in our defensive ends as I look at the arm length of players on the roster.  Unless you're a pass rush specialist (Addison, Delaire, Cox), arm length of players are all 34"+.

Ealy (34 1/4"), Alexander (35"), Horton (34 1/4"), Miley (34 3/4"). Even Hardy is 34" and I can't find anything on Johnson but I'd expect for him to be in the 33" range or more which is good for is size.

Now that doesn't exclude players with less length but it might push them down the big board.  I'd guess players like Dodd, Calhoun, Ogbah early.  Nassib, Tapper, Jenkins (OLB, Georgia) in the middle rounds.  Weatherly (OLB Vandy) and Okwara late.

 

[KB_fan]

Here's an updated consensus ranking of the top DEs included in 3 or more databases / draft boards, including the 7 Fanspeak site databases, and now also the NFL.com database.

[Captain Morgan]

KB, if Fanspeak does like last year, they will a choice for "consensus" to the list of choices to use as the big board...probably just a few days a way.