Why early draft grades are meaningless...

I'm draft grades will come up sooner or later and I came across this article whilst browsing Field Gulls.

http://www.milehighreport.com/2014/5/12 ... eaningless

I know it's from Denver's SBNation site but the Hawks are the example used and what struck me most is the poll results at the end.

It mirrors my feelings almost exactly and I figured it was worth linking despite the source.

Grading a draft prior to the players playing as pros is analyst arrogance of an extreme nature.

Most of the grading is subjective as well and totally devoid of any real statistical basis that supports the grade.

It would seem if you get a 1st round consensus draft prospect later in the draft you've done well grading wise regardless of the reason for the player falling in the draft; or if you take a consensus solid player who is injured and likely to sit until healed you have a negative grade despite acquiring a good player. Who says the player is actually 'good'?

This year more than most I can recently remember there were a lot of supposedly 'good' players that fell out of the draft altogether. There are several who remain unsigned as UDFA acquisitions b/c of supposed character issue or totally un recognized health issues the graders failed to recognize themselves.

The graders are mostly self professed draft experts who don't run football teams or work as official scouts for one of the 32 football teams. I'd be interested more in knowing what the managers of the 31 other teams think of the drafts of their rivals.
But those guys know it is impossible to assess any draft until the players chosen get to play and try to fit in with the team that selected them.

Reading these supposed grades is a waste of time.

Great analogy I heard this weekend:

Grading a draft before seeing how the draftees play in the NFL is equivalent to writing a restaurant review based solely on the menu.