I’ve said it many, many times: the dirty truth of “NFL Draft Season” is that amateurs focus on mock drafts, but the real draftniks focus on Big Board rankings.
Mock Drafts are just a (random & wild) prediction of what you think a team will do. You, me, or the homeless guy who told Jimmy Haslam that the Cleveland Browns should take Johnny Manziel in the 2014 NFL Draft have about the same amount of credibility and probable accuracy regarding what will happen on draft day. Projecting right now what any team is going to do in late April, after weeks of analysis, over-analysis, and then paralysis by analysis, is complete and utter horseshit.
Conversely, the Big Board is where you stake your claim in regards to saying one player is definitively better than another. So, just because I projected Sam Darnold to be picked with the top overall selection in my last mock draft doesn’t mean I think he’s the top overall player in the draft. But as you’ll see on the Big Board below, the fact that I have Saquon Barkley from Penn State means that yes, all things being equal, I think Barkley is the most talented — or “best” — player in the draft. Yet, that does NOT mean is that I think the Browns are going to take Barkley with the #1 overall pick.
So with all of that being said, and with all of this likely to change — somewhat dramatically — about two weeks from now, at the conclusion of the 2018 NFL Scouting Combine, here’s my preliminary head-to-head rankings of the top 75 players in the 2018 NFL Draft.
Rank | Player | Position | School |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Saquon Barkley | RB | Penn State |
2 | Quenton Nelson | OL | Notre Dame |
3 | Minkah Fitzpatrick | DB | Alabama |
4 | Bradley Chubb | DE | North Carolina State |
5 | Sam Darnold | QB | USC |
6 | Roquan Smith | ILB | Georgia |
7 | Tremaine Edmunds | OLB | Virginia Tech |
8 | Derwin James | Safety | Florida State |
9 | Denzel Ward | CB | Ohio State |
10 | Josh Jackson | CB | Iowa |
11 | Vita Vea | DT | Washington |
12 | Baker Mayfield | QB | Oklahoma |
13 | Josh Rosen | QB | UCLA |
14 | Da'Ron Payne | DT | Alabama |
15 | Mike Hughes | CB | Central Florida |
16 | Rashaan Evans | ILB | Alabama |
17 | Marcus Davenport | DE | UT San Antonio |
18 | James Daniels | OL | Iowa |
19 | Isaiah Wynn | OL | Georgia |
20 | Ronald Jones II | RB | USC |
21 | Sony Michel | RB | Georgia |
22 | Calvin Ridley | WR | Alabama |
23 | Dallas Goedert | TE | South Dakota State |
24 | Will Hernandez | OL | UTEP |
25 | Harold Landry | DE | Boston College |
26 | Maurice Hurst | DT | Michigan |
27 | Derrius Guice | RB | LSU |
28 | Connor Williams | OT | Texas |
29 | Orlando Brown | OT | Oklahoma |
30 | Mike McGlinchey | OT | Notre Dame |
31 | Billy Price | OL | Ohio State |
32 | Ronnie Harrison | Safety | Alabama |
33 | Harrison Phillips | DT | Stanford |
34 | Courtland Sutton | WR | SMU |
35 | Arden Key | DE | LSU |
36 | Isaiah Oliver | CB | Colorado |
37 | Carlton Davis | CB | Auburn |
38 | Jaire Alexander | CB | Louisville |
39 | Lamar Jackson | QB | Louisville |
40 | Josh Allen | QB | Wyoming |
41 | Brian O'Neill | OT | Pittsburgh |
42 | Christian Kirk | WR | Texas A&M |
43 | Kolton Miller | OT | UCLA |
44 | Sam Hubbard | DE | Ohio State |
45 | Ogbonnia Okoronkwo | OLB | Oklahoma |
46 | Taven Bryan | DT | Florida |
47 | Kerryon Johnson | RB | Auburn |
48 | D.J. Moore | WR | Maryland |
49 | Malik Jefferson | LB | Texas |
50 | Mark Andrews | TE | Oklahoma |
51 | James Washington | WR | Oklahoma State |
52 | Rasheem Green | DT | USC |
53 | Donte Jackson | CB | LSU |
54 | Auden Tate | WR | Florida State |
55 | Chukwuma Okorafor | OT | Western Michigan |
56 | Derrick Nnadi | DT | Florida State |
57 | Martinas Rankin | OT | Mississippi State |
58 | Tyrell Crosby | OT | Oregon |
59 | Rashaad Penny | RB | San Diego State |
60 | Leighton Vander Esch | LB | Boise State |
61 | Nick Chubb | RB | Georgia |
62 | Mason Rudolph | QB | Oklahoma State |
63 | Braden Smith | OL | Auburn |
64 | Hayden Hurst | TE | South Carolina |
65 | Tarvarus McFadden | CB | Florida State |
66 | D.J. Chark | WR | LSU |
67 | Josh Sweat | DE | Florida State |
68 | Dorance Armstrong | DE | Kansas |
69 | Geron Christian | OT | Louisville |
70 | Anthony Miller | WR | Memphis |
71 | Marcus Allen | Safety | Penn State |
72 | Dante Pettis | WR | Washington |
73 | Deadrin Senat | DT | South Florida |
74 | Kyzir White | Safety | West Virginia |
75 | Deon Cain | WR | Clemson |