2019 NFL Draft Grades: Comparing differences between major outlets

Everyone loves NFL Draft grades, but a complete comparison across four major media outlets leaves more questions than answers. If everyone disagrees so strongly, then why do them at all?

NFL Draft grades are senseless. That’s not a true statement because we have to wait at least three years down the line to see if anyone even turns into a quality player. It’s not because some teams have different agendas and can only be graded if you are aware of the plan. We know NFL Draft grades are trivial because of how drastically different these grades can be when considering the same exact players going to the same exact teams in the same exact order.

We complied a small list of the grades handed out by a few popular publications, four to be exact. Browsing through, a few things jump off the page immediately. Take a look for yourself, then see how we feel about this growing problem.

Two brothers from New York, Dan Salem and Todd Salem, debate NFL Draft Grades in today’s NFL Sports Debate.

2019 NFL Draft Grades Comparison – View Here

For a complete breakdown of the draft grades from each outlet listed, you can visit the following:
NFL.com, CBSSports.com, SI.com, SportingNews.com

Todd Salem:

I’m perplexed. NFL.com gave out B+ or higher to 84 percent of the teams in the league. Only five teams received a lower grade. Said another way, the New York Giants and Detroit Lions were given Bs and tied for the fourth-worst grades in the league. If the grades have nothing that amounts to a bell curve, why bother? Everyone didn’t just have a good draft.

Based on NFL.com’s grading, the Houston Texans and Tampa Bay Buccaneers just had really bad drafts. They were the only teams in the sport not to receive an A or B. But then we see that SI gave those teams either the best (or tied for the best) grades in their respective divisions.

When CBS Sports only hands out three As in total, it feels more logical. It adds impact to those teams for standing out. The three As were given to Arizona, Washington and New England, the Patriots being the lone A+ of the bunch.

Sporting News took it a step in the other direction, being the lone publication of this quartet to hand out D grades. No one else felt confident enough to grade any team below a C. It also used a lot more Cs than its counterparts, which feels either cavalier or correct. I’m not sure which. SN gave Ds to Dallas, Tampa and the Los Angeles Rams. They must really stand out for all the wrong reasons…except Dallas and the aforementioned Bucs were ranked first in their divisions by others.

Can anything useful be gleaned from these exercises? We know individual grading would be almost irrelevant the days immediately after the draft, but group conglomeration of drafting opinion should be more likely to reveal something. The more opinions that harmonize, the better, but what actually happens isn’t very helpful.

This is surely an issue with the exercise itself, right? Or am I being too dramatic? Maybe it does just come down to some grades focusing on team needs, others on accumulating talent, some docking teams for lacking early picks, others taking that into account.

Some graders want immediate help for a roster, while others can see the long game. In that case, any team that has a consistent grade across platforms would almost be worse off. It means there’s nothing deep or interesting going on in that front office. The team selected solid players that filled holes and nothing more.

Dan Salem:

Not only did you touch on a dirty little secret of the NFL Draft process, but you exposed some major media bias in the process. Take the Arizona Cardinals for example. Despite so much inconsistency among team grades, all four outlets gave Arizona an A grade.

Not a single one thought it detrimental to draft a quarterback when you didn’t need one, ignoring the three best players on the board in the process. No one thought trading their top-10 pick from last season for pennies on the dollar was a bad decision. It’s like they had to collectively support the top pick of Kyler Murray, regardless of its actual impact.

As you can tell, I’m not a fan of how the Cardinals handled things. I would have traded Rosen prior to the 2019 NFL Draft if Murray was my guy at No. 1. Who cares if you are showing your hand? You have the top pick, so it doesn’t matter. As far as other teams and the rather large differences between NFL Draft grades, who is the person that thought applying a letter grade to a team’s draft haul was a good idea?

From a marketing standpoint, grading a draft class is smart. It’s buzzworthy and a great headline for media outlets. But it has zero value. The only way to not say the same thing as everyone else is to do what our handy chart shows.

Either give everyone a B grade, because at this point no one has really made any big mistakes. Or make sure the defending champions get an A+ grade, while handing out a few surprises with D grades.

I can’t read draft grades for this reason. I look to see who a team took in Round 1, and then if they filled their roster holes overall. The Round 1 guys should start this season, or at least be in play. Everyone else will be forgotten by the preseason, only to resurrect themselves in the future as a breakout star, or not.

The NFL Draft is great fun. It’s the ultimate circus full of silly acts and lots of highlights. We don’t grade the lion on how wide it opened its jaws, so NFL Draft grades are just as ridiculous — unless you’re the Patriots, because everyone agrees they can’t make a mistake and did not. That’s just physics.