How we rank 2027 NFL Draft prospects

Our big board is the room's board, corrected by our numbers. Here is exactly how, step by step, what it has gotten right and wrong, and where we disagree most this week.

Step 1: start with the room

The room is an average of 25 outside boards: 20 analyst boards we collect each week (ESPN, CBS, PFN, Yahoo and more); MDD consensus; Tankathon; DraftTek; CBS Renner; PFF. Where they agree, we mostly agree. The room sees film, interviews and medicals that no stat sheet has.

Step 2: grade every college player

Every prospect gets a Model Score, 0 to 100, from his college career: how he is playing this year, his best season, his average season, how early he broke out, his size for the position, how highly he was recruited (capped, so stars alone cannot carry him), and his All-America and all-conference honors. Every season is adjusted for the defenses or offenses he faced and for his age. Each position has its own recipe, tested against where real players got drafted. The full recipe is on how Model Score works.

Step 3: blend the two, one position at a time

Inside each position, his rank is 70% the room's and 30% ours. So our numbers can reorder the tight ends, but they cannot tell you a tight end is worth more than a guard.

A real one from this week: the room has Peter Clarke (Temple) as the TE5 in the class. Our college score moves him to TE3. On the whole board that is 145th for the room and 77th for us.

Our score can lift a player as far as it wants. It can only drop him 5 places at his position. That is on purpose: the box score cannot see pressures or coverage, so when it says a top pass rusher is ordinary, it is more often the box score that is wrong.

Step 4: put him back on the whole board

The room decides how positions trade off. If we have a player as the third tight end, he takes the spot the room gives its third tight end, averaged evenly with the room's own rank for him. That is the number in the STTM column.

What does not move the rank

• Scouting reports. We write one for every top-250 prospect, but they explain the rank. They do not change it.
• The combine. Not in the score yet.
• Our gut. Nobody hand-moves a player on this year's board.

Receipts: how this has done

We ran this on the 2024 and 2025 draft classes, the two we have the pre-draft boards for: 436 drafted players with both a consensus rank and our college score, from their college numbers only. It is a back-test, not a call we made at the time, and the 2025 class has played one NFL season. Two scoreboards:

Where he got picked: the room wins

If you want to guess where a player goes in the draft, the room's board is far better than our numbers. Its ranks line up with the actual picks at 0.85 (1.00 is perfect); our college score alone lines up at 0.32. That is no surprise: the teams read the same boards. It is why the room gets 70% of our rank.

How he played: ours holds up

Players our score liked at least 25 spots more than the room went around pick 139 (97 players). Players it liked 25+ spots less went around pick 61 (96 players). Their best NFL seasons so far: the 44th percentile at their position for ours, the 47th for theirs. About the same players, about 78 picks cheaper. That gap is the 30%.

• Oronde Gadsden II, TE, 2025: the room had him 181st, our score 37th, drafted 165th, best NFL season so far in the 85th percentile.
• Marcus Harris, CB, 2025: the room had him 342nd, our score 215th, drafted 183rd, best NFL season so far in the 82nd percentile.
• Cole Bishop, S, 2024: the room had him 76th, our score 11th, drafted 60th, best NFL season so far in the 84th percentile.
• Braden Fiske, IDL, 2024: the room had him 45th, our score 8th, drafted 39th, best NFL season so far in the 94th percentile.

And the ones that missed, because a record that only shows hits is not a record:

• Marques Sigle, S, 2025: the room had him 315th, our score 76th, drafted 160th, best NFL season so far in the 2nd percentile.
• Dante Trader, S, 2025: the room had him 246th, our score 154th, drafted 155th, best NFL season so far in the 0th percentile.
• Will Shipley, RB, 2024: the room had him 124th, our score 53rd, drafted 127th, best NFL season so far in the 6th percentile.

Every matched pick, by position and class, is on Model accuracy.

Where we disagree most right now

The players our board is highest on that the room has outside its top 100, biggest gap first. Every Tuesday the top name who has a scouting report and a season this year becomes our Sleeper of the week: one card, the full breakdown, and his spot on the board. The rule is set before we look, so the pick is never a feeling.

Use it

• The 2027 big board: our rank beside the room's for every prospect
• Mock draft simulator: draft from this board for any team
• Community mock draft: what fans actually picked