What is the point of grading a draft right after it happens? We have no idea what the prospects will do at the NFL level, so it seems that the primary reason for draft grades is clicks.
Which is not altogether inaccurate, to be brutally honest. I can only speak to my process, but when I’m grading a draft right after the fact, it’s all about taking the work I did pre-draft and projecting that analysis to the NFL with the understanding of NFL homes for every player. Grades are evaluations in the moment. Ideally, you’re weighing prospect strength with positional value and draft capital expended. It’s more than a letter and some snark for clicks.
That’s what I did here in grading the 2023 NFL draft for all 32 teams. I could be completely wrong regarding how these players do at the next level, but that’s not really the point. The point is more about how the teams did with the resources they had, the capital they spent, what they got in return, and what they might have left behind.
That’s the mindset I took into the grades you see here. And here’s some of the evaluation I have done to get to this point.