Ranking the NFL Draft Predictors – Who’s the Best?

April 12, 2010

With the 2010 NFL Draft around the corner, and everyone predicting that Florida phenom Tim Tebow will go low in the second round or lower as the third or fourth best quarterback available for picking, consumers of media services and sports fans in general are anxious to know – how good are these professional draft prognosticators? We decided to do a study of the 2009 draft predictions to see how the media sports gurus actually shaped up.

A lot of media web sites rely on Scout.com for their predictions. Scout.com, started in part by former NFL quarterback Bernie Kosar, has been doing this for ten years, and was recently purchased by Fox Interactive Media. Scout.com predicts that Tebow will be drafted in the second or third round, after quarterbacks Sam Bradford and Jevan Snead have already been picked ahead of him.

In 2009, Scout.com successfully predicted 84% of the final first round picks in the NFL draft. That would get you a solid “B” in most classes. Not bad.

ESPN’s Mel Kiper also makes yearly predictions of the NFL draft. In 2009, ESPN successfully predicted 81% of the final players selected in the first round, a “B-.”

Walter Football picked 27 out of 32 first round picks, for another score of 84%. Seems as though the big pickers all are about equal in their clairvoyance and expertise.

Another ranker, GCobb.com, scored 72% in our 2009 survey.

Did the prognosticators do well in predicting the top ten draft choices? Both Scout.com and ESPN got 7 out of 10, for a grade of 70%. Walter Football got 9 out of 10 for 90%.

It seems that the sports experts are pretty good at predicting the draft picks. Whether such players actually pan out in their careers is, of course, another matter. Witness Brett Favre, who went 33rd in the 1991 draft, behind such future non-stars as Dan McGwire and Todd Marinovich.

Or how about the biggest miss of all, Tom Brady, the future hall of famer and three time Super Bowl winner for the Patriots? He was selected in the 199th spot in the 2000 draft, behind household name quarterbacks like Giovanni Carmazzi (who never played a single down as an NFL quarterback), Chris Redman (still active in the NFL), Tee Martin, Spergon Wynn and Todd Husak (threw 2 passes in his career).

So there’s still hope for Tebow who, if the prognosticators maintain their average, will not be a first round pick but might still be a future star.