Reviewing the Draft, from a different perspective

Chris had earlier posted how the media graded the draft. which was a nice summary of some of the major news sites and their "gut" reactions to the Browns draft. In my opinion, many of them neglected to add the 3 players we received in the Jets trade (but that is a post for another day).

So I decided I wanted to review the draft according to the pre-draft rankings. I reviewed the following websites for their rankings of the players prior to the draft: CBS Sportsline, Fox (Scout), SI.com, ESPN, The Sporting News (TSN), and CFN (College Football News)

Not all of the sites ranked the players in the similar manner, but there was a lot of good info in there. For review purposes, the sites ranked the players in the following manner:

CBS: Overall (top 750), Position, Projected Round

Fox/Scout: Overall (Top 357), Position, Grade (5 star max) - I ignored their grade since there were no partial grades, only 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 stars

SI.com: Position, Grade (5.0 max), Projected Round

ESPN: Overall (Top 250), Position, Grade (100 max)

Sporting News: Overall (Top 99), Position, Grade (10 max)

CFN: Overall (Top 250), Position, Projected Round

Pro Football Weekly: Overall (Top 258), Position, Projected Round (by Grade)

Scott Wright: Overall (Top 256), Position

Edit: From DaytonDogg's post on Robiskie, there were two more sites I added into the ranking, Pro Football Weekly (PFW) and Scott Wright (SW). I also located the overall rankings from Fox and added them to the totals as well

So, I will summarize each player by the above factors.

Alex Mack - Across the board, he was ranked number 1 for all centers. His overall average was a 35.  His grade averages out to an 82.13. He was a first/second round projection by CBS and SI, and a second by CFN and PFW.

Overall - A pick at 21 might be a bit of a reach (but I personally still like the pick).

Brian Robiskie - Average positional rank of 8, with a high of 4 from SI and low of 17 from Sporting News. Overall average of 55 (CBS high of 30, CFN low of 98). Grade average of 71.93. Projected as a first/second rounder by CBS and second rounder by SI, CFN and PFW.

Overall - While his average of 55 makes his pick at 36 seem a bit of a reach, he was projected in the second round by all four that did projections.

Mohamed Massaquoi - Average positional rank of 14, with a high of 7 from ESPN and PFW and low of 34 from Sporting News. Overall average of 92 (ESPN high of 53, CFN low of 187). Grade average of 73.20. Projected as a second/third rounder by CBS, second rounder by SI and PFW, and a third rounder by CFN.

Overall - Only ESPN liked him better than Robiskie. Again his overall ranking makes him look like a bit of a reach, but he was projected as a 2/3 pick.

David Veikune - Average positional rank of 10, with a high of 9 from SI, CFN and PFW, and low of 12 from Sporting News. Overall average of 91 (ESPN high of 69, CBS low of 102). Grade average of 69.67. Projected as a third/fourth rounder by CBS, second/third rounder by SI and a fourth rounder by CFN and PFW.

Overall - Again, a bit of a reach, but since we didn't pick again until round 4, I can live with this pick.

Kaluka Maiava - Average positional rank of 10, with a high of 7 from SI and CFN and low of 14 from Sporting News. Overall average of 122 (Scott Wright high of 79, CFN low of 196). Grade average of 65.00. Projected as a fourth rounder by CBS and CFN and a third rounder by SI and PFW.

Overall - First pick that wasn't a reach at all. Right on the money with this one.

Don Carey - Average positional rank of 28, with a high of 22 from Scott Wright and low of 36 from CFN (Note: he didn't make the positional rankings for Sporting News). Overall average of 184 (Scott Wright high of 134, Fox low of 269, didn't make CFN's rankings). Grade average of 55.27. Projected as a fifth/sixth rounder by CBS, a sixth rounder by CFN, a fourth/fifth rounder by PFW, and a free agent by SI.

Overall - This is the one pick I believe could be qualified as a full reach. But in the 6th round, I honestly don't see a problem with that based on the next two picks and that we didn't have a seventh rounder.

Coye Francies - Average positional rank of 13, with a high of 10 from Fox and Scott Wright, and low of 18 from SI. Overall average of 104 (Sporting News high of 74, CFN low of 169). Grade average of 74.67. Projected as a fourth rounder by all four. [Note: He and Mack are the only 2 to crack the top 99 from Sporting News]

Overall - The definite steal of the draft for the Browns according to the projections. He grades out as our 2nd best player and was a consensus 4th rounder.

James Davis - Average positional rank of 11, with a high of 9 from Fox and CFN and low of 16 from SI. Overall average of 127 (Fox high of 80, CBS low of 168). Grade average of 63.53. Projected as a fifth rounder by CBS, a fifth/sixth rounder by SI and a fourth rounder by CFN and PFW.

Overall - Another steal. Not quite as much of one as Francies, bur a steal nonetheless.

All in all, I'd rank the draft (based on the players above only) as a C since all of the top picks seemed to be slight reaches (with Carey being the biggest reach), but the two steals in the sixth negate all of the reaches. But when one factors in a starting DE, a starting S and a backup QB to those players above, the grade moves up to a solid B+.

I'll be posting something regarding the UDFAs sometime this weekend, but I will add Graham Harrell to this post since he is the only guy to hit all six sites prior to the draft.

Graham Harrell - Average positional rank of 12, with a high of 6 from Sporting News and low of 15 from CBS and SI. Overall average of 183 (Scott Wright high of 189, CBS low of 288). Grade average of 52.87. Projected as a seventh rounder/free agent by CBS and SI, and a sixth rounder by CFN, and a seventh rounder by PFW.

Overall - A bit of a steal. But unless DA is traded, I don't see him anywhere but the practice squad.