I think there’s a perception that there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of possible draftees in each draft class. I think the copious NFL Draft coverage and the NFL’s encouragement of the media hype surrounding the draft just feed this perception. It’s one reason why so many players feel like they have an NFL shot despite not being regular starters, even at the sub-FBS level, in college. That puts a real strain on a lot of well-meaning contract advisors.
This week, I wanted to test my theory by getting a better sense of how many players are seriously considered by NFL teams. To do this, I asked several friends in the industry this question: Typically, my impression is that the typical team puts “draftable” grades on 100-120 players each draft. How many of those usually made it to the UDFA process? My goal was to illustrate how many of the players teams rated as good enough to help a team nonetheless got pushed down the board all the way into the UDFA process.
The answers I got were mostly on par with what I expected. Some teams cast a wider net, or perhaps had a lower bar for being considered “draftable,” than others, but most boiled the board down to a limited number. For example, one scout said his team had “about 20-30 (undrafted prospects) every year” — I think he signed off on my 100-120 number — and those slid due to “a medical issue” or it “could be an off-the-field issue.” Another team was very comparable to the first team. “Maybe five” didn’t get drafted among the 140 the team valued as worthy of being selected. Those five had Day 3 grades.
Another friend’s team clearly cast a much wider net. He said each area (I’m presuming areas would be West Coast, Midwest, Northeast, Southeast, Southwest and Midlands) had about 300 total reports, with around 40 percent of each area going undrafted. I felt that was a lot of players who made that team’s radar, which translated to a lot of players leaking into the undrafted pile. He also said “a good chunk would have their final grade dropped to a UDFA grade” prior to the draft. I got the sense those players were downgraded at some point in the weeks leading up to the draft.
A third friend said his team set up a “hot list” of around 100 players, depending on the team’s number and quality of picks. The team held strictly to that list and only 4-6 would slip through to the UDFA crop. I got the sense that this team made it a priority to sign that small list of undrafted-but-legitimate prospects (“we’d recruit the (crap) out of UDFAs, starting a week or more before the draft”).
Every year, about 1,500-2,000 players sign with agents. Though I want to be encouraging to the players hoping to be drafted, the truth is that though 250+ players get drafted each year, even that number is probably on the high side of which ones are really prospects. Remember that when your favorite draft pundit runs down the “best values” in the waning minutes of the broadcast.
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