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2025 NFL Draft


Wulaw Horn

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1 hour ago, Codaxx said:

Banks seems to be slipping a bit. Sad to say, but how he measures will probably decide it. People throwing out he is 1 inch from the prototype, not enough length, might be a guard. I hate to see this stuff happen to him, but it is a bit funny considering people yammering about Turntine being a guard in the recruit chat. 

Him slipping now doesn't mean he'll keep falling. Pretty much every year draft analysts go through the same process with prospects. During the season they focus on the player's film and on-field play, then as we get to Senior Bowl and combine season prospects start to get underrated or overrated depending on measurables, and finally a couple weeks after the combine the analysts go back to rewatching the film and guys with good film move back up. This happens pretty much every cycle and it was always going to happen to Banks since he's smaller than your normal 1st round OT. As long as Banks' height or wingspan are below average but not drastically low I don't think his stock will change a ton from where it was towards the end of the season.

The other thing that will help him is there aren't many other highly-rated OTs. Will Campbell is the only other OT thought to be a worth a top 10-15 pick. Personally, I don't think Campbell's play was all that great and he seems overrated to me. Either way, there's a good chance Banks goes top 10 or top 15 off teams reaching for need alone.

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1 hour ago, Codaxx said:

Banks seems to be slipping a bit. Sad to say, but how he measures will probably decide it. People throwing out he is 1 inch from the prototype, not enough length, might be a guard. I hate to see this stuff happen to him, but it is a bit funny considering people yammering about Turntine being a guard in the recruit chat. 

The problem with the recruiting projections is that too many idiots, paid or otherwise, incorporate their NFL projection into what a program should want as a college player. 

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36 minutes ago, Burt Macklin said:

Him slipping now doesn't mean he'll keep falling. Pretty much every year draft analysts go through the same process with prospects. During the season they focus on the player's film and on-field play, then as we get to Senior Bowl and combine season prospects start to get underrated or overrated depending on measurables, and finally a couple weeks after the combine the analysts go back to rewatching the film and guys with good film move back up. This happens pretty much every cycle and it was always going to happen to Banks since he's smaller than your normal 1st round OT. As long as Banks' height or wingspan are below average but not drastically low I don't think his stock will change a ton from where it was towards the end of the season.

The other thing that will help him is there aren't many other highly-rated OTs. Will Campbell is the only other OT thought to be a worth a top 10-15 pick. Personally, I don't think Campbell's play was all that great and he seems overrated to me. Either way, there's a good chance Banks goes top 10 or top 15 off teams reaching for need alone.

 

26 minutes ago, kevwun said:

On the plus side, he will end up playing for a better team.

could be front office smokescreens, too.

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3 hours ago, Codaxx said:

Banks seems to be slipping a bit. Sad to say, but how he measures will probably decide it. People throwing out he is 1 inch from the prototype, not enough length, might be a guard. I hate to see this stuff happen to him, but it is a bit funny considering people yammering about Turntine being a guard in the recruit chat. 

This is generally a strategy that you see around consensus top players at premier positions with some mundane flaw. Teams start throwing this stuff out to everyone who will listen and try to create a narrative to get one of these guys to fall in the draft to them. It usually doesn't work, but every now and then it does. 

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Banks' draft range in the mocks changed because he was likely over-slotted, and DJ finally got around to posting his, and the rest of the industry adjusted since he's the most connected and should have the most accurate mock at any given time 

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49 minutes ago, Fud said:

Banks' draft range in the mocks changed because he was likely over-slotted, and DJ finally got around to posting his, and the rest of the industry adjusted since he's the most connected and should have the most accurate mock at any given time 

DJ's recent mock draft 1.0 

IMG_20250129_182543.jpg.f4ac1b2f0819f32eff757af0a458603b.jpg

 

https://www.nfl.com/news/daniel-jeremiah-2025-nfl-mock-draft-1-0

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2 hours ago, Vertigo said:

This is generally a strategy that you see around consensus top players at premier positions with some mundane flaw. Teams start throwing this stuff out to everyone who will listen and try to create a narrative to get one of these guys to fall in the draft to them. It usually doesn't work, but every now and then it does. 

I think it is a bit of both. Scouts tend to over think these things.  Can I draft a LT that is ~6’3” top 10? Does his height make him a RT/Guard? I know his 3 years of tape says I should, but he is not the prototype. The underwear Olympics are real. There always seems to be a great player that falls and a jag (for the draft) that rises. Banks may drop to 15-20 area and a guy like Alfred Collins may move up early-mid second round. I always find the give and take between measurables and film to be interesting this time of year. 

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The fascination with a tackle having to be 6’5”+ has also seemed stupid to me. Teams are too on finding Tony Bosseli unicorns instead of guys who can actually play.

Measurables have never made a player (see Mario Williams). What they do on the field and in practice should matter 95%.

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It's a hit rate thing, trying to make drafting more scientific and less art

Teams have various "measurables" thresholds at different positions that have to be met to spend a certain value of draft pick. Arm length for OTs, hand size for QBs, max throwing velocity for QBs, arm length for outside corner, short shuttle for ILB, short shuttle for S, three cone for edge, etc

They have data that shows players who meet these thresholds have a higher rate of "hitting" than those who don't, so if you filter out the players who don't meet those thresholds, theoretically your drafting should improve. Combine the improved hit rate with focusing on the more valuable positions early, and you should be doing much better than how teams were drafting in the 1990s, at the very least, although if every team is doing it to some degree, is there really an edge? Another way to think about it is these measurables are rare in humans, so draft the players with the rare measurables earlier, and then there should be more players available later in the draft with more common measurables to choose from, and missing later in the draft hurts you less 

Some teams are all-in on this, while others are pretty lax about it 

Regarding Banks, I don't see why he can't be Rashawn Slater, who's been a good NFL LT when healthy, and if he were in this draft with the knowledge of how he's played in the NFL (ignoring injuries), he'd probably go top five 

Another thing to consider is interior OL (which apparently some teams view Banks and even Campbell as) are becoming more valuable because there are more dominant DLs and more difficult to deal with interior stunts than ever before, and the contracts for the top guards tracks with that 

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1 hour ago, Fud said:

It's a hit rate thing, trying to make drafting more scientific and less art

Teams have various "measurables" thresholds at different positions that have to be met to spend a certain value of draft pick. Arm length for OTs, hand size for QBs, max throwing velocity for QBs, arm length for outside corner, short shuttle for ILB, short shuttle for S, three cone for edge, etc

They have data that shows players who meet these thresholds have a higher rate of "hitting" than those who don't, so if you filter out the players who don't meet those thresholds, theoretically your drafting should improve. Combine the improved hit rate with focusing on the more valuable positions early, and you should be doing much better than how teams were drafting in the 1990s, at the very least, although if every team is doing it to some degree, is there really an edge? Another way to think about it is these measurables are rare in humans, so draft the players with the rare measurables earlier, and then there should be more players available later in the draft with more common measurables to choose from, and missing later in the draft hurts you less 

Some teams are all-in on this, while others are pretty lax about it 

Regarding Banks, I don't see why he can't be Rashawn Slater, who's been a good NFL LT when healthy, and if he were in this draft with the knowledge of how he's played in the NFL (ignoring injuries), he'd probably go top five 

Another thing to consider is interior OL (which apparently some teams view Banks and even Campbell as) are becoming more valuable because there are more dominant DLs and more difficult to deal with interior stunts than ever before, and the contracts for the top guards tracks with that 

Banks should have a floor, no matter how stupid GMs get about height. I believe I heard 4 sacks in ~1600 pass blocking plays.  I think he can play LT, but even if you have doubts. He can slide to RT, either guard spot, or play LT in a pinch. Huge value to having that type of versatility. 

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12 hours ago, Fastbreak said:

The fascination with a tackle having to be 6’5”+ has also seemed stupid to me. Teams are too on finding Tony Bosseli unicorns instead of guys who can actually play.

Measurables have never made a player (see Mario Williams). What they do on the field and in practice should matter 95%.

While I agree with this to an extent, there is no way you can rely 95% on on-field play and essentially ignore measurables. There are some very key measurements that correlate extremely strongly with success at the next level. For instance, if you're drafting an edge rusher 3 cone times are extremely important. There was a study done a couple years back and it was about 85% of the top 15 or 20 edge rushers in the league had a 3 cone time under 7.10. So there is definitely a good reason for having certain measurable cutoffs at key positions, especially for first or second round picks.  There's also just certain guys who have the baseline athleticism to let their other skills dominate in college, but they then fall below that baseline athleticism requirement in the NFL, so you can't just go off film.  Not to mention you'd miss out on a ton of high-ceiling prospects if you only go off of film. 

2 hours ago, Fud said:

It's a hit rate thing, trying to make drafting more scientific and less art

Teams have various "measurables" thresholds at different positions that have to be met to spend a certain value of draft pick. Arm length for OTs, hand size for QBs, max throwing velocity for QBs, arm length for outside corner, short shuttle for ILB, short shuttle for S, three cone for edge, etc

They have data that shows players who meet these thresholds have a higher rate of "hitting" than those who don't, so if you filter out the players who don't meet those thresholds, theoretically your drafting should improve. Combine the improved hit rate with focusing on the more valuable positions early, and you should be doing much better than how teams were drafting in the 1990s, at the very least, although if every team is doing it to some degree, is there really an edge? Another way to think about it is these measurables are rare in humans, so draft the players with the rare measurables earlier, and then there should be more players available later in the draft with more common measurables to choose from, and missing later in the draft hurts you less 

Some teams are all-in on this, while others are pretty lax about it 

Regarding Banks, I don't see why he can't be Rashawn Slater, who's been a good NFL LT when healthy, and if he were in this draft with the knowledge of how he's played in the NFL (ignoring injuries), he'd probably go top five 

Another thing to consider is interior OL (which apparently some teams view Banks and even Campbell as) are becoming more valuable because there are more dominant DLs and more difficult to deal with interior stunts than ever before, and the contracts for the top guards tracks with that 

Agree with this. His size/wingspan may keep him from being a dominant LT in the NFL, but he still has a ceiling of being a top 5-10 LT in the NFL, which is extremely valuable. And his floor is very high because he can move inside to G if OT isn't working and still become a Pro Bowl G, a la Cosmi. I really can't see him falling outside the top 15 in this draft, unless he's bottom 5 or 10 percentile for some of the size/reach measurements. 

Edited by Burt Macklin
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