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Overall Total Points Score Rankings from 2019-2022

In 2019, we began the SIS Football Rookie Handbook. Every year since, we have written scouting reports and graded players for the NFL Draft. While it’s not a bad thing to grade draft classes immediately after the draft each year, it’s much more productive and accurate to wait until they’ve played for three years in the NFL. With that, we’ve now been able to grade each of the 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 draft classes’ first three seasons.

To catch the first part of the article which lays out how the 2022 draft class did specifically, click here.

Overall TP Score Ranks

Now that we’re four years into this, we can begin to take a broader look across seasons. 

– With that, the Chiefs have the highest average TP Score across the last four seasons with 64.41, over ten points higher than the Jaguars (54.08) in 2nd. The Lions, with 51.08, round out the top 3. Check out the entire list in the Appendix.

– Conversely, the Rams are the only team with an average ranking in the bottom 6, and they also rank dead last with an average TP Score of just 23.47, though the Vikings are on their heels thanks to their  No. 31 ranking this year. Like the past three years, the Rams haven’t made a 1st-round pick in any of these seasons, so it’s likely they aren’t going to get a high-end impact player, but it’s telling that they’ve struggled to find much value in the later rounds of drafts.

Now the real question is how do our initial rankings compare to those numbers? 

– The Chiefs have had the highest average TP Score in four years, but we’ve given them the 3rd-worst cumulative ranking post-draft. Omitting L’Jarius Snead in 2020 played into that, and that’s clearly the biggest miss on our part. However, it’s worth noting that they’ve been able to take players who fit their scheme perfectly and make them work when those same players may not fit elsewhere.

– Additionally, our average top 10 post-draft teams who also have an average TP Score rank in the top 10 include the Jaguars, Lions, and Bengals. Conversely, matches in the bottom 10 include Steelers, Vikings, and Rams. Teams we match in the middle 12 include the Cowboys, Bills, Dolphins, Packers, Commanders, and Titans.

– While we’ve been way too low on the Chiefs post-draft each year, conversely, we’ve been way too high on the Panthers. We’ve averaged giving them the 3rd-best (tied) class across the four seasons immediately after the draft, but they have just the 29th-best TP Score. Aside from ranking 5th in 2020, they’ve ranked exactly 29th the other three years. Panthers fans hope Bryce Young and team can improve their ranking next season.

How do we compare to the consensus?

Rene Bugner, @RNBWCV on X, puts out a consensus report card based on many of the post-draft grades each year to find a consensus ranking of the teams. His post for the 2022 draft class grades can be found here. Using this, we can determine how our post-draft rankings compared to the consensus three years later based on TP Score.

If we compare ourselves against the consensus for the 2022 draft class, we were closer on 15 of the teams, the consensus was closer on 11, and both either had the same consensus ranking or tied in terms of differential for the remaining six teams.

Our post-draft ranking agreed with the consensus for the Jets (No. 1), Browns (No. 21), 49ers (No. 28), and Rams (No. 31).

Some of our biggest misses, as referenced in the other article, were the Panthers, Colts, and Cowboys.

The consensus felt the Panthers would be middle of the pack (No. 15), which was much closer to their No. 29 ranking than our No. 5.

The Colts ranked No. 12 by the consensus and finished No. 13, much closer than us at No. 30.

Finally, while the Cowboys had the 3rd-best TP Score, we ranked them No. 20 and consensus felt they were No. 24.

The biggest wins for us compared to the consensus were the Saints, Jaguars, and Titans.

The consensus felt New Orleans had the 25th-best class, but we hit them exactly at No. 10.

The Jaguars finished No. 12 in TP Score, and we had them No. 9 against the consensus at No. 22.

Finally, the Titans finished ranked 24th in TP Score, and we had them ranked No. 16 while the consensus felt they had the No. 7 class.

While our grades and rankings are far from perfect, they have stacked up well against the consensus. Considering ties count as a half-point, only one year have we not equaled or bettered the consensus, and that was our first season in 2019 (48%). We were closer on 59% of teams in 2020, we tied the consensus in 2021 at 50%, and we were at 56% in 2022.

If you want to see each individual year’s article, you can find 2019 here, 2020 here, 2021 here, and 2022 here.

Our scouting and grading process is much different than most non-NFL team evaluators out there, and one could argue that TP Score isn’t a sufficient means for grading the classes, but we’ll stack our numbers up against any of them.

Appendix

Average TP Score and ranking across all four seasons (the 2019-2022 draft classes each after their first three seasons in 2021-2024)