The Chiefs 2025 Draft Class
The latest newsletter from KCSN Sports Data Scientist, Joseph Hefner
The greatest event in the history of sports just ended: the NFL draft. It was a beautiful time, full of first round RB’s and TE’s, a special someone falling right into our laps, a wild QB fall that Mel Kiper just cannot stop talking about, and so very, very much more.
Let’s talk about the consensus boards for a minute. At this point, there are several. Arif Hasan is one of the pioneers of these boards. Jack Lichtenstein also has one, as does Mock Draft Database. These consensus boards take the big boards from many different analysts and websites (Daniel Jeremiah, Mel Kiper, Lance Zierlein, PFF, etc.) and average out the rankings. They are all a little different, and have slightly different methodologies, but all of them operate on a “wisdom of the crowds” logic.
That gives us a good idea of what range a player is likely to be drafted in, which can help teams to plan out their draft strategies. The idea is that you should generally take players close to their consensus board rankings. If you take a player higher than their ranking, you are “reaching” for them. The higher you take them, the bigger the reach. Again, this is very useful for draft strategy, but shouldn’t be an absolute rule. Picking a player a few slots above or below their ranking is normal.
On the other side of things, “steals” are when a team drafts a player that is “falling”, when a player is taken significantly after their draft ranking. Jalen Royals is an example this year. He was the 74th ranked player on Arif Hasan’s Consensus Board, but Veach picked him at pick 133. He fell 59 whole picks before Veach nabbed him. That means we got a player with early third round talent at the end of the fourth round. Very exciting!!