2018 NFL Draft Offensive Rankings

Quarterback

1. Josh Rosen, UCLA
2. Baker Mayfield, Oklahoma
3. Lamar Jackson, Louisville
4. Sam Darnold, USC
5. Josh Allen, Wyoming
6. Mason Rudolph, Oklahoma State
7. Mike White, Western Kentucky
8. Kyle Lauletta, Richmond
9. Chase Litton, Marshall
10. J.T. Barrett, Ohio State
11. Luke Falk, Washington State
12. Kurt Benkert, Virginia
13. Quinton Flowers, USF
14. Riley Ferguson, Memphis
15. Tanner Lee, Nebraska

To me, the quarterback class this year is Rosen and Mayfield at the top with Jackson as a wildcard after that, then Darnold firmly as the No. 4, Allen as No. 5 and not much long-standing talent beyond that. Darnold is a player who many believe will be the No. 1 overall pick to Cleveland when the time comes. I get why some like him due to the fact that he can complete passes with an unorthodox style, but while that makes for nice highlight reels, in between those “wow” throws are some easy misses and a lot of passes that are interceptable. Darnold actually got lucky this year with only 13 interceptions — it could have been 20. If you turn the ball over in the NFL, you won’t be a starter for long. Darnold is way more boom or bust than people are admitting because of that.

Beyond those Top 5 it’s hard for me to see an eventual starter out of this group. White has the size but doesn’t have the consistency. Lauletta can make some pretty passes, but has one of the weakest arms in the class with distance and velocity — it seems like he puts his whole body into every throw. Barrett was a winner at Ohio State, but never progressed beyond the system. Falk crumbled when that Washington State system did, and a few of these other guys have big arms but not control of them.

Allen is the odd one here because the media has seemed to build him up bigger than his talent ever has — and remember, things only get tougher in the NFL. Allen does not have the recognition or awareness to start in the NFL, at least not right now. He has the best arm in the class, but like I’ve always said: the bigger the arm is, the better you have to be at the little things or else that cannon will get loose and it will get you in trouble. Potential is all about the details for a quarterback; it’s about above the shoulders. Tough to bet a top pick on Allen because of that.

Running Back

1. Derrius Guice, LSU
2. Saquon Barkley, Penn State
3. Nick Chubb, Georgia
4. Sony Michel, Georgia
5. Ronald Jones, USC
6. Bo Scarbrough, Alabama
7. Rashaad Penny, San Diego State
8. John Kelly, Tennessee
9. Kerryon Johnson, Auburn
10. Josh Adams, Notre Dame
11. Mark Walton, Miami
12. Royce Freeman, Oregon
13. Nyheim Hines, N.C. State
14. Kallen Ballage, Arizona State
15. Ito Smith, Southern Mississippi
16. Chase Edmonds, Fordham
17. Ryan Nall, Oregon State
18. Justin Jackson, Northwestern
19. Ralph Webb, Vanderbilt
20. Akrum Wadley, Iowa

The theme of my running back rankings is this: don’t overthink giant athletes who carry the ball.

I have Guice over Barkley as my top running back in the class. My concern with Barkley is that he doesn’t use his size enough. Too many time this year I saw him shy away from contact, fail to get yards after contact or choose a route based on speed more than physicality – Barkley absolutely has the size and strength for this not to be so. That created a heck of a highlight reel, but that space does not exist in the NFL like it did in college. In the NFL, you have to make your own space through contact, and yards after contact is a very important stat – Guice has a lot of that. Barkley, as gifted as he is, will have to be more okay with contact at the next level. If he is, it’s all there.

Going down the list, I prioritized guys like Chubb, Scarbrough and Kelly over what most running back rankings will read. With Chubb and Scarbrough, these are backs who have freakish athleticism for their sizes and generally use it very well; I’m not going to overthink that stuff. Kelly, where he might not have the breakaway speed to be a full-time back, has a Marshwn Lynch-like style of yards via violence that will always have a place in the league.

Penny, Johnson and Adams all possess good traits, but have something lacking in their game. For Penny it’s pass blocking, for Johnson it’s vision and for Adams it’s his upright running style. Each can still produce in the NFL, but have holes in their game that need work to be more than rotational players.

Wide Receiver

WR (X)

1. Courtland Sutton, SMU
2. Anthony Miller, Memphis
3. Calvin Ridley, Alabama
4. D.J. Moore, Maryland
5. Antonio Callaway, Florida
6. Auden Tate, FSU
7. Dante Pettis, Washington
8. Equanimeous St. Brown, Notre Dame
9. D.J. Chark, LSU
10. Allen Lazard, Iowa State
11. Christian Kirk, Texas A&M
12. James Washington, Oklahoma State
13. DaeSean Hamilton, Penn State
14. Deontay Burnett, USC
15. Deon Cain, Clemson

WR (Z)

1. Calvin Ridley, Alabama
2. Anthony Miller, Memphis
3. Antonio Callaway, Florida
4. D.J. Moore, Maryland
5. Dante Pettis, Washington
6. Equanimeous St. Brown, Notre Dame
7. D.J. Chark, LSU
8. Christian Kirk, Texas A&M
9. Deontay Burnett, USC
10. James Washington, Oklahoma State

WR (Y)

1. Anthony Miller, Memphis
2. D.J. Moore, Maryland
3. Antonio Callaway, Florida
4. DaeSean Hamilton, Penn State
5. Dante Pettis, Washington
6. Deon Cain, Clemson
7. Christian Kirk, Texas A&M
8. Deontay Burnett, USC
9. James Washington, Oklahoma State
10. Braxton Berrios, Miami

My rankings are more nuanced than the typical mainstream rankings, and though it takes more explaining, the game of football rarely fits into positional rankings the way we like to simplify them. One of the most important examples of that is with wide receivers.

With the passing game being as dominant as it is in this era of football, mismatches have become a big part of how you scout wide receivers. So, it really doesn’t make sense to try to lump different types of wide receivers with different skill sets that will be used in different ways into one linear ranking. Thus, I have the names I’ve ranked divided up into the three main receiver positions in the game.

“X” receivers are typical your WR1s. These are the receivers who play with their foot on the line of scrimmage and because of this, they’re the ones who often go up against press man coverage and a team’s best defender in man. Going up against press, “X” receivers must have the size and the strength to beat press. These are also typically your top red zone targets. You want speed with these receivers, too, but the ability to block and break press has to be present, along with the obvious running, separating with routes and good catching in traffic.

“Z” receivers (also known as “Flankers”) are the outside receivers that are a step off (behind) the line of scrimmage. These are the outside receivers that can motion at the snap, move on jet sweeps and use momentum to gain an advantage. These players don’t prioritize size and strength as much as they do speed and separation. They’ll have to hand fight a little, but with that extra step off the defender, they can usually get a few steps into their route without contact. Flankers need to be able to move well vertically as well as across the field.

“Y” receivers are your slot receivers. This used to just be your Wes Welker, Julian Edelman and Antonio Brown types, players who mainly won with quick feet, route running and short-area quickness (along with great hands), but now we’ve seen teams use players like Larry Fitzgerald, Julio Jones and Rob Gronkowski in the middle, too, so it’s no longer exclusive to that stereotype. However, for most teams, their “Y” receivers will be short-area players who are good at creating space in a short amount of time.

Ridley is my top man this year, but Miller is close behind. With Ridley, the footwork is so elite. He can start and stop on a dime, he can tightrope the sideline and he can run routes as crisp as the best. With Miller, he’s smaller, but, man, is he good. He can block like a champ for a guy his size, his hands are strong as any (as is evident by the many one-handed catches he has), he’s a great route runner and is great at the catch point. Neither are in my Top 32, but they’re right outside of it.

Sutton is the guy you want to target as an “X” receiver this year. I wish he was better with separation, but that’s OK. Moore and Callaway are masters after the catch. Moore, though very athletic and has great balance, needs to work on what he does before he gets the ball in his hands, and Callaway just needs to stop getting in trouble off the field. Hamilton and  Pettis are two “naturals” for the position. Neither has great size or strength, but they’ll be on rosters due to how easy they can make the position look, at times.

I’m not a big Washington fan, and, to some, I won’t seem like a big Kirk fan, either. I think Washington’s stats are hollow. It’s hard for me to find traits that translate him to big success in the NFL, and if Kirk was more of a lateral athlete, I’d be a bigger fan, but plenty of wide receivers are straight-line fast with better size. St. Brown is interesting with his size, length and speed, but he doesn’t play strong enough to be an “X” — or he hasn’t yet. If you’re big, I need you to play big or it doesn’t matter. Right now he’s a field stretcher with Chark.

Tight End

1. Dallas Goedert, South Dakota State
2. Mike Gesicki, Penn State
3. Mark Andrews, Oklahoma
4. Hayden Hurst, South Carolina
5. Ian Thomas, Indiana
6. Chris Henderson, Miami
7. Troy Fumagalil, Wisconsin
8. Ethan Wolf, Tennessee
9. DeAndre Goolsby, Florida
10. Dalton Shultz, Stanford

This year’s tight end class is not nearly as deep as the one from 2016. Last year there was O.J. Howard, Evan Engram and David Njoku, and all three of those prospects would be the best three tight end prospects if they were in this class.

But, in terms of what the class does have to offer, the highest potential of the bunch is Goedert. Goedert’s 6-foot-5, 255 pound body is above average for all tight ends, and his movement drills at the Combine were all near the top percentile for tight ends. He can move, catch and block; he’s TE1 because he can do it all at a high level – like Howard could last year.

Beyond Goedert we have some specialization players. Gesicki tested about as good as a tight end ever has in almost every drill at the Combine. He’ll be a receiving specialist, but you don’t want him blocking. Andrews has the body to be a complete tight end, but is really just a “big slot” pass catcher. Hurst is an all-around tight end, but doesn’t move as well as Goedert or any of the guys from last year did. Beyond those top four, it’s really just a pick-your-preference with receiving types.

Offensive Tackle

1. Mike McGlinchey, Notre Dame
2. Connor Williams, Texas
3. Desmond Harrison, West Georgia
4. Orlando Brown, Oklahoma
5. Isaiah Wynn, Goegria
6. Alex Cappa, Humboldt State
7. Jamarco Jones, Ohio State
8. Chukwuma Okorafor, Western Michigan
9. Kolton Miller, UCLA
10. Brian O’Neill, Pittsburgh
11. Martinas Rankins, Mississippi State
12. Brandon Parker, North Carolina A&T
13. Geron Christian, Louisville
14. KC McDermott, Miami
15. Joe Noteboom, TCU

Where the interior offensive line is strong this year, the offensive tackle class is not.

McGlinchey is the obvious top man. He shows good technique and an understanding of pass protection that doesn’t always exist, in even the top offensive tackles in certain draft classes. He’ll be a solid right tackle, at worst. Williams is talented and mean as run blocker, but his shorter length is worrisome if playing tackle with some of the longer pass rushers in the NFL, and he might be a guard in the end. He’s a talented offensive lineman who will get a shot at tackle, but he needs to improve in pass blocking.

Harrison is my surprise guy on this list. I wasn’t impressed with many of the offensive tackles in this class, but in Harrison’s tape, he looked like a guy who really brought it on every snap. He only weighed 295 pounds at the Combine and showed great movement due to that, so he’ll have to put on weight, but give me the guy who shows me that kind of nasty against edge players or interior players on a consistent basis. I can work with the rest.

Brown, though obviously not much of an athlete after the Combine, is still a bulldozer and a mountain of a man to get around. Wynn is likely an offensive guard, but is talented enough to be a swing tackle, and Cappa had some decent flashes against lesser competition. I wasn’t overly impressed with Jones or Okorafor. Jones looked limited in terms of upside and Okorafor looked too soft on too many plays for me to really get into him as a tackle prospect. I need to see more mean from him because he does have the body type to be good in the NFL.

Miller and O’Neill have each had their fair share of draft hype in spurs, but both are more athletes than they are tackles rights now, if you ask me. I think people are just caught up in the fact that they move well for their size. I get that that’s something you bet on for big men, but they haven’t put it all together yet – and you never know if they will.

Offensive Guard/Center

1. Quenton Nelson, Notre Dame
2. Isaiah Wynn, Georgia
3. Will Hernandez, UTEP
4. Frank Ragnow, Arkansas
5. Billy Price, Ohio State
6. James Daniels. Iowa
7. Austin Corbett, Nevada
8. Tyrell Crosby, Oregon
9. Brian Allen, Michigan State
10. Wyatt Teller, Virginia Tech
11. Braden Smith, Auburn
12. Toby Weathersby, LSU
13. Dejion Allen, Hawaii
14. Mason Cole, Michigan
15. Bradley Bozeman, Alabama

The interior offensive line class is one of the stronger groups of prospects for 2018. I don’t carry round grades on my rankings due to how different prospects would be valued from team to team, but there are plenty of these guys in my Top 100.

Nelson is at the top of this group and is at the top of my draft board overall. You can watch games of him and see him lose balance or get beat every now and then, but it’s the intelligence part of his game that makes Nelson so, so good as a prospect. He can handle switches, stunts and late blitzes as good as any offensive lineman I’ve seen, and that includes players in the NFL. He is as good as it gets. Wynn comes after him. He’s a guy who can play almost any spot on the offensive line. Both of those players will be picked in the first round.

After that, Hernandez, Ragnow and Price are three interior offensive linemen who all have a chance to go round one, too. All three of those players bring a mean streak to the interior offensive line, and all three of them bring a leadership aspect as well. Daniels is more of a finesse interior player, but he’s a guy who can be used perfectly for a team that likes to pull their interior offensive linemen for outside runs.

Teller is the real sleeper of this group. Teller originally started his college career at defensive tackle, but switched sizes because Virginia Tech had too many defensive tackles and they knew he could make the move. He’s one of the strongest players in the entire draft class. His 2016 tape was dominant, but his 2017 tape just wasn’t the same guy. If the NFL gets 2016 Wyatt Teller, they’re getting a bulldozing interior offensive lineman who will boost any run game.

Click to the next page to see the defensive positional rankings.