2025 NFL Draft Consensus Big Board: Who Are the Most Polarizing Players in the Draft?

One of the benefits to gathering dozens of rankings from draft analysts is determining which players draw the biggest disagreements. I went through this year's data to find out.

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One of the values of the Consensus Big Board project isn’t just the fact that it gives us an understanding of where the industry at large stands on all the players in the draft, but also to figure out where the disagreements are – and how big those disagreements can be.

Often, players who provoke the most discussion can seem like the most polarizing prospect in the draft, but are not. This year, for example, quarterbacks Shedeur Sanders and Jaxson Dart have dominated conversations for the wild difference in evaluations we see from various analysts.

Will Campbell might be on that list too, a product of the debate invited by arm length and the positional requirements of the offensive tackle position. But public debate does not mean evaluators are truly split or that these beliefs have any conviction.

As an example, an early version of the Consensus Big Board in 2014 found that Jadeveon Clowney, who was subject to constant questions about his work ethic and production, was near-universally considered the top prospect in the draft. He was divisive in discourse, but analysts ultimately did not care about narrative fodder – he was one of the least polarizing players in the draft.

This has been the case for a number of top prospects over the years, though not quite as emphatically so as with the Clowney example. Divisive conversations surrounding Ed Oliver, Jamal Adams, Jerry Jeudy, Will Fuller and DJ Moore didn’t materialize into a real divergence in rankings.

On the other hand, some players drew dramatic disagreements between analysts without much hot-take style press on how they’d fail or succeed. These include players like Jonathan Allen, Keanu Neal, John Ross, Austin Jackson, Jamin Davis and Charles Harris.

Last year, there were some pretty well-recognized polarizing players like J.J. McCarthy and Jayden. Meanwhile, conversations about how the “top receiver in the draft” wasn’t as clear-cut as people thought didn’t impact Malik Nabers or Marvin Harrisons’ overall rank from evaluators.

2024 Consensus Big Board: Who Are the Most Polarizing Players in the NFL Draft? Does That Matter?

We’ll go over who the most polarizing players are in this year’s draft, but before that, we should figure out if identifying polarizing players even matters.

Do Polarizing Players Boom or Bust More Often?

Last year, I looked at players from the 2016-2021 drafts to see if players who were more (or less) polarizing were more likely to succeed or fail – or even if they were more likely to meet their pick slot value.

I’ve updated that list to include players in the 2022 draft, though only two get added to the list of “most polarizing players” over that span of time. To figure out the most polarizing players, we have to look at more than just the pure numerical disagreement in rankings.