2025 NFL Draft Consensus Big Board: Forecasters vs Evaluators

With over 85 big boards in our dataset, we can do more than merely rank players. We can categorize analysts and dissect the differences. What are Forecasters and Evaluators? What can they tell us?

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With data from 87 analysts, we can use our survey of draft media to do more than just figure out what the average belief of the draft community is on a player – it can tell us which players are more polarizing and what category of analyst we’re looking at.

The polarity of players – already explored in a previous piece – is easy to understand. Players who generate more variance in their rankings are more divisive within the community.

That second category, however, isn’t quite as intuitive.

In my experience collating these boards, there have been broadly two “types” of big boards. The shorthand I’ve used is “forecaster” versus “evaluator” boards, though like many things the distinctions are a bit arbitrary and there’s always been a fair degree of evaluating done by “forecasters” and a good amount of “forecasting” done by “evaluators”

The Difference Between Forecasters and Evaluators?

The two categories have been characterized by others as “big media” versus “bloggers,” though that’s a bit antiquated. Certainly, there are analysts with large audiences who are independent media, but the “us vs. them” mentality is appealing.

It’s not accurate in the whole sense, but it does carry some essential truths. Evaluators – “the little guys” – are draft analysts who primarily rely on publicly available information to craft their rankings and produce their analysis.

That doesn’t mean they’re necessarily taking in others’ opinions or reporting but that they might use broadcast footage, college All-22 film, media reports on player character and injury flags and so on. The NFL Combine and public pro day reporting also provides them with useful data.

Forecasters – Big J Journalists – might reliably be characterized as those analysts who use that public data, but also difficult-to-access data, sometimes data meant to be exclusively reserved for NFL teams. That comes not just from sources inside front offices and agents but also through a network of relationships with scouts and college coaches across the country.

That means access not just to unique injury information and deeper character data but quite possibly tests like the psychological tests teams conduct, cognitive tests like the S2 and other physical tests, like conditioning and VO2 max scores.

Is Jihaad Campbell a candidate to fall? I don’t know. Photo by Bryan Lynn/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

We know, for example, that Jihaad Campbell has some injury flags. Evaluators might read media reports on that fact and adjust their rankings. But forecasters might be able to talk to teams who have had doctors on staff perform direct evaluations on injured players like Campbell. If a film-watching draft analyst hears that Campbell has a shoulder injury, that’s one thing and that may impact how they rank Campbell.

If that same analyst hears back from a member of a team’s front office that Campbell has some sort of permanent condition or had a poor surgery, that’s another thing entirely. And more often than not, it’s the Forecasters who have that information.

When they hear a player is a “locker room worry” they know more precisely what that may mean – whining after a game about not getting targets isn’t the same as skipping practices or assaulting coaches. Knowing that difference can be essential to constructing one’s player rankings.

That might mean they have a better handle on which players might “unexpectedly” slide in the draft, but they’re also sensitive to smokescreens from their connections. They have to make judgment calls about what information is genuinely important and what might be a red herring. And they’re not always right.

The history of Consensus Big Boards has shown this distinction to be valid. Boards tagged as Forecaster boards have a very tight spread and there’s a low variance in the rankings of players across that group year over year. Typically, when a player slides in the draft, Forecaster boards have that player lower than Evaluator boards.

What Happens When They Disagree?