For The Win

The 2022 NFL Draft is nearly upon us. We have a pretty solid idea that Aidan Hutchinson, the game-breaking edge rusher from Michigan, could be the first player selected. After that? Heh, good luck. Predicting the rest of the NFL Draft, with impending trades and insider knowledge that only sometimes makes sense in retrospect, has a success rate roughly in line with a drunk card counter at a blackjack table. Sometimes common sense wins out. Sometimes leveraged guesses hit. But mostly we’re left to think, “Wow, that one?” as players pegged as top-20 talents go in the top 10 and vice versa. Fortunately, after multiple years of on-field results and months of pre-draft testing and scouting, we have a pretty good idea of the players who’ll make up the first two rounds of April’s three-day affair. That combination of production and potential gave way to my big board: a loose ranking of the 75 best players set to enter the league this fall.