Even while tacitly acknowledging how silly it is, most every sports website grades NFL draft picks within days (or sometimes hours or even minutes) of the draft occurring. We at CBSSports.com did it ourselves: we had grades live during the draft, plus winners and losers after Day 1, after Day 2, and at the end of the whole thing, plus another full round of grades at the end of the draft as well.
It's fun, but it's mostly guesswork, baking in the biases of whoever is doing the grading. Falcons owner Arthur Blank has an interesting system for grading the draft, one that's just as valid (if not more so) than the one we used.
"Every team should get a grade A," Blank said, per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "Then when you look back two or three years, that's when you judge whether or not if you had a good draft or not."
Basically, Arthur Blank is like Oprah. "You get an A! And you get an A! And YOU get an A!" It's a very kind grading system, one based on [gasp] having the patience to evaluate picks once we actually know how the players turned out, rather than before they step onto the field.
In explaining his reasoning for why his Falcons in particular get an A grade, here's what Blank had to say. "I would give our coach and General Manager a grade A because I know that every single position they drafted very specifically for exactly what the coach wanted and the coaching needs in terms of defense or in terms of the offense. Hopefully, that will play out in a successful way over the next couple of years."
Of first-round pick Keanu Neal, Blank said, "It wasn't just the best player on the board. It was the best player that had a specific skill-set that we feel fit that position and we are always drafting for character."
Basically, Blank feels the Falcons drafted the best player available that fit a team need and had character, and that's why they got an A. Honestly, that's as good a reason as any.
