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The original was posted on /r/nfl by /u/Cybotnic-Rebooted on 2025-06-02 00:26:17+00:00.
Hello! Over the past couple of decades, the NFL draft has been exploding in popularity, and so people have been starting to compare prospects across years. A lot of these conversations have some sort of hindsight bias, and of course, that’s hard not to do as humans. Players we saw become elite NFL players we remember more positively, while players who busted we remember being “huge reaches” when that sometimes can’t be further than the truth.
So, is there anyway to do this in a more objective, data based way? Well… what if we took a database of mock drafts to how far back we can access it, and look at how often the player who actually went first overall between the Super Bowl and the draft, and line them up against each other to see who ended up going that high most often? This should, in theory, give us an order of how each #1 overall pick was viewed, in relation to their class.
We have Mock Draft Database data from super bowl to draft from every draft 2019 and afterwards, but that’s as far back as that one goes. To give us another decade+, I ended up going with Walter Football’s own mock draft database, which has data that goes all the way back to 2007. After not finding anything for 2006 and before, I ended up going with every first overall pick from 2007 to 2025. Here were the results:
#19: Baker Mayfield, 2018 (4.8% #1 Overall). One of only 3 first overall picks to fall below even 50%, the consensus first overall pick that year was USC’s Sam Darnold with 54.7% #1 overall rate, and being also below Josh Allen and Saquon Barkley. Statistically one of the most surprising 1st overall picks ever.
#18: Eric Fisher, 2013 (9.2% #1 Overall). While not quite as big of an odds disfavorite as Mayfield was, Fisher could be seen as even more of an upset #1 overall pick, as 2013 also had the highest #1 overall rate of a non #1 overall pick in this time range, with Luke Joeckel at a staggering 81.3% #1 overall rate. If we had data for 2006, there is a chance Reggie Bush would be maybe be higher, but since we don’t, we will never know.
#17: Travon Walker, 2022 (16.6% #1 Overall). The final one who doesn’t have a majority, 2022 is also the only class in this whole thing where there is no majority #1 overall pick. The highest was Michigan’s Aiden Hutchinson, with a low 37.5% #1 overall rate.
#16: Cam Newton, 2011 (55.8% #1 Overall). We jump all the way from the Teens to the mid 50s here with Auburn’s Cam Newton. However, it is important that Cam ended up rising a ton in the final month of the draft. In the month of April, Cam Newton had 71.9% 1st overall rate.
#15: Jared Goff, 2016 (56.8% #1 Overall). Goff, much like Newton, had an astronomical rise, but even more so than him. Pre Rams trade up, Goff had a 0 mocks that had him go 1st overall. Post Rams trade, he went to 85.0% odds.
#14: Bryce Young, 2023 (57.8% #1 Overall). This was a battle of QBs, with Alabama’s Bryce Young being slightly favored, but CJ Stroud went #1 overall in a non insignificant 39.6% of mock drafts.
#13: Kyler Murray, 2019 (61.9% #1 Overall). While clearly the favorite, it wasn’t a given that Kyler was going to go first overall until the final month of the draft due to Arizona’s QB situation. Early on it was more common to see Bosa or Quinen to go #1 than Kyler.
#12: Jake Long, 2008 (69.6% #1 Overall). In an interesting coincidence, both of the players with a solid shot at going #1 overall had the last name of Long, though not related. Miami ended up going the stud blocker in Jake over the solid pass rusher in Chris.
#11: Cam Ward, 2025 (70.2% #1 Overall). Cam ended up being the one good QB in a class without a true #1 caliber pass blocker or rusher. This basically gave him an automatic high % #1 overall pick. Carter and Hunter, for how good they are, aren’t players who are the caliber of a #1 overall pick without a really weak draft class.
#10: Jadeveon Clowney, 2014 (70.3%). Clowney ended up being one of the most hyped up prospects of all time. For the title, he ends up having a disapointingly low %, being brought down by Blake Bortles absurdly high looking back on it 17.7% 1st overall rate.
#9: Sam Bradford, 2010 (77.7%). Now we are getting into some juicy ones. Sam Bradford is typically considered one of the best QB prospects of the century so far, so a % this low was a bit surprising for me. However, Suh being generational and some early Jimmy Clausen hype took enough off of his plate that he wasn’t all that high at all in the grand scheme of things.
#8: Caleb Williams, 2024 (85.1%). We are at the point now where there was little to no doubt at any part of the process that these guys would go #1 overall. And let me tell you, there was VERY little doubt about Caleb. The only question mark was, like Kyler, the QB situation overall of Chicago, which meant that some early mock drafts instead had Marvin Harrison Jr. slotted here instead. Still, he even then he was the consensus #1 overall pick, either by Bears trading down or projecting a trade for Fields, which wasn’t true of Kyler.
#7: Matthew Stafford, 2009 (86.3%). Stafford is probably the one who is benefiting the most from this post super bowl restriction, as before deciding to go back, it was actually Bradford who was the favorite. However, post Super Bowl, there wasn’t really anyone who was that high up there. Each of Jason Smith, Aaron Curry, Andre Smith, and Eugene Monroe chipped away enough from his rate to make it this low, but no one of them truly challenged his spot here.
#6: Jamarcuss Russell, 2007 (86.9%). Unlike Stafford, Russell did have a guy challenging his spot in Georgia Techs Calvin Johnson, getting 10.7% of #1 overall projections. However, beyond that there wasn’t really anything. A couple of early in the process Brady Quinns and a lone mock with Adrian Peterson #1 were the only other ones outside of those 2.
#5: Trevor Lawrence, 2021 (89.1%). Surprised to see his this low? So was I, but looking at the data, early on in the draft there was a real debate between Lawrence and Fields, before Fields odds sunk quicker than the titanic in the month leading up to the draft. Still, this feels like it is maybe in part due to prospect fatigue.
#4: Jameis Winston, 2015 (92.4%). In contrast, I was shocked with how high Jameis ended up. I thought there would be a more even split of Winston and Mariota, but he only ended up getting 6.7% of mocks. I remember it being much more even in my head!
#3: Joe Burrow, 2020 (94.8%). After the season Burrow had in 2019, he went from a fringe draftable guy to the end to end favorite, never really falling at all. As much as you hear about those Burrow vs Young debates, he wasn’t really all that popular of a pick for them.
#2: Myles Garrett, 2017 (97.2%). I always held that I wasn’t sure if Myles was a truly generational prospect, but now I’m not really sure. You had 2 truly blue chip prospects down this list in Long and Clowney, who had similarly thought of top QB prospects as Trubisky, and they both lived in the 70s. I know for a fact that no other non QB prospect went end to end like this, even including Courtney Brown and Super Mario. I might have just convinced myself of that tbh.
#1: Andrew Luck, 2012 (98.4%). One guy who doesn’t need any debate is mr Andrew Luck. It’s almost unanimous that Luck is the best QB prospect since at least Peyton, and arguably since Elway. While the RG3 debates in media was real, by actual scouts he wasn’t really there, only getting the remaining 1.6%.