The Freaks List Changed the Conversation, Not the Board

Jeremiah Smith (#1, WR, Ohio State) sits at number two in the preseason athleticism rankings, just behind a star from South Carolina. Colin Simmons (#8, EDGE, Texas) also belongs among the nation's elite athletes. For our evaluation, those are physical-profile inputs, not reasons to move either player on the board. That distinction matters all August, when athletic rankings can start carrying more weight than the game reps that should determine a grade.

Our evaluation separates preseason physical ceiling from demonstrated football ability. Athletic testing alone tells us nothing about production, technique, or how a player performs in the fourth quarter when a defense is built to stop him. What it does exceptionally well—and this is no small thing—is help us decide where to focus our attention when the real games begin.

Every serious evaluation we do runs on two separate tracks: what a player can physically do, and what he actually does with it on the field. The first track is cheap to measure and easy to organize in the preseason. The second requires a full season of tape and cannot be settled in August. The biggest mistake you can make is treating the first as a proxy for the second.

That’s how you end up with a class full of edge rushers ranked on their 40 times instead of their hand usage.

Our board enforces this separation mechanically. Athletic data informs a player's ceiling and projection, but only graded game reps can move his actual grade. Smith finishing second in athleticism is interesting context for a player we already have at number one. We have him there for a completely different reason: our evaluation puts him at the top of this entire class for his combination of production and traits.

The athlete ahead of Smith comes from the same program where we identified Dylan Stewart (#6, EDGE, South Carolina) as the top prospect just two weeks ago. That's a second reason to revisit one roster in a month, and it changes something practical for us: South Carolina's early-season games now move up our viewing schedule. This is where preseason athletic evaluation becomes useful. It helps us allocate our viewing time without changing a grade.

We can only watch a finite number of games closely in September, so we have to point those hours at rosters with professional-level physical profiles. Whether those bodies can become professional players is a separate question entirely—one that requires us to evaluate their execution on the field rather than assume their athletic ceiling will translate.

For Colin Simmons, our assessment starts with a distinction already reflected in his evaluation: his physical ceiling was never the question. He sits on our board at number eight because of what happens *after* the snap and *before* the sack. We're looking at his quality of reps against top tackles, his willingness to convert speed to power, and his discipline in the run game.

There's a version of Simmons that earns a top-five grade by the end of this season, but the path there isn't paved with more testing numbers. It runs through his October schedule against tackles who can match his get-off. His team's schedule gives him those matchups. His athletic profile alone doesn't give us the answers.

Athletic rankings are useful evaluation inputs but make for bad draft boards when treated as finished grades. They help us identify physical tools that might translate; they cannot establish who will consistently execute on the field. Our responsibility is to keep that distinction intact rather than let a verified vertical jump quietly become a first-round grade in September.

Three weeks from kickoff, the honest position is that this class's athletic ceiling is spectacular, but its order remains unwritten.