2015 NFL Draft: Prospect big board, round-by-round

Our final, official, prospect Big Board for the 2015 NFL Draft is presented in a much different -- and hopefully more useful -- way than any Big Board we have previously presented. A request was made in the comments a while back asking if we could present our board not just with player rankings, but more in line with the way NFL teams stack their boards in their various 'war rooms.' This is what has been done here.

Let's explain what you are looking at.

The first column (Player/Point total) is a vertical row. It shows the aggregated results from 1-121 of how 'Invictus,' 'Raptor' and Jesse ranked players. Each was asked for a top 100 Big Board. These were tabulated using a point system, which comes as close we could to the grading system by which NFL teams actually rank players. The number you see in parenthesis is the point total each player received when adding all three of our analysts' big boards. USC defensive tackle Leonard Williams is our top-ranked player with a total of four points, meaning two of our guys ranked him No. 1 and one of our guys had him No. 2.

Our 121st-ranked player is Minnesota running back David Cobb, with a point total of 300, meaning he was near the bottom of each board, perhaps even off one or two.

Why do we have 121 players and not just 100. Because each board is not identical. Some players in one analysts' top 100 are not in another analysts' top 100. In all, 121 is the number of player who appeared on at least one of the three boards compiled.

The horizontal columns show the players at each position  who have been assigned first-, second- thrid- and fourth-round grades on our board. The purpose here is to show which rounds might be heavy -- or light -- on players at a given position. This makes it easier for an NFL GM to figure out 'value.' It also gives another visual in terms of how much separation in grade their might be from, say, Williams at No. 1 to Arik Armstead at No. 19 -- usueful if you are hunting for a defensive tackle.

You will notice as you look at each round that there are not 32 players in each. Rounds 1 and 2 have less, Round 3 has more and Round 4 has the remaining players on our board. Why?

Giants' GM Jerry Reese always says that while 32 players get selected in the first round, fewer players than that actually get first-round grades. Reese says the number of players who usually are given Round 1 grades is about 25. In our case, if you multiply 32 by 3 (yes, math) you get 96. So, the cutoff for anyone to be placed in our "first row" or first round was 96 points. That turned out to be 27 players, which, by what Reese has commonly said, works out just about right.

The round-by-round point total cutoffs are as follows:

• Round 1 -- 96 points
• Round 2 -- 192 points
• Round 3 -- 288 points

One caveat here. The tail end of our board may, admittedly, not be quite as accurate as the beginning of our board. Tabulating this the way it was done, a vale of '101' was assigned to a player who was on one analysts' board, but left off another. That may not give a completely accurate picture of whether that player is actually a fourth-round value, or a guy who should likely go lower in the draft. It was, however, the best approximation that could be made.

You will also notice that for Rounds 2 and 3 the horizontal axis does not fit completely within our layout. There are simply too many columns filled with data. Use the sliders below each round to see the data to the far right of those tables.

With all of that said, here is your final 2015 NFL Draft Big Blue View Big Board. We hope you find it helpful during the first couple of days of the draft.

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4