The Draft Codex began in response to the author’s curiosity about the various truisms regarding the NFL Draft. For example, does it actually take three years to know how well a draft pick turned out? What is “enough” for a first-round wide receiver in terms of two-year production? Every piece of information on this site is publicly available data (there are no “secret grading systems). The goal is to have a totally transparent and objective view about what “really happens” in the NFL Draft.

For now, the Codex only covers players drafted from 2011 onward, because the adoption of the rookie wage scale at that point fundamentally changed the way NFL teams could and did handle newly drafted players.

Author: Josh Sunderbruch is a fulltime college professor and the creator of the Draft Codex. He began arguing football in the comments section of Windy City Gridiron before becoming a regular contributor to that site. Prior work covering the NFL draft was published there before this site was launched.

Acknowledgments: This project, like everything, was made possible through the support of my amazing family. In has been inspiring in part from the discussion threads and my fellow contributors at Windy City Gridiron, but also from years and years of Bears fandom studying the draft in the hope that there was a path to getting better.

Art purchased under license from iStock.