What often determines whether a newly drafted player is successful in the NFL is the scheme used by his new team. Of course, this doesn’t apply to everyone — some players are transcendent regardless of scheme, but those cases don’t come around very often, as former NFL scout Dan Hatman points out. For most players, where they get drafted matters. Different schemes have different requirements for players, and the goal is to draft players whose skill sets match what the scheme asks for. For example, a team that runs a lot of zone will want smaller, quicker offensive linemen who can move.
This year, in particular, team and scheme fit is important because there weren’t a lot of scheme-transcendent prospects in the 2019 draft class. Instead, the class had a lot of good talent with varying skill sets. I was happy to see a lot of my favorite prospects get drafted into systems that should be good matches for them. Here are my top 10 scheme fits, in the order the…
