The first round of the 2019 NFL draft is in the books, and the speculation can begin about which teams' front offices and scouting staffs got it right and which ones got it wrong.
But we don't have to speculate when it comes to whether the recruiting services got it right or wrong on these players coming out of high school. We just have to look back at their ratings from three, four or five years ago.
The report is mostly positive for the recruiting analysts, who overall did a solid job of projecting success for the future first-rounders. Eight of Thursday's draftees _ a quarter of the first round _ were five-star prospects according to the 247Sports.com composite, which aggregates ratings from the major services (247, ESPN and Rivals.com).
That includes six of the 26 composite five-stars in the Class of 2016, an impressive 23 percent with several of the others still in school and at least one more, Auburn defensive tackle Derrick Brown, likely to join the first-round club in 2020. Another nine of Thursday's first-round picks were four-star high school recruits.
That doesn't mean the analysts didn't have some glaring whiffs. Daniel Jones, Josh Allen and T.J. Hockenson _ taken at Nos. 6-8 _ barely registered as blips on the recruiting radar, all three outside the top 1,000 prospects in the country in their classes.
Offensive line is often considered the toughest position to project for high school players, and that proved to be the case with this year's first-round crop. Jonah Williams went from five-star recruit to first-round pick in three years, and Kaleb McGary was a four-star in 2014. But the other four first-round offensive linemen _ Chris Lindstrom, Garrett Bradbury, Andre Dillard and Tytus Howard _ were also outside the top 1,000 in their classes. (Bradbury and Howard weren't even listed as linemen.)
Here's a look at the composite rankings of all 32 first-rounders:
