How Signals builds its idp prospects rankings.
Full guide in progress
Every Signals board is getting the same deep-dive treatment as our redraft, dynasty, and prospect methodology guides — the full walk-through of the model, what we tested, and what we rejected. Until the IDP Prospects guide ships, here's the short version.
What goes into the grades
Every player is graded only on what’s currently known about him as a prospect: his recruiting grade, production adjusted for age and level of competition, advanced metrics, when he broke out and how young he declared, athletic testing, and either projected or realized NFL draft capital. Worth being upfront about one finding: for ordering defensive rookies within a position, draft capital is close to the strongest signal available, and college box score stats add less than you might expect — so rather than trying to out-rank the draft, we turn the grade into a projected stat line. Early playing time is estimated from draft capital and declare age, then shaped by how the position tends to produce as a rookie and by the way a player actually played in college. These grades feed rookie pick values alongside the offensive prospects, so both classes sit on one scale.
Why the public board is positional
A rookie defensive class doesn’t have one correct order — it has one per league, for two reasons.
Your lineup decides how many defenders are worth stashing at all. A league starting eleven defenders in a 14-team format makes depth genuinely valuable; a 10-team league starting two makes almost everything past the top of the class a luxury. Replacement level does that work, and it moves with both team count and starting slots.
Your scoring decides the order itself. Tackle-heavy leagues favor box linebackers and safeties; sack-heavy leagues favor edge rushers; bonuses for tackles for loss or turnovers reshuffle it again. A single published list would reflect one set of settings rather than yours.
League-specific value — your scoring, your starting slots, your overrides — lives inside Signals. Connect a league free and the IDP Prospects model prices every player for your exact rules.