Believe it or not, the 2020 NFL draft is only a little over three weeks away. Scouts and prospect evaluators are into the final stages of stacking their draft boards.
As rankings get some finishing touches, it's sometimes easier to compare players graded very close together by tiering them. Thanks to our Scouts Inc. draft grades, we can separate the top prospects into different groups to help predict where they will come off the board during the first three rounds of the draft.
Here are my draft tiers for 2020, covering all 99 prospects with a first-, second- or third-round grade, beginning with an elite pass-rusher in a tier all by himself.
Jump to a tier: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
Position breakdown
Tier 1: Young all alone
Grades of 95 or higher. Elite prospects. Should be immediate NFL starters and project as perennial All-Pro players. Worthy of a top-five pick most years. I had two players in this tier in 2019.
1. Chase Young, DE, Ohio State (95)
Young is special off the edge and by far the top prospect in the class, regardless of position. His hand quickness and closing burst are outstanding, and he is the most physically gifted player on the board. That 95 grade puts him in the same class as elite pass-rushers of recent years, including Nick Bosa, Bradley Chubb and Myles Garrett. Though he is not yet as refined as Bosa was coming out of Ohio State, he has the potential to be even better than the No. 2 overall pick in 2019.
Tier 2: 10 prospects
Grades between 92 and 94. A notch below the elite class but still considered a plug-and-play NFL starter with high-level potential. Worthy of a top-15 pick most years. I had seven players in this tier in 2019.