Let’s pick a player out of the blue, call him, oh Von Miller, and say that scout A from team A and scout B from team B each rank Von Miller as the 4th best athlete of 2011. But the scout from team A says, “We look for large linemen and large linebackers and so Von Miller isn’t big enough. On our scale, he’s worth a 15th pick.” Scout B from team B says, “We play a Miami 4-3, and we optimize our teams for pursuit and speed, and Von Miller is faster than greased lightning. We rank him 3rd, because he is a perfect fit to our requirements.” And therein lies a source of variability that will never go away.
