Many NFL fans spend the weeks leading up to the draft poring over predictions to try to figure out which players their favorite teams are most likely to select.
Those mock drafts quickly become obsolete once the actual draft begins with some projected targets inevitably coming off the board before a team even makes its pick.
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FILE - Penn State defensive lineman Abdul Carter throws during the school's NFL football pro day, Friday, March 28, 2025, in State College, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Freed,File)
FILE - Miami quarterback Cam Ward watches a drill at the NFL football scouting combine in Indianapolis, Saturday, March 1, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV,File)
FILE - Colorado wide receiver Travis Hunter (12) takes part in passing drills during Colorado's NFL football pro day Friday, April 4, 2025, in Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowsk,File)
FILE - Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders (2) takes part in passing drills during Colorado's NFL football pro day Friday, April 4, 2025, in Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski,File)
That was the motivation for the NFL’s NextGen Stats team to create a new draft site that adapts seamlessly with each move made before or during the draft. The site takes elements from the old draft preview magazines that presented easily digestible information.
“The draft magazine was so efficient at displaying information in a easy to digest way,” said Mike Band, the senior manager for research and analytics at NFL NextGen Stats. “In a lot of ways as we’ve optimized for mobile experiences, we’ve lost that art of a dashboard-like experience. That was the impetus for this project, creating a digital magazine that could be updated live and evolve in a dynamic way and hopefully have really fun and engaging live features.”
The NFL Draft IQ site launched earlier this month to preview the draft. It was designed to be the ideal second screen during the draft starting Thursday night. The site includes team-by-team pages that list each team's picks in the next two drafts, moves they had made in the offseason, potential draft targets for each day of the draft, a mock draft tracker and historic tendencies for each general manager.
The site was created in less than three weeks with help from Amazon QuickSight, building on the work the NextGen Stats team did in creating Combine IQ, which provided context and comparisons to the loads of data produced at the annual scouting combine.
Band has been posting potential first-round targets for teams for the past six years and has had a high rate with about three-quarters of the teams taking one of his potential targets.
That work used from looking at team needs, draft history, mock drafts, pre-draft meetings and other information leads to the potential targets on the Draft IQ site for each team for each day. Those will be updated throughout the draft based on who's left on the board and what needs have been met.
“It’s a fun exercise to try to match these teams to players across different pre-draft interests, team needs,” Band said. “A lot of teams have a lot of smoke screens, so you almost have to read between the lines in a lot ways.”
The team pages include tendencies for general managers, including how often they have traded up or down, whether they target certain positions in the prime rounds and if the GM has had patterns based on size, age or other attributes when picking players.
For example, Houston’s Nick Caserio has used 31 of his 32 picks on players who came out of power conferences. The Bengals also tend to go that direction with all 22 of their picks in the first two rounds since 2014 coming from power conference schools.
Philadelphia’s Howie Roseman has used 10 of his 13 first-round picks when running the draft on the trenches, while Detroit’s Brad Holmes’ picks have the highest average athleticism score from NGS since he took over in 2021.
“If you want to know who the last few picks were you can go to the draft tracker on NFL(dot)com,” Band said. “But if you want to go deeper into every pick as it’s happening and trying to anticipate the next pick and you want to sound smart at an NFL draft party and tip the pick without actually talking to Ian Rapoport, then follow along with Draft IQ.”
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FILE - Penn State defensive lineman Abdul Carter throws during the school's NFL football pro day, Friday, March 28, 2025, in State College, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Freed,File)
FILE - Miami quarterback Cam Ward watches a drill at the NFL football scouting combine in Indianapolis, Saturday, March 1, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV,File)
FILE - Colorado wide receiver Travis Hunter (12) takes part in passing drills during Colorado's NFL football pro day Friday, April 4, 2025, in Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowsk,File)
FILE - Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders (2) takes part in passing drills during Colorado's NFL football pro day Friday, April 4, 2025, in Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski,File)
U.S. forces have boarded another oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea. The announcement was made Friday by the U.S. military. The Trump administration has been targeting sanctioned tankers traveling to and from Venezuela.
The pre-dawn action was carried out by U.S. Marines and Navy, taking part in the monthslong buildup of forces in the Caribbean, according to U.S. Southern Command, which declared “there is no safe haven for criminals” as it announced the seizure of the vessel called the Olina.
Navy officials couldn’t immediately provide details about whether the Coast Guard was part of the force that took control of the vessel as has been the case in the previous seizures. A spokesperson for the U.S. Coast Guard said there was no immediate comment on the seizure.
The Olina is the fifth tanker that has been seized by U.S. forces as part of a broader effort by Trump’s administration to control the distribution of Venezuela’s oil products globally following the U.S. ouster of President Nicolás Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid.
The latest:
Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum says that she has asked her foreign affairs secretary to reach out directly to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio or Trump regarding comments by the American leader that the U.S. cold begin ground attacks against drug cartels.
In a wide-ranging interview with Fox News aired Thursday night, Trump said, “We’ve knocked out 97% of the drugs coming in by water and we are going to start now hitting land, with regard to the cartels. The cartels are running Mexico. It’s very sad to watch.”
As she has on previous occasions, Sheinbaum downplayed the remarks, saying “it is part of his way of communicating.” She said she asked her Foreign Affairs Secretary Juan Ramón de la Fuente to strengthen coordination with the U.S.
Sheinbaum has repeatedly rebuffed Trump’s offer to send U.S. troops after Mexican drug cartels. She emphasizes that there will be no violation of Mexico’s sovereignty, but the two governments will continue to collaborate closely.
Analysts do not see a U.S. incursion in Mexico as a real possibility, in part because Sheinbaum’s administration has been doing nearly everything Trump has asked and Mexico is a critical trade partner.
Trump says he wants to secure $100 billion to remake Venezuela’s oil infrastructure, a lofty goal going into a 2:30 meeting on Friday with executives from leading oil companies. His plan rides on oil producers being comfortable in making commitments in a country plagued by instability, inflation and uncertainty.
The president has said that the U.S. will control distribution worldwide of Venezuela’s oil and will share some of the proceeds with the country’s population from accounts that it controls.
“At least 100 Billion Dollars will be invested by BIG OIL, all of whom I will be meeting with today at The White House,” Trump said Friday in a pre-dawn social media post.
Trump is banking on the idea that he can tap more of Venezuela’s petroleum reserves to keep oil prices and gasoline costs low.
At a time when many Americans are concerned about affordability, the incursion in Venezuela melds Trump’s assertive use of presidential powers with an optical spectacle meant to convince Americans that he can bring down energy prices.
Trump is expected to meet with oil executives at the White House on Friday.
He hopes to secure $100 billion in investments to revive Venezuela’s oil industry. The goal rides on the executives’ comfort with investing in a country facing instability and inflation.
Since a U.S. military raid captured former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro on Saturday, Trump has said there’s a new opportunity to use the country’s oil to keep gasoline prices low.
The full list of executives invited to the meeting has not been disclosed, but Chevron, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips are expected to attend.
Attorneys general in five Democratic-led states have filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s administration after it said it would freeze money for several public benefit programs.
The Trump administration has cited concerns about fraud in the programs designed to help low-income families and their children. California, Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois and New York states filed the lawsuit Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The lawsuit asks the courts to order the administration to release the funds. The attorneys general have called the funding freeze an unconstitutional abuse of power.
Iran’s judiciary chief has vowed decisive punishment for protesters, signaling a coming crackdown against demonstrations.
Iranian state television reported the comments from Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei on Friday. They came after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei criticized Trump’s support for the protesters, calling Trump’s hands “stained with the blood of Iranians.”
The government has shut down the internet and is blocking international calls. State media has labeled the demonstrators as “terrorists.”
The protests began over Iran’s struggling economy and have become a significant challenge to the government. Violence has killed at least 50 people, and more than 2,270 have been detained.
Trump questions why a president’s party often loses in midterm elections and suggests voters “want, maybe a check or something”
Trump suggested voters want to check a president’s power and that’s why they often deliver wins for an opposing party in midterm elections, which he’s facing this year.
“There’s something down, deep psychologically with the voters that they want, maybe a check or something. I don’t know what it is, exactly,” he said.
He said that one would expect that after winning an election and having “a great, successful presidency, it would be an automatic win, but it’s never been a win.”
Hiring likely remained subdued last month as many companies have sought to avoid expanding their workforces, though the job gains may be enough to bring down the unemployment rate.
December’s jobs report, to be released Friday, is likely to show that employers added a modest 55,000 jobs, economists forecast. That figure would be below November’s 64,000 but an improvement after the economy lost jobs in October. The unemployment rate is expected to slip to 4.5%, according to data provider FactSet, from a four-year high of 4.6% in November.
The figures will be closely watched on Wall Street and in Washington because they will be the first clean readings on the labor market in three months. The government didn’t issue a report in October because of the six-week government shutdown, and November’s data was distorted by the closure, which lasted until Nov. 12.
FILE - President Donald Trump dances as he walks off stage after speaking to House Republican lawmakers during their annual policy retreat, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
