What Is an NFL Draft Big Board?

An NFL Draft big board is a single ranked list of every draft prospect — #1 through the entire class — ordered by talent regardless of position. While a team-needs sheet asks "what does this team need?", a big board answers the other half of every pick: "who is the best player available?" Together, those two questions decide every selection in the real NFL Draft — and every selection in a Fanspeak mock draft.

This page is the public hub for the Fanspeak big-board ecosystem. You can browse community big boards, study the Fanspeak Official 2027 Big Board (our most accurate 2027 NFL Draft rankings), create up to 3 big boards free with any account, and pick which board the simulator ranks players from. When you're ready to draft, click the Draft button to go to On The Clock — Fanspeak's NFL mock draft simulator — and your chosen big board becomes the brain behind every CPU pick.

What's new for 2027

The Fanspeak 2027 Official Big Board is the most accurate 2027 NFL Draft board we publish. The 2027 prospect class has fully landed — real college rosters, refined positions, school affiliations, and headshots — powered by our CFBD ingest pipeline. It's the default board for 2027 mock drafts and the calibration point for every "Featured" board on this page. If you want one trustworthy set of 2027 NFL Draft rankings to start from, that's the one.

The 2026 boards (PFR's actual 2026 draft order, our 2026 official, MDD / PFF / community 2026 consensus boards) are still here for historical mocks — flip the Year dropdown to 2026 to see them.

What is a Big Board?

A big board ranks every draft prospect in one ordered list. The order is the point: it's not a lookup table, it's the canonical source of "who should come off the board next" when no other signal applies. In draft rooms this is the best-player-available (BPA) list, and it's the spine of every NFL Draft simulator.

Concept	What it answers
Big Board	"Who is the best player available, period?"
Position rankings	"Who is the best QB / WR / EDGE available?"
Team needs	"What does this team care about most this draft?"

Mock drafts blend all three. A CPU team in Team Needs mode multiplies each available prospect's big-board value by how badly the team needs that position; in Player Ranking mode the CPU sticks closer to the raw big-board order. Either way, the big board is the input that decides who gets picked.

Every Fanspeak big board carries:

An ordered list of prospects — rank #1 through the end of the class
A year (which NFL Draft the board is for)
An optional author description explaining the methodology
A profile picture, social links, a like count, and a "times used" counter

When you select a board on the On The Clock setup screen, those rankings are exactly what the simulator's CPU teams use to evaluate every prospect.

Create Your Own Big Board — 3 Free

You don't need to pay to make your own NFL Draft big board. Any free Fanspeak account can create and save up to 3 big boards. Upgrade to Ultimate GM and the cap is lifted entirely — build unlimited big boards across every draft year.

The Big Board Creator at /big-boards/creator is a drag-and-drop tool for ranking every prospect from #1 down:

Start from any featured board. Fork the Fanspeak Official 2027 board, MDD's consensus, or any public community board — your copy is fully independent of the original.
Re-rank by dragging. Works on mobile and desktop. Position filters let you isolate QBs, WRs, edge rushers, and more while you reorder.
Add your branding. Upload a board picture, write a description of your scouting methodology, and link your socials so you get credit when others draft off your board.
Save and share. Each saved board gets a permanent URL at /big-boards/{your-board-id} and appears in the Yours tab — ready to load straight into a mock draft.

Once saved, your big board is immediately available in the On The Clock board dropdown, both for you and for anyone you share the link with. Hit your 3-board free limit and you'll be prompted to upgrade to Ultimate GM for unlimited boards.

New to the creator? For a literal, button-by-button walkthrough — drag-and-drop ranking, adding players, the picture uploader, saving, and editing — see How to build & edit a big board.

The Jimmy Johnson Trade Value Chart

A big board tells the simulator the order prospects should go. The Jimmy Johnson Draft Trade Value Chart tells it the price of each draft slot. Fanspeak uses the classic Jimmy Johnson chart — pick #1 is worth 3,000 points, the value falling off steeply through round one and flattening into the late rounds — and it shows up across the draft tool:

Pick grading (steal vs. reach). When you make a pick, the tool converts the player's big-board ranking into a Jimmy Johnson point value and compares it to the Jimmy Johnson value of the pick you used. That difference is the pick's value delta: a top-ranked prospect taken at a low-value pick is a steal; a low-ranked prospect taken with premium capital is a reach. The reach tolerance scales with pick number — a small reach in round one matters far more than the same reach in round six.
CPU draft variance. The chart also sets how deep into the big board each CPU team looks. Early, high-value picks stay close to the top of the board (more deterministic); later picks open a wider window, so prospects realistically slide.
Fair trades. Every trade the simulator proposes or accepts is priced off the same chart, so trading up or down costs what it should.

In short: your big board sets the rankings, and the Jimmy Johnson chart turns those rankings into draft value — that's what makes the grade on every pick meaningful.

How On The Clock Uses Your Big Board

The board you pick on the On The Clock setup page is handed to every CPU team to evaluate prospects. Mechanically:

When you click the Draft button to go to On The Clock and start the draft, the simulator fetches the board's full ranking and hydrates every prospect into a player object (name, position, school, height/weight).
Each CPU team scores every available player using its big-board rank, multiplied by need weight (in Team Needs mode) and adjusted by the Jimmy Johnson value of the current pick.
The team with the highest score takes the highest-scoring player. The big board never changes mid-draft.

You can hand CPU teams a different board than yours via the Computer Big Board dropdown — useful for simulating disagreement between front offices. Set it to Random and each CPU team grabs a different featured board, producing messier, more lifelike NFL mock drafts where prospects slide unexpectedly.

Ready to try it? Start a mock draft on On The Clock and pick your big board on the setup screen — the simulator does the rest.

Featured Boards

The Featured tab on the big-boards hub is curated by Fanspeak — the boards we trust enough to ship as defaults, including the boards from our verified creator ambassadors. Today's lineup includes:

Fanspeak Official 2027 — our in-house consensus for the 2027 NFL Draft, updated as the college season and scouting reports progress.
MDD Consensus 2027 — Mock Draft Database's consensus board, pulled in for early-cycle comparison.
PFR 2026 (Actual) — the literal 2026 NFL Draft order. Re-run the 2026 draft from any team's seat and grade what actually happened.
Buffalo Fambase, Steve Shoup, Warren Hauck, DRAFTPLEX – Jason Pruett, and other community-respected creator boards — preserved for retro mocks.

Every featured board has its own permanent URL at /big-boards/{board-id}, so you can deep-link it, share it, or load it directly into On The Clock.

Edit & Update

You can re-edit any board you own at /big-boards/{id}/edit. Updates are immediate — once you save, the new ranking applies to every future mock draft that uses the board. The lastUpdated timestamp on each board card tells users how fresh it is.

Editing a board never changes historical drafts. Completed mocks are immutable — they capture the board exactly as it was at draft time.
Deletes are real. Deleting removes the board from the public list; anyone with the URL gets a "not found" page.
Public by default. Saved boards are publicly indexable — there's no private tier today.

Leaderboards & Discovery

Boards double as a discovery engine. The Most-Used Boards leaderboard ranks every public big board by how often it's drafted with over the current cycle. Boards that produce realistic, consensus-aligned NFL mock drafts tend to climb; chaos boards still get used (people love an unpredictable draft) but rank by novelty rather than volume. For 2027, the Fanspeak Official 2027 board leads by usage as the default, with MDD Consensus 2027 the top external board — expect a denser leaderboard by August as community 2027 boards roll in.

Big Boards FAQ

Do I need an account to use big boards?

Browsing and drafting with public boards is free and account-free. To create and save your own big board you need a free Fanspeak account, which lets you save up to 3 big boards. Ultimate GM removes the cap for unlimited boards.

How many big boards can I make for free?

Three. A free account can create and save up to 3 big boards total (account-wide, across all draft years). Hit the limit and Fanspeak prompts you to upgrade to Ultimate GM for unlimited big boards.

What is the Jimmy Johnson chart and how does it affect my draft?

It's the classic NFL Draft pick-value chart. Fanspeak uses it to grade every pick — comparing your prospect's big-board rank to the value of the pick you spent — and to drive CPU draft variance and trade fairness. A high-ranked player at a late pick grades as a steal; a reach with premium capital costs you.

How do I start a mock draft from a big board?

Pick the board you want, then click the Draft button to go to On The Clock. On the setup screen your board is pre-selected as the player rankings the simulator uses.

Is the 2027 big board final?

No. The Fanspeak Official 2027 board is our best read right now. It re-seeds in August as preseason scouting reports drop, again after the college season starts, and again post-bowl season. Check the lastUpdated timestamp to see how fresh it is.

Can I use a 2026 board for a 2027 mock draft?

The player pool is tied to the year — a 2027 mock only shows 2027-eligible prospects, so a 2026-only board appears empty in a 2027 draft. Use 2027 boards for 2027 drafts.

Can I see my old big boards from previous cycles?

Yes. Switch the Year dropdown to the cycle you want. Your boards persist across years; they just don't show up under the wrong year.

How to Build & Edit a Big Board

This is the hands-on guide to the Fanspeak Big Board Creator — every button, the drag-and-drop, and exactly what to click. New to the concept? Read What is a Big Board? first to see how a big board powers the mock draft simulator; this page is the literal how-to.

Before You Start

You need a free Fanspeak account to save a board. A free account can create and save up to 3 big boards; Ultimate GM lifts the cap to unlimited. Browsing and drafting with public boards needs no account at all.

If you just want to understand what a big board is and how the simulator uses it — that's the companion article, What is a Big Board?. Come back here when you're ready to actually build one.

Open the Creator

There are two ways in:

From scratch. On the /big-boards hub, click the red + Create new big board button (top of the Your Big Boards column). If you've already used your 3 free boards, that button reads Upgrade instead. You'll land in the creator with an empty list and a Start from scratch state.
Fork an existing board. Open any board, then use Copy & Edit (on a board card) or Start With / Edit This Board… (on the board's page). This seeds a brand-new board in the creator pre-filled with that board's rankings — your copy is fully independent of the original.

Either way you're now at /big-boards/creator, looking at the creator's two columns: your board on the left (the ranked list) and the player lookup on the right.

Add & Reorder Players

This is the core of the tool — building the #1-through-end order.

Drag to reorder. Each row in your board has a drag grip on the left. Press and drag a player up or down; the list re-numbers as you drop. Works on desktop and touch.
Move (precision jump). For a big jump, click the Move button on a row and type the exact rank to send it to — faster than dragging a player 200 spots.
Add a prospect. In the right-hand player lookup column, find a prospect (scroll, search, or filter) and click + Add. A small popover lets you choose the rank to insert them at, so you don't have to drag them up from the bottom.
Filter by position. Use the position chips (QB, RB, WR, TE, EDGE, and so on) to narrow the pool while you rank a position group, then clear back to All.
Remove. Click Remove on a row to drop a player from the board.
Undo. Made a mistake? The Undo button reverses your last add or remove.

Tip: rank by tiers. Drag your clear top guys first, then use the position filter to slot each group, then fine-tune the borders between tiers.

Name, Description & Picture

Open the Details section (a tab/slide on mobile — see below) to brand your board:

Name — required, and must be unique among your boards.
Description — optional; explain your methodology. The field is a tall, resizable box so you've got room to write.
Board picture — click Upload photo and pick a PNG, JPG, or WebP. It's automatically squared to a standard 512×512 and shown as a square preview (matching how boards appear across the site). Use Change photo to swap it or Remove to clear it — with no picture, your board shows the Fanspeak icon by default.

Save Your Board

The Save button enforces two things before it unlocks:

A name, and
At least 64 players ranked. Until you hit 64, the button shows your progress — e.g. Save (40/64) — then flips to Create board once you're ready.

Depending on your account, the button adapts:

Logged out → Sign up to save (your in-progress board is preserved through signup).
At the 3-board free cap → Upgrade to save.
Otherwise → Create board.

Once saved, your board gets a permanent URL at /big-boards/{your-board-id}, appears in your Yours tab, and is immediately available in the On The Clock board dropdown — for you and anyone you share the link with.

Edit or Delete Later

You can revise any board you own:

From the board's page, click Edit This Board… to open the editor at /big-boards/edit-board/{id}.
The editor is the same drag-and-drop interface, plus a Board dropdown to switch between your boards without leaving the page.
The Save changes button only enables once you've actually changed something (rankings, name, description, year, or picture).
Delete is permanent — it removes the board from the public list, and anyone with the old link gets a "not found" page. Completed mock drafts that used the board are untouched (they snapshot the rankings at draft time).

On Mobile

The creator splits into three swipeable slides:

Board — your ranked list (drag grips work with touch).
Players — the lookup column with + Add and position chips.
Details — name, description, and the Upload photo control.

The Save button lives in the fixed bar at the bottom of the screen, with the same Save (N/64) → Create board behavior.

Draft With Your Board

A big board only matters once you draft with it. From your board (or any board), click the Draft button to go to On The Clock — on a board's page it's the primary Draft With Board button. Your board is pre-selected on the On The Clock setup screen as the rankings every CPU team uses.

Want the bigger picture on how rankings, team needs, and the Jimmy Johnson value chart combine into each pick? That's all in What is a Big Board?.