Here's how the 2017 NFL Draft first-round picks were rated as high school recruits

Do recruiting rankings matter?

It seems like this question gets asked primarily two days a year: National Signing Day and the first round of the NFL Draft.

Following Thursday night’s first round, it’d be hard to argue against how accurate they are. In fact, it’s probably better than you actually think. Sure, some prospects are going to slip past the recruiting evaluators, but more often than not, they don’t.

Here’s the breakdown of all 32 picks in first round (247Sports Composite):

5-stars: 10
4-stars: 12
3-stars: 6
2-stars: 2
Not Ranked: 2

Five-stars and four-stars are the elite high school players, and 22 of the 32 picks were either five- or four-star prospects (nearly 69 percent). Now-a-days, there are really only about 30-32 five-star players in every recruiting class, and to get 10 of those right is very impressive. Combine those 10 with 12 four-stars, and that’s getting very good.

The first three former SEC players off the board — Myles Garrett (No. 1), Leonard Fournette (No. 4) and Jamal Adams (No. 6) were all five-star prospects. Of the SEC’s 12 NFL Draft picks, seven were former five-star recruits, two were four-stars, two were three-stars and one was a two-star. Missouri DE Charles Harris was one of two two-star prospects in the entire NFL Draft.

Here’s the breakdown of the SEC’s 12 first-round picks:

5-stars: 7
4-stars: 2
3-stars: 2
2-stars: 1

Interestingly, two players were picked in the first round that weren’t even rated as high school prospects — Cardinals’ No. 13 pick LB Haason Reddick (Temple) and Saints’ No. 32 pick OL Ryan Ramczyk (Wisconsin). Reddick joined Temple as a walk-on and blew into a fabulous linebacker, while Ramczyk also has an interesting story. He turned down an offer from Pitt out of high school and elected to play at D-2 Winona State. He enrolled at three different colleges before transferring to Wisconsin to finish his career.

Here’s the full first round and star ranking: