Keep this in mind before the Titans crucial 2021 NFL Draft

20 cognitive biases

I wanted to put this out there as a sort of PSA to say that now is the time to be especially careful about the “20 cognitive biases” infographic that has been around for a while at this point.

These are things that tend to screw up draft analysis more than anything else. You can find an interesting article on that here that includes the infographic I am posting below.

I should preface the example I am about to make with the fact that no matter what you do, you can’t remove all biases from your analysis. You just can’t.

Whether you know it is happening or not, players are going to do things that remind you of other players that you liked or disliked. On top of that, when you see a guy dominate Alabama but put up an empty box score vs Vanderbilt, you are going to have questions. In this case you are stereotyping that all Vanderbilt players are worse than all Alabama players (which may be right in most cases) but there are definitely exceptions to the rule.

Instead of seeing the talent in the Vanderbilt player, you might just label the prospect you are watching as “inconsistent” or say that “he plays to the level of his competition.”

Let me use a specific example that I made the other day.