NFL comparables
Has not played an NFL snap yet. There is no NFL production to compare, so no NFL comparison is shown. The college-production projection below is what the model has for him until he plays — it is a weaker estimator and it is not a substitute for NFL evidence.
🏈 NFL Draft 2026: Round 5, Pick #178 — PHI
KTC consensus. SF rank 471 (pos #67) — model delta ↑↑ +182. Positive delta = model bullish vs consensus; negative = bearish.
v3.6 projection methodology. Projection is the pick-tier baseline for this position. No comps with meaningful NFL careers — the historical college players most similar to this prospect either didn't reach the NFL or only had cup-of-coffee stints (<200 career fp). The pick-tier baseline anchors the number to what players in this position+pick range historically produce. low-confidence comp pool
Projection Inputs
College production summary feeding the v3.0 similarity
vector. The engine weights these features against the prospect corpus
(2000–present) to build the comp grid below.
College adj career fp/g: —Final season fp/g: —Peak season fp/g: —Conf tier (last): —
Top-25 college comparables
Historical college players whose production curves most closely match Cole Payton. Hit-label colouring tags each comp's eventual NFL outcome: elite, starter, bust, unknown (still developing or never reached the NFL). Click an NFL name to jump to its veteran page when available.
| College player |
School |
Class |
Similarity |
NFL outcome |
NFL career |
Career fp |
Peak3 fp/g |
Seasons |
Methodology details:
v3.0 prospect engine — PR 3 similarity, PR 4 projection, PR 5 back-test.