How the Chargers & Joe Hortiz Grade NFL Draft Prospects

Hortiz also gave some insight on which grading scale he uses.

The GM noted he deploys the 5.5 to 8.0 scale, which is a common practice and the same one NFL.com uses for their pre-draft reports.

A 5.5 player is generally viewed as an undrafted free agent while an 8.0 player is essentially a perfect prospect. The tiers inbetween range from average backup to a player who will eventually be a plus starter to someone who is viewed as a Pro-Bowl caliber prospect.

Hortiz said the Chargers previously used “more of a round-type grading scale.”

But he adjusted on the fly to combine both scales and produce a modified version that helped the Bolts draft a stellar 2024 class.

“You do it long enough, I just had to interpret what colors meant and what their numbers meant,” Hortiz said. “You just feel it out, get a feel for it and listen.

“The great thing is in the meetings, you talk about players and you just discuss them,” Hortiz added. “As they’re saying their grades and colors, I’m like, ‘I know what that is, I see where it correlates to how we would have done things in Baltimore.'”

Hortiz and the Chargers are now preparing for the 2025 NFL Draft, where the Bolts currently have seven draft picks beginning with the 22^nd overall selection in the first round.

With the draft now two months away, everyone is aligned in the Chargers front office.

“The important thing is how you stack them. You introduce new ideas and ways of scouting,” Hortiz said. “They absorbed it, took it and ran with it. This year, I’m familiar with all of them, we’re speaking the same language.”