Great Blue North Draft Report: From statistician at a typewriter to online publisher

This April the Great Blue North Draft Report's Colin Lindsay will cover his ninth NFL Draft for his site. Over the past nine years, Lindsay said he has been able to predict the draft with more than 75 percent accuracy. Such high numbers are the result of many hours spent pouring over newspapers from all of the NFL’s cities, as well as listening to sports news and sources within the NFL.

And all this information is available to readers at the Great Blue North Draft Report, which offers a comprehensive review of NFL news and its annual draft. It also gives readers an accumulation of "many years of research about NFL Draft picks and their contribution to the NFL," Lindsay said.

"I'm pretty much the only one you can find for updated information about the draft years after it happens," Lindsay said.

The Great Blue North Draft Report boasts a unique grading system for every NFL team. Lindsay gives every team a grade depending on the potential contribution by the players selected, but unlike most other sports websites, Lindsay follows up on his picks for the next few years, updating his initial grades as each rookie draft pick either blossoms or busts as a pro.

Lindsay said that he "looks at tapes, listens to a variety of sources, and reads many sports publications" in order to find all the information he needs to give accurate grades.

The site has its roots back in the 1970s when Lindsay diligently recorded the statistics of the New York Giants using a typewriter. In the mid 1990s he posted his results on the Internet for friends, and soon he expanded to all 32 teams. All of this recording of statistics comes as second nature to Lindsay, who has worked for the National Statistics Agency in Canada for 30 years.

During the season Great Blue North Draft Report gets more than 4,000 hits each day, but when draft season comes around in March and April, the site receives more than 50,000 each day, according to Lindsay.

At the same time as many websites are commercializing, Lindsay said the services on his site will be free "as long as I am running gnbreport.com."

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