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[warthog]

MOCK DRAFTS
by Martin Manley

The amount of interest in the draft is unbelievable to me. I suspect the ratings for Thursday night will be higher than an average World Series game or an average NBA Championship Series game. People have been talking about it for weeks and months. It’s amazing considering the focus of 90% of the conversation (top-10 picks) is over in about an hour or so. It makes you wonder what the appeal is.

Even though I’m part of the “problem”, I didn’t join the masses in creating my own mock draft. Of course, I wouldn’t have had the expertise to do it anyway. Still, there are so many mock drafts, I thought I would analyze how they did based upon what matters – the top-10 picks.

I decided to subtract a point for each position off, to add a point if the pick was correct and to take 11 minus the pick if the player was not drafted in the top 10.

For example, say someone picked Bradford #1. They would get +1 for getting it correct. Say they picked T. Williams #6 (he was actually picked 4th). They would get -2 for being off two spots. Say they picked Balaga #7, they would be -4 because he was not picked in the top-10 (11-7=4). Understand?

In any event, that seemed like a fair way to measure them.

I went to google, typed in nfl mock draft and started logging these picks. The first person I came to was the Baltimore Sun’s Jamison Hensley. So, I started my list with Bradford, Suh, McCoy, T.Williams, Berry, Okung… As it turns out, he was the only person of all the 37 mock drafts I analyzed to get the first six correct. So, he was +6 after six picks. His seventh pick was Wilson. He was not drafted in the top-10, so that’s -4. Now, he’s at +2 through seven picks. His eigth pick was Iupati. He was also not drafted in the top-10 (-3). Now, he’s -1 through eight picks. His #9 pick was D.Williams – also not drafted in the top-10 (-2). Now, he’s sitting at -3 with only his tenth pick left. He went for Spiller at #10. he was actually drafted #9, so that’s -1. Thus, he ended at minus four (-4).

And, as it turns out, that was the lowest (best) score of anyone – the first guy on my list. He was presumably random, although if google had some way of predicting who was going to be better or who was better in the past and moved them to the top of the sort… perhaps it wasn’t altogether random.

The second best was Clark Judge of CBS Sports (-5). Tied for third at -6 were Pete Prisco of CBS Sports, NFL Draft Dog and Draft King. Sixth place went to our own Red Zone (-7).

I recognize I didn’t get everyone that mocked a draft in my study. I got those I could find reasonably easily on Wednesday night. Anyone I had to pay to see is most definitely NOT on this list. I don’t pay for sports information and neither do you – as long as you get it on kansascity.com.

One final note on this subject. The absolute worst (by far) was Peter Schrager (Fox). He was -38. Among his bizarre picks were Clausen (still undrafted) at #4 and Bradford at #9. Sometimes you wonder about sports journalists. You have to wonder if they are just simply trying to make noise so as to stick out in the crowd. Even if that works once, it seems hard to think the hit to one’s credibility would justify it.

Oh, and by the way, Rich Stewart (UFR’s NFL expert) was -10, tied for 10th out of 37. Very respectable. You can catch his remaining round projections on his site.

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