March Madness, Spring-Break Marauding, and Mocking – tis that time of year.
I don’t know if I’ll write up my own mock. I feel almost obligated to do so, but I may not be the most “qualified” since I don’t really watch college football because it’s basically just super-teams like in MLB and NBA; despite that, I have been an avid fan of combines, tape and the whole draft process for decades, and my takes -for better or worse – don’t totally buck the industry godfathers like Kiper, McShay, Prisco, Davis, etc…
Neither Lincoln nor FDR were soldiers in a war, but that didn’t make them awful wartime leaders. IKE wasn’t a military genius like Grant or Patton, but he didn’t have to be.
All those men simply listened to the ‘experts,’ interpreted facts and delegated correctly; now they’re heroes.
On the flip side, Hitler very much served as a runner in WW1 [In one of the biggest ironies in history, Hugo Gutmann, a Jewish lieutenant in the List Regiment, recommended Adolf Hitler for the Iron Cross, First Class, in August 1918]. Yet, Hitler made COLOSSAL mistakes [ahem, invading Russia whilst still at war with England. Immediately declaring war on the U.S. after Pearl Harbor. Slow-walking Dunkirk. Heading south to the Caucus Oil instead of beelining Moscow. Switching to carpet bombing instead of destroying RAF. Not investing more in Uboats… Bad moves, Mein Duh-rer].
Being an “expert” guarantees nothing and sometimes it can come down to blind luck [See, Bradshaw coinflip].
Or as Rev refrains, “The draft is a crapshoot”.
I view it more like running an FF team or a portfolio. Yes, unforeseen circumstances CAN fuck you [Black Monday, Covid, your HB1 and WR1 going down in the same game]; nevertheless a person can master a field to minimize risk.
Minimizing risk and taking tactical chances is essentially life. It’s possible to knock out Mike Tyson with a lucky shot, but uhm, probably prudent to take some boxing lessons beforehand.
So, here we are, avg fans wading through the draftnik datumsphere. Well, if the turnover of NFL GMs tell us anything, it’s that no definitive empirical evidence or Newtonian equation can be applied to draft well. Eventually some Tech Bro will create some algo, but we’ll likely live on Mars before that. Perhaps this is what makes it so fascinating. It’s a mystery dropped in a riddle inside an enigma, wrapped in a dick-in-o-box.
For every ‘self-evident’ draft truism, 10 exceptions exist. Great QBs only come in the first RD. [Brady]. WRs who don’t run at least 4.4 suck [Rice]. Winning a Heisman accurate predictor [Tebus]. Gotta play for big program. Nope. Gotta have long arms. Nope. Need to be a 3 year starter. Nope. Never draft a primadonna, a criminal, a white CB or RB! Nope – nope – nope!
Still, that doesn’t mean one must blindly spin the roulette wheel and simply put $ on some random number “Jesus, take the wheel!”
Bill Polian, a Pro Football Hall of Fame general manager and former analyst, once asserted, ‘don’t build your draft on outliers‘
How many HOF LTs have arms shorter than 33″?
How many HOF QBs [in modern era] are under 6’1?
How many HOF CBs are slow?
How many HOF LBs are dumb and soft?
How many HOF DEs are weak and stiff?
The draft industry constantly churns trying to discover the new all-predictive metrics like an alchemist attempting to turn lead into gold:
DT – 10 yard split; WR – fast gauntlet; CBs – some combo of 40, cone, and broad jump; Edge, bend, pop, pressure rates + arm length.
And this doesn’t even account fore the psychologically, medical or mental [Wonderlic, S2 Cognition Test]. A team once asked a prospect if his mom was a hooker just to test his response.
QB? fogget about it. Could do a dissertation on all the data used to find franchise QBs, yet teams still draft Ken Obrien, Jeff George, or treat Brady and Purdy as afterthoughts. There’s a tortoise in the desert lying on its back…
As such, dunno if I’m going to sit on my dragon throne dropping down draft dogma. Instead, I’ll relay and reflect on what the pundits are pushing.
With that in mind, let’s start with a 1st RD Mock Draft from Kiper. Again, not arguing this is how it’s going down [it’s not without trades, of that we are certain], but mostly to survey the 1st round landscape.
ESPN is obviously grooming Field Yates to be Kiper’s successor. Personally, others like Charles Davis or Joel Klatt are waaaay better at breaking down film, stats, metrics and framing them in context, but Yates is more ‘plugged in’, and often the most accurate mocks aren’t even from proper scouts, rather “insiders”, like Schefter, esp on the night before the draft.
Since Bears have TWO picks in the 2nd, may be worth perusing to see who’ll be in our range. As to whom Poles should draft, need vs BPA, etc, well, that’s why the comments’ section exists!