Here's another interesting Athletic Article for you. Not a typical Mock Draft, just some analyzing of Mock Drafts.
32 NFL Mock Drafts combined: Biggest reaches, top risers and fallers, and most popular locks
As a final look ahead to this week’s NFL Draft, beat writers for all 32 teams were each tasked by The Athletic’s editors to post a seven-round mock draft for their teams on Monday, showing how they thought the board might fall this weekend.
Add them all together, and you’d think you might have a full 259-pick mock draft, but because all 32 are done independently and without consultation with the other writers, you actually get something more interesting. There’s quite a bit of overlap, as we discovered nearly a month ago when we did the same study of the last batch of seven-round mocks.
How much overlap? Out of those 259 picks, we mentioned only 163 players, with 64 showing up on more than one mock draft, some as many as five times. This makes sense; some players are inherently more well-known than others, or even more intriguing, and given the choice, a writer will want to float an exciting or unusual name as a better conversation piece.
This allows us to do a bit of mock-draft anthropology. If a writer is given the same assignment twice a month, how much will they change the selections from one version to the next? If there’s an entire story written about which players are most popular with a writing staff, will those players continue to show up frequently, or vanish entirely? You might be surprised by the results.
The most popular
This was curious: The six players who showed up in four or more mock drafts this week weren’t a big part of the last round of mocks. They were mentioned a combined 27 times this time, but last time, they were mentioned just seven times. Three of the players were not included at all.
Dayo Odeyingbo, DL, Vanderbilt: Somehow the player tied for the most mock-draft inclusions is a prospect who … tore his Achilles tendon during a workout in January. He’s a popular choice as a bargain pick who might not be immediately available. In last month’s mocks, he went at 80 and 90, but in this week’s, he fell to as low as 139 to the Patriots.
Jaelon Darden, WR, North Texas: Dane Brugler’s No. 29 receiver, speedy but short at 5-foot-7, showed up in five mocks, with three in the fourth round and two putting him in the sixth. He had video-game numbers last season, catching 19 touchdown passes in nine games after getting 12 the year before. “His foot quickness and home run gear will leave defenders in his dust,” Brugler wrote in his draft guide, listing him with a 4.44 in the 40-yard dash.
Zech McPhearson, CB, Texas Tech: A month ago, he wasn’t in any of our mocks, but this time, he made five, showing up all over the map. Our Rams writer liked him enough to take him in the third round at No. 88, but our Texans writer thought he still might be there in the seventh round at 233. He had four interceptions last year and scored touchdowns on a 56-yard fumble return and a 90-yard blocked field goal, so there’s big-play potential, wherever he’s drafted.
Greg Newsome II, CB, Northwestern: How about getting picked in the first round four times? Newsome was the most popular first-round choice, showing up more often than Jaycee Horn (twice), Patrick Surtain (once) combined. Again, that points to expectations of the others being gone and off the board earlier in the draft, as much as it is excitement for Newsome’s upside.
Brady Christensen, T, BYU: Christensen redshirted and took a two-year mission to New Zealand, so he’ll turn 25 in September, but Brugler has him as the No. 8 tackle and No. 62 prospect in this draft. Christensen shows up in a tight cluster in the mid-third, getting picked four times between No. 74 and 86.
Richie Grant, S, Central Florida: Grant was in three mocks last time around and was in four this time, including two different mocks that had him going No. 33, one to the Jaguars and one to the Raiders after a trade with Jacksonville.
First-round favorites
If those 32 mock drafts were to interlock nicely anywhere, you’d think it’s in the first round, where much of draft speculation is focused. And yet we still play favorites, with six prospects showing up as first-rounders with multiple teams.
Newsome, who wasn’t in anyone’s mock draft last month, showed up four times in the first round, going to the Bears (20), Titans (22), Browns (26) and Bills (30) in different mock drafts. This could be a response to him being a hot name; by comparison, Virginia Tech’s Caleb Farley (who underwent a microdiscectomy last month) wasn’t in any of our new mocks.
The same is true at quarterback, as North Dakota’s Trey Lance got picked three times in the top 10, with the 49ers taking him (over Alabama’s Mac Jones) at 3, the Patriots trading up to get him at 7 and the Broncos taking him at 9. Nobody picked Jones, though it could be that everyone presumed he was going to San Francisco at 3, that is, except the writer actually picking for the 49ers.
Want an offensive tackle in the second half of the first round? Three of our writers picked Oklahoma State’s Teven Jenkins, who went to the Colts at 21, the Raiders at 25 and the Ravens at 27. USC guard Alijah Vera-Tucker went to the Cardinals at 16 and the Jets at 19. By comparison, nobody picked Northwestern’s Rashawn Slater — again, that could point to an acceptance that he’s already gone rather than any suggestion he isn’t coveted by teams.
Biggest disparity for when a first-rounder will go? Miami edge Jaelan Phillips was matched with the Dolphins (20) and Saints (30) in trades, but also as low as 40 to the Broncos. Alabama center Landon Dickerson made it into the first round with the Vikings in a trade at 32 but also made it all the way to the Packers in the second round at 62.
How much do you change your mock draft?
Most of our team beat writers wrote three or four seven-round mocks this spring, so there’s a natural question as to how much you change up your picks from one mock to the next. Give us your best guess: What percentage of the players from the last wave of mocks were paired with the same team in this week’s final editions?
The correct answer? The repeats accounted for just 39 of 259 picks, which works out to 15 percent. And of course, sticking with a choice is more likely at the top of the draft, as we did with five of the top seven picks — the Jaguars and Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence at 1, the Jets and BYU quarterback Zach Wilson at 2, the 49ers and Lance at 3, the Bengals and LSU receiver Ja’Marr Chase at 5. Our Patriots writer Jeff Howe had New England trading up for Lance in both drafts, going to 6 a month ago and 7 this week.
But only two other first-round picks were repeated, eight second-round picks were the same, and from the third round on, the percent who went to the same team was just 12 percent. To have so much change is logical, as in the real world, when teams test themselves by playing out hypotheticals, the players available when they’re on the clock will change greatly based on the picks ahead of them. Buccaneers general manager Jason Licht, accustomed to picking much higher than No. 32, said last week that it seems like there are “8,000 scenarios” just at the end of the first round.
We pointed out the six most popular players in the last round of our mock drafts, and perhaps as a result of that, those six were much less popular this time around. Those six — listed a combined 25 times in the previous mocks — appeared on just six mock drafts this time around. Syracuse safety Andrew Cisco went from five mentions to one; Wisconsin-Whitewater center Quinn Meinerz went from four to one, and Iowa edge Chauncey Golston and Oklahoma center Creed Humphrey each went from four to none. Boston College linebacker Isaiah McDuffie and Oklahoma State running back Chuba Hubbard both went from four picks to two.
Prospects with the least/greatest disparity where chosen
McPhearson not only showed up in five different mock drafts, he did so in four different rounds: the third, fourth, sixth and seventh. His difference from highest to lowest was 145 picks, easily the most of any prospect. The next closest was Ole Miss tight end Kenny Yeboah, whose picks ranged by 100, from the early fifth to the third-to-last pick of the draft. Of the 41 prospects to show up twice, the largest disparity was Penn State edge Shaka Toney, who went 127th to the Vikings and 209th to the Rams, a difference of 82 picks.
On the other end of things, seven prospects showed up twice and within a span of just four picks or less. That’s not unusual with a first-round pick like Horn (11th and 15th) or Vera-Tucker (16th and 19th), but it’s stranger with Arkansas defensive lineman Jonathan Marshall, chosen three picks apart at the end of the fifth round.
What about comparing picks to our Consensus Big Board, looking for the biggest reaches and most optimistic guys still available? McPhearson pops out here as well, going 88th in one mock with a consensus ranking of 242 for a difference of 154 spots. Close behind is Texas A&M guard Jared Hocker, taken 148th in one mock with a consensus of 295 for a +147 score. Other bold picks include Michigan tight end Ben Mason and Boston College linebacker Isaiah McDuffie, both 107 above consensus, and Central Florida tight end/receiver Jacob Harris, 106 spots higher than the consensus.
On the opposite end, Miami’s Jaelan Phillips is 19th on the consensus and went 41st in one mock, and Alabama’s Dickerson went 29 spots later than his consensus ranking, with Kentucky corner Kelvin Joseph (41 after consensus), Syracuse’s Cisco (42) and Louisiana Tech defensive lineman Milton Williams (46) among the most hopeful selections.