Most team sports have an off season - a period of time when there's no live action to watch, so consequently fans and journalists have to look for stories to fill the gaps.
Luckily, since the SuperBowl in early February, the NFL has had an incredible amount of talking points and stories to keep journalists busy and fans entertained. In short - one of the best QB's of all time has changed teams, the most talked about QB in the league has changed teams and one team has traded up to take the 2nd pick in the upcoming Draft. Oh, and there's the small matter of the New Orleans Saints being found guilty of placing bounties on opposing Quarterbacks. A verdict that has seen (among other penalties) their Head Coach banned for a year.
All of these events have attracted plenty of column inches, in fact "column miles" may be a more apt description, so I'm not going to add my thoughts on these matters. Instead I'm going to talk about a topic that occupies almost as much space on websites, blogs and forums. It also happens to be one of my pet hates in the NFL...I'm talking about Mock Drafts.For the non NFL fans reading this, a Mock Draft is where a writer attempts to predict the selections (usually first round only, but I have found 8 round efforts!) that each team will make in the upcoming NFL Draft.
The Draft itself is a wonderful concept and one I'll be covering in greater detail next month - essentially it promotes fair play by giving the weaker teams earlier selections of the best players coming out of the College football system. Therefore, the Colts were ranked 32nd last season so they get picks 1,33 etc. Whereas the Superbowl winning Giants have to wait until pick number 32 before they can acquire a new player. It all helps to ensure that no teams can dominate the league year in year out, and that can only be a good thing.
However, what I find extremely tedious is sheer volume of people wanting to have a go at predicting who each team will pick. It might be somebody with an "amusing" pseudonym on a fans forum or it might be a top NFL expert on TV; whoever it is, I'm not interested!
What's wrong with somebody having a go at guessing where players will end up?
Well, I'm not having a go at the websites, fans and journalists that produce these Mocks, I visit and/or write for some of them and there are many great NFL websites out there. I'm just saying that they're not something I enjoy reading.
My main gripe is that they're almost always wrong. OK, we can all predict that the Colts will take Andrew Luck with the 1st pick - he's the best player to come out of the College system for years and the Colts need a new QB. Likewise we all know the Redskins will take Robert Griffin III with the second pick, for similar reasons. You can even take fairly educated guesses at picks 3-6, as there is a small core of elite players that fit the requirements of the teams with these picks.
It's after that the real guesswork begins, the 7th pick belongs to the Jacksonville Jaguars and a quick look round a few websites reveals that of the 12 Mocks I've viewed, there are 11 different suggestions for who the Jags will pick! Essentially, this is pure guesswork.
What's more, by making the 7th pick a lottery, you're making the rest of the selections the same, as it's impossible to know who will be left. Yes, some teams will "reach" for players that fulfil big needs, for example the Dolphins may well pick Ryan Tannehill at no8. He's not the 8th best player in the Draft, but Miami have an urgent need for a QB.
NFL.com has 4 Mock Drafts compiled by experts, and all of them have 4 different players in every position of all bar 5 of the remaining 1st round picks. Yes, they will have theories for each selection, but each theory will be different. Besides, each expert will have a different set of available players. It really is random stuff, and some the theories for selections are equally as random - eg the Bears will take a Wide Receiver because they have a need there and have identified Michael Floyd as sometime to fill that gap. That's lovely, but they also have a number of other needs, so another expert will say that they need to take a Defensive Tackle and have identified Nick Perry as that man. A third expert will agree with the 2nd expert but he already has another team taking Perry, so he predicts the Bears will take a different DT. And so it goes on...
Some teams can also come up with something completely left-field with their picks. In 2000, the Oakland Raiders took a kicker in the 1st round. I'm pretty sure everybody ripped up their Mock Draft sheets at that point. It was only the 3rd time in NFL history that a kicker had been taken in round one.
Another aspect of Mock Drafts that annoys me, is the fact people do them when they are many different factors that could happen between now and the actual Draft - teams may make player trades with other teams that a) give them Draft picks and b) fulfils a need they may have addressed in the Draft. Either of these occurrences would render existing Mocks irrelevant.
Finally, I get annoyed by the emphasis that experts put on the Scouting Combine and Pro Days. Yes, it's a chance for players to show off their attributes, prove they can run 40yds in a ridiculously fast time and bench press the weight of an entire family. But it is only exercise, it's not them actually playing football. Yet, some people use the Combine results to move players up and down Mock Drafts as if they had just broken some College all time records. Besides, some players can look terrible at the Combine and still do OK in the NFL (see left)I realise sport is about opinions and I love predicting matches (usually incorrectly) and betting on sport. I just find that Mock Drafts take it too far. I love the Draft, I think it's one of the great things about the NFL, but I prefer to just let it play out and see what happens. I've seen about 10 different players being predicted as the Eagles 1st pick, so I'm not going to get too excited about the pick until it actually happens on the 26th April. That's when we can really start looking forward to the season and look at who will be in the starting line ups for our teams.
There we go, I don't like Mock Drafts, it's largely irrational, so apologies to anyone reading this who has done their own Mock. Nothing personal, it's not a part of the NFL that I enjoy.
Think I can get used to this idea of writing about aspects of the NFL I don't like - might make it a once a week topic. However, next time I'll talking about something that's usually more positive...the Fans, and how they compare to fans of other sports. As an Eagles fan, I think it's fair to say I'll be mentioning snowballs and Santa Claus at some point!
Snowballs? Santa Claus? No idea what you could be on about *whistles* ;)
ReplyDeleteTo be honest I'm not a huge mock draft fan either, mainly because I don't follow college football so it doesn't mean all that much to me. However I do love the Draft itself and will definitely be staying up to watch it.
It'll be interesting to see what the Eagles do in the 1st Round though - a lot of people were suggesting we'll take a LB but after we got DeMeco Ryans I think that's even more unlikley now. If Big Andy has shown us anything over the last decade or so it's that he likes to take offensive and defensive lineman high in the Draft. That and his penchant for cheesesteaks of course.