“We mock what we don’t understand.”
Dan Aykroyd as Austin Milbarge in Spies Like Us
As I get older, my tolerance meter inching closer to zero, I find I have considerably less time for things that are unimportant.
That’s my polite way of saying… can we cool it already with all the mock drafts?
I’m not sure how this whole craze got started, this widespread fish-in-a-barrel predictionnaire telling all whose who will listen where college’s fifth best tight end might get drafted. Everyone and their mother, on every sports feed available, now has their own insufferable mock draft. And I’m over it.
The day I start doing mock drafts on this website is the day you can take me out to pasture Joe Pesci Casino-style, for it also marks the day that I’ve run out of things to talk about. And that’s my biggest problem with all of this. Mock drafts are not news; they’re conjecture.
To be abundantly clear, I see nothing wrong with projecting which college athletes might succeed in the pros or even determining team needs. That much, as we’ve seen, is also a woefully inexact science, laughably so, with seasoned NFL GMs getting it wrong a fair amount of the time. If we could accurately predict which college quarterbacks would make it in pros, the Jets and Browns wouldn’t be taking stabs at different play callers every year. Yet for “draft experts” with nothing better to do than tell you which team might select an unfamiliar linebacker with their sixth-round pick seems not only pointless but an incredible waste of everybody’s time. I saw someone on ESPN project who might go 132nd in the draft the other day. He might as well have been giving me random lottery numbers by that point. If Kalshi can offer one billion dollars for the perfect bracket, I’ll offer a trillion and the keys to SportsChump Kingdom to whomever can accurately predict all 224 draft picks.
What’s worse is when these pundits tell you they have inside information. NFL war rooms are more tight-lipped than a vestial virgin. Executives will lose their jobs if they leak news to outside sources. Prematurely releasing information that their team will select player X could determine whether another team spaces behind them will take Player Y. If anything, teams are intentionally giving out misinformation.
No NFL franchise is telling anyone anything come draft time. To insinuate otherwise is downright misleading. Do you honestly think some loyal Packers employee is giving company secrets to a cigarette-smoking, trenchcoat-wearing Todd McShay in some dimly lit garage Deep Throat-style like in All the President’s Men? The answer is a resounding no.
I’m not sure how NFL mock drafts got started, probably with Mel Kiper, although the internet tells us he wasn’t the first, perhaps just the most boisterous. Kiper’s knowledge of athletes from college programs of all shapes and sizes is inarguably impressive, if not borderline restraining order-worthy. With the time spent on both his hair and touring college campuses (I mean, he does that, right?), it’s hard to imagine that Kiper has time for a successful marriage or any semblance of sanity. These days, Kiper has become a parody of himself, his inevitable outbursts are the only thing that make the four-day, televised event worth watching.
Watching unkempt ESPN crews working the final day of the NFL Draft deliver media releases about players that won’t make the NFL is comparable only to undercover police officers on the fourth day of an unsuccessful stakeout.
“They stink of B.O., they have coffee breath, they’re constipated from sittin’ on their asses for so long, they’re sitting in a van, and they’re probably parked right up the street from your office.”
Robert DeNiro as Jack Walsh in Midnight Run
Sports fans still attend the NFL Draft for some reason, decked out in their favorite team gear, unable to get anywhere near the stage, rooting for their team’s selection, as if they’ve ever heard of the player chosen. They’ll voraciously boo the commissioner who now makes nearly $100 million a year because the league can afford it, yet this is a man who has successfully presided over a sport that has grown more in popularity than any other in history. In other words, none of the weekend makes any sense or is anywhere near as fun as the annual fantasy draft you hold with your friends.
When I see another pointless mock draft coming my way, I’m quick to hit the mute button or delete the e-mail. Since, unfortunately, mock drafts aren’t going anywhere, I propose we chart the success of these pundits and grade them accordingly. They might as well be blindfolded hitting a pinata or pinning the tail on the donkey.
With the NFL Draft once again upon us, I’d say I’m happy for it to be almost over, but you know ESPN will end their broadcast with some fruitless prediction about who will be taken top ten in 2027.
And the wheels on the bus go round and round.
Congratulations to all those young men drafted and please send Mr. Kiper my regards.
