The Armchair Quarterback’s Consensus Mock Draft
This week’s Armchair Quarterback is going to break from the normal format. Instead of writing my usual column I spent this week compiling a consensus mock draft. There are so many mock drafts out there right now that it can almost make your head spin. If you really want your favorite team to draft a certain player and you look long enough, you can find a mock draft that will give you what you’re looking for. I thought it might be interesting for people to see what the majority of NFL “experts” think your favorite team will do.
So what I did is compile 20 different mock drafts to find a consensus pick for each team. Once a player was selected he was no longer eligible for any other teams even if he was the “consensus pick”. In those cases I went to the number two vote getter. My hope is that this allows fans to see what the majority of those that cover the NFL think your favorite team is going to do. Besides showing you the selection, I’ve also included all the players that received votes for that draft pick.
I will confess in advance that I adjusted a couple of picks to make things line up more realistically. For example, the mock drafts varied so widely in where Blake Bortles was selected that he wasn’t the majority pick for any team and thus didn’t go in the first round at all in this consensus mock the first time I did it. Meanwhile Teddy Bridgewater went #8 overall to the Vikings. When I looked back over things I noticed that almost all of the mocks that had Bridgewater going to the Vikings already had Bortles off the board at that point. So I made the executive decision to make Bortles the Vikings pick which dropped Bridgewater to the second half of the first round which seems to align with the latest popular opinions on where Bridgewater might go. I felt that this was a better representation of what most think will happen than having Bridgewater at #8 overall and Bortles not being drafted in the first round at all.
Two notes on the mock drafts that I used for the consensus mock:
1. The cut off date for these mocks was Tuesday, April 22nd. So if you’ve seen brand new mocks out from these same guys that had different picks, that’s why.
2. I deliberately left Mel Kiper and Todd McShay off the list because I think it’s absurd to make people pay to see your mock draft.
Here are the mock drafts that I included:
Rob Rang – CBS Sports
Dane Brugler – CBS Sports
Pete Prisco – CBS Sports
Pat Kirwan – CBS Sports
Will Brinson – CBS Sports
Charles Davis – NFL.com
Daniel Jeremiah – NFL.com
Bucky Brooks – NFL.com
Mike Huguenin – NFL.com
Chase Goodbread – NFL.com
Matt Smith – NFL.com
Bryan Fischer – NFL.com
Don Banks – SI.com
Chris Burke – MMQB
Matt Miller – Bleacher Report
Eric Edholm – Yahoo Sports
Evan Silva – Roto World
Walter Cherepinsky – Walterfootball.com
Charlie Campbell – Walterfootball.com
Mike Loyko – nepatriotsdraft.com
The consensus mock begins on the next page.