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2010 Mock Draft Results in Review

By yellow fever

If there's one thing that the number of mock drafts produced every year has proven, it's that drafts are impossible to predict. I'm fairly certain the biggest reason for this is that nearly mocks assume teams won't trade - which is absurd, because there are multiple trades in the first round every year. Another big reason is that guys like Mel Kiper have no idea what they're talking about in evaluating players, and I'm still not certain as to why his opinion should be given any more weight than, say, my dog.

Ok, he probably watches more college football than my dog, but my dog wouldn't have called Jimmy Clausen the fourth best prospect in the draft this year either.

So who did the best? I rounded up sixteen mock drafts, from the following analysts:

I'd have included Mike Mayock as well, though he only went twenty picks deep for some reason, so it wouldn't have been a fair assessment. So who did the best? Find out after the jump.
According to my numbers, the best pickers followed the same order above.
  1. Peter King
  2. Paul Domowitch
  3. Don Banks
  4. Todd McShay
  5. Bill Simmons
  6. Mel Kiper
  7. ESPN's Blog Network
  8. Shutdown Corner
  9. Pete Prisco
  10. Rob Rang
  11. Clark Judge
  12. Chad Reuter
  13. Walter Football
  14. Pat Kirwan
  15. The National Football Post
  16. The Sporting News

Take from these results what you will, but I'll admit my grading system is a bit skewed as it heavily weights correctly picking whether players will go in the first round at all. It's difficult to do it any other way because the easiest thing would be to measure the difference between where a player actually went and where an analyst picked him to go - but if an analyst didn't have a player in their mock at all, it's not possible to do that.

Of course, there are a number of ways to measure who did the best. Let's start by going over the main driver in calculations - who had the most players correctly going in the first round, who they missed, and who they had going in the first round instead:

  1. Peter King - 4 (Tyson Alualu, Kareem Jackson, Jerry Hughes, Patrick Robinson), had Sergio Kindle, Jimmy Clausen, Taylor Mays, and Rodger Saffold
  2. Don Banks - 4 (Alualu, Tim Tebow, Jahvid Best, Robinson), had Kindle, Charles Brown, Clausen, Everson Griffen
  3. Paul Domowitch - 4 (Alualu, Tebow, Best, Hughes), had Kindle, Brown, Clausen, Mays
The worst?
  1. The Sporting News - 8 (Alualu, Weatherspoon, Jackson, Jermaine Gresham, Tebow, Dan Williams, Devin McCourty, Best), had Kindle, Dunlap, Clausen, Mays, Bruce Campbell, Daryl Washington, Rob Gronkowski, Brandon Spikes
  2. The National Football Post - 7 (Alualu, Ryan Mathews, Weatherspoon, Jackson, Demaryius Thomas, Hughes, Robinson), had Brown, Cluasen, Mays, Griffen, Campbell, Nate Allen, Chris Cook
  3. Walter Football - 7 (Alualu, Jackson, Gresham, Thomas, Tebow, Best, Robinson), had Kindle, Brown, Clausen, Mays, Saffold, Campbell
Who nailed the most picks by getting them at the right place in the first round?
  1. Todd McShay - 11
  2. Peter King/Shutdown Corner tied at 9
  3. Pete Prisco - 8
The fewest nailed?
  1. Walter Football, Pat Kirwan, Sporting News - 4
  2. National Football Post, Chad Reuter - 5
  3. Clark Judge, Paul Domowitch, Don Banks, Mel Kiper - 6
So that was all pretty interesting. Here are a few bullet points about the consensus opinions of some of the prospects.
  • No one had Tyson Alualu in the first. But you knew that already.
  • Everyone had Jimmy Clausen in the first. But you knew that already.
  • Other than Alualu, the highest picked player who wasn't even a consensus first rounder was Anthony Davis at 11 to the 49ers. Clark Judge didn't think he was worth a first round pick.
  • All 16 analysts got the top 3 picks correctly in order.
  • The other two picks which were correctly picked by more than half of the analysts reviewed were Maurkice Pouncey at 18 to the Steelers, and Jermaine Gresham at 21 to the Bengals.
  • Todd McShay and Shutdown Corner had the longest streaks to start the draft, by getting the first six picks in a row correct.
  • No one got the 7-13th picks, 20th pick, 23-25, 29, or 32nd picks correct. These were Joe Haden, Rolando McClain, C.J. Spiller, Alualu, Davis, Ryan Mathews, Brandon Graham, Jackson, Bryan Bulaga, Dez Bryant, Tebow, Kyle Wilson, and Robinson.
  • Well, that's not entirely correct - a lot of analysts had Ryan Mathews going to the Chargers, just at 28.
  • In all, a total of 48 players were named in the first rounds of these mocks.
Want to check my work? Knock yourself out. 2010 Mock Drafts.

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