Mock Drafters; The Average Joe Doesn’t Know

Mock drafting; It’s an inexact science. There is so much involved and so many variables in simulating player choices by professional sports teams. Experts aren’t going to get their entire mock draft choices correct. They’re lucky to get half of the first round correct and the percentage decreases drastically as the rounds proceed. They are going to go through six… eight… ten revisions before the day of the draft. But they worked hard to create their mock draft. They didn’t read other mock drafts and make changes to them and called it their own. They made there’s from scratch. They put the time in and they are so called “experts” for a reason.

I never understood how the Average Joe Schmo off the street received the ability to create a mock draft. If experts and scouts never created a mock draft first, the Average Joe wouldn’t do too well creating his own. If the Average Joe had to create a mock draft on his own without watching film, going to workouts, talking to scouts and doing other various activities with college players, they wouldn’t be able to create a respectable mock draft.

Mock drafts can be created in fun, but the line is drawn when the average fans thinks they know more than the experts. I read a mock draft created by an normal fan recently and after he wrote the first round picks he ended the article with, “I had more picks correct than Todd McShay (of ESPN) did last year.”

That’s when the respect of that person’s mock draft flew out the window.

It was a disrespectful comment.

I can look at several ESPN, Newsday, Sports Illustrated and CBS Sports mock drafts and use their picks and player rankings to make guesses about draft selections, but without them I couldn’t pick the players in an NFL draft other than going by team needs. After watching the Jets lose to the Colts, I can see the Jets need another cornerback. Would I know who was a top cornerback in the nation without sports media? No. After watching the entire Jets season and seeing Braylon Edwards drop numerous passes, I can conclude the Jets need another receiver. Would I know who was a top receiver in the nation without sports media? No. I could look at statistics of cornerbacks and receivers from all the college football teams in the nation and make guesses, but if I didn’t see the players live, wasn’t able to talk to them personally, and didn’t know what the players brought to the game other than what’s on paper, I wouldn’t be able to choose one player over another with conviction. 

You can create a mock draft based off of needs and list out each team from 1-32 and say at No. 29 the Jets need a CB or WR. But how would I choose the actual player without reading what scouts predict and analysts say? I couldn’t. I’m not a scout and I can’t go to the combine. I haven’t spent the entire season watching college upperclassmen throughout the nation and grading them. All we can go by are what we read and hear as the Average Joe. I’ll leave the mock drafts to the people who get paid to do it. I’m not going to take their work, make some changes to it, and call it my own.

Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes there are clear cut choices in the draft that anybody can make. But doing an entire first round would be difficult if experts didn’t create their own mock drafts in the first place. I’d like to see the average fan create a mock draft while watching college games on mute, watching the combine on mute, and not reading or hearing any expert opinions or predictions. Give the Average Joe a few telephone numbers and email addresses of scouts and have him pick their brains (because I know most expert mock drafters don’t do it alone either, but they know how to scout). How well will they do then?

If TV wasn’t telling you that OT Russell Okung is better than OT Bruce Campbell (just an example), how would the Average Joe know? Does the kid in the forums watch film and study both offensive tackles to know who is better? No. He listens to analysts on TV and reads articles online.

With that being said, fans do it for fun and that’s fine. Fun is all they can do it for because they aren’t experts. Just like me and most sports bloggers that don’t get paid for what we do. I’m no expert. I do it for the enjoyment and love of sports. I like discussing sports whether in agreement or disagreement, but I don’t have first person knowledge of things going on. I don’t receive insider hush-hush information from credible sources. I receive news from media outlets and then talk about it. I’ve never be able to “Break News” (if you’ve ever read articles on Bleacher Report you’d know that some people type BREAKING NEWS in their headlines and I doubt someone on Bleacher Report broke the news).

When the average fan doesn’t create a mock draft for fun anymore that’s when it’s wrong. I’m not trying to discourage people from creating mock drafts. By all means, have fun and chip away at it. But don’t take credit for making correct choices when you didn’t scout the players for yourself and you didn’t create your mock draft from scratch.

If a person creates a mock draft on his own then fabulous. He should be a scout and get paid. But if the person has to read other mock drafts and moves some players around, in and out of the first round, and sort of combines two expert mock drafts, then what did the person really do that was so great?