2024 Road to the Draft – Part 11
March 29, 2023
By Noonefromtampa
Updates
Adam Peters committed to drafting “someone” during the league meetings before hurrying off to Jayden Daniels’ pro day as their evaluation process continues. The obfuscation of what the Commanders are going to do in the draft is getting thicker by the minute like a Victorian London fog in a Jack the Ripper movie.
And by the way, organized team activities for teams with new coaches starts Monday, April 1st and that is no April Fool’s joke. Expect to see an increase in social media posts about players and coaches.
The dumbest mock drafter of the week award goes to the person who has Washington trading down with Minnesota to take a cornerback.
Draft Data
The mock draft count is 284 this week, up 16 from last week. The Commanders will have the 2nd overall pick in the first round.
The freshness distribution of the mock draft data is that 53% of the mocks tracked has updated in the last three weeks.
The positions picked, by descending frequency, are:
| Position | Picked Count | Picked % | Last Week % | % Change |
| QB | 270 | 95.07% | 94.78% | 0.29% |
| OT | 8 | 2.82% | 2.99% | -0.17% |
| WR | 3 | 1.06% | 1.49% | -0.44% |
| Edge | 2 | 0.70% | 0.75% | -0.04% |
| CB | 1 | 0.35% | 0.00% | 0.35% |
| TE | 0 | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| IOL | 0 | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| DL | 0 | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| LB | 0 | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| RB | 0 | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| S | 0 | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| Grand Total | 284 | 100% |
The players mock picked to the Commanders at the 2nd pick are, in descending frequency:
| Player | Position | School | Picked Count | Picked % |
| Drake Maye | QB | North Carolina | 135 | 47.54% |
| Jayden Daniels | QB | LSU | 116 | 40.85% |
| Caleb Williams | QB | USC | 18 | 6.34% |
| Joe Alt | OT | Notre Dame | 5 | 1.76% |
| Marvin Harrison Jr. | WR | Ohio State | 3 | 1.06% |
| Olumuyiwa Fashanu | OT | Penn State | 3 | 1.06% |
| Quinyon Mitchell | CB | Toledo | 1 | 0.35% |
| J.J. McCarthy | QB | Michigan | 1 | 0.35% |
| Laiatu Latu | Edge | UCLA | 1 | 0.35% |
| Dallas Turner | Edge | Alabama | 1 | 0.35% |
| Grand Total | 284 | 100.00% |
Drake Maye and Jayden Daniels are less than 8% apart this week, with Daniels’ meteoric rise continuing.
Thoughts
There is a lot of talk now of various trade scenarios including trades involving multiple teams. Washington desperately needs a quarterback and is in the best position at number two to select whoever the “brain trust” thinks is the best person in the draft is for this team. The fans can argue over Williams versus Maye versus Daniels versus McCarthy all day long, but it doesn’t really matter short-term. There is a 50% chance that the pick is not going to pan out. In the NFL, if that happens, you hitch up your big boy pants and draft another guy. We see teams moving on from quarterbacks fairly quickly when a team believes that person is “not it”. It is the hardest position on a team to get right. Nobody has been able to come up with a foolproof way of figuring out which college quarterbacks are going to be successful in the NFL. The first person who can invent that process will make a fortune consulting with the 32 franchises.
Peters is doing the right thing by improving the roster and the locker room culture, and trying to put a better product on the field. I think the defense will be improved over last year. Hopefully, whoever is quarterbacking the team will not have to be playing from behind 14-0 or 21-0 by the end of the first quarter. Maybe Peters does have some secret, evil genius plan to trade back, get a number of picks and still get a quarterback that the coaches think can lead this team to wins or maybe he just picks a quarterback at number two.
What I do know is that this is going to be one of the more interesting and pivotal drafts in the last decade and what Peters does will set the tone for the 2024 season.
Sources: nflmockdraftdatabase.com, nfldraftbuzz.com, overthecap.com, sports-reference.com