2022 Road to the Draft – Part 2
January 25, 2021
By Noonefromtampa
Resources
I’ll start out by looking at some of the available resources for those of you who like to follow what is going on in the world of mock drafts.
The folks at nflmockdraftdatabase.com do great job of aggregating all the various mock drafts published on the Internet with links back to the original sites. The site also has a link to various sites that have draft boards (i.e., player rankings) and a mock draft simulator.
Ben Robinson at grindingthemocks.com is a self-avowed stats nerd. His site crunches numbers and shows things like expected draft position of players and draft stock charts in which you can compare players you select to see where he projects them to be drafted. For an interesting example, try comparing quarterbacks Sam Howell, Kenny Pickett and Matt Corral to see how high Pickett has risen over the past year.
The people at thehuddlereport.com have a lot of great resources for the draft, but they get the most notoriety from crowning the Annual Mock Draft Champion for those mock drafters who submit their mocks. Currently leaders with the highest average over the last five years are:
- Brendan Donahue – Sharp Football Analysis
- Brian Phlipot – The Football Hub
- Matthew Jones – Draft Examiner
- Evan Silva – Establish The Run (2018 Champion)
- Ryan McCrystal – Draft Ace
Jason Boris of the Times News, who led the list for several years, is now in 6th place, while Ben Standig, The Athletic’s Washington Football Team beat reporter, Ben Standig, is in 14th place and is a two-time champion.
Freshness Rating
A new component in this column for this year is the age of the mocks. There is nothing like a fresh mock that takes into account the latest roster changes, whether they are salary cap casualties or free agency signings, and nothing is worse than a mock that has your team drafting a player for a position for which they made a big free agency signing. In this chart, “New” means the mock came out in the past week.
| Age | Pct |
| 1 Week Old | 56.86% |
| New | 43.14% |
Position Distribution
The number of mocks was up six this week to 51 overall. With such a small sample size, you’re going to see significant change percentage week to week, but this will stabilize once population size grows. Quarterback is still the leading position pick again this week, while wide receiver moved into second place slot. Some mock drafts have offensive lineman Charles Cross at offensive tackle and interior offensive lineman. I standardized him to offensive tackle, so that accounts for the big swings with the interior offensive line and offensive tackle positions.
| Position | Picked Count | Picked % | Last Week % | % Change |
| QB | 32 | 62.75% | 66.67% | -3.92% |
| WR | 5 | 9.80% | 8.89% | 0.91% |
| OT | 4 | 7.84% | 2.22% | 5.62% |
| CB | 4 | 7.84% | 4.44% | 3.40% |
| S | 3 | 5.88% | 6.67% | -0.79% |
| IOL | 2 | 3.92% | 8.89% | -4.97% |
| LB | 1 | 1.96% | 2.22% | -0.26% |
| Edge | 0 | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| RB | 0 | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| TE | 0 | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| DT | 0 | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| Grand Total | 51 | 100% | 45 | +6 |
The players mock picked to WFT at the 11th pick are in descending frequency:
| Player | Position | School | Picked Count | Picked % |
| Matt Corral | QB | Mississippi | 11 | 21.57% |
| Kenny Pickett | QB | Pittsburgh | 8 | 15.69% |
| Malik Willis | QB | Liberty | 6 | 11.76% |
| Sam Howell | QB | North Carolina | 5 | 9.80% |
| Kyle Hamilton | S | Notre Dame | 3 | 5.88% |
| Charles Cross | OT | Mississippi State | 3 | 5.88% |
| Tyler Linderbaum | IOL | Iowa | 2 | 3.92% |
| Ahmad Gardner | CB | Cincinnati | 2 | 3.92% |
| Andrew Booth Jr. | CB | Clemson | 2 | 3.92% |
| Desmond Ridder | QB | Cincinnati | 2 | 3.92% |
| Garrett Wilson | WR | Ohio State | 2 | 3.92% |
| Drake London | WR | USC | 1 | 1.96% |
| Jameson Williams | WR | Alabama | 1 | 1.96% |
| Treylon Burks | WR | Arkansas | 1 | 1.96% |
| Ikem Ekwonu | OT | NC State | 1 | 1.96% |
| Nakobe Dean | LB | Georgia | 1 | 1.96% |
| Grand Total | 51 | 100.00% |
Matt Corral is still the most frequently selected quarterback in the various mocks. However, the rumor mill though is still whispering that head coach Ron Rivera will be making a play for a veteran quarterback for next season. If that comes to pass, expect that to happen prior to free agency on March 16th.
Time until NFL Draft on April 28-30: 13 weeks
Sources: nflmockdraftdatabase.com, grindingthemocks.com, thehuddlereport.com