Eagles

Mock Drafts By The Numbers

By Kyle Scott

Published: Apr 25th, 2017 · 9:59 AM EDT

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I hate the draft.

OK, not the draft itself– just the buildup to it. It’s the most overhyped sporting thing of the year, without question. There are 53 players on an NFL roster, 22 on the field at any given moment, and 11 from each team. On average, the draft allows teams to pick maybe 4-5 players who will actually play for them in any useful role, and maybe 1 or 2 who will be anything other than average. Sure, it can turn around a team’s fortune on a dime – hello, Dak and Zeke – but that’s the exception to the rule. Unlike the NBA Draft, where teams determine maybe 20% of their starting lineup with one pick, at best an NFL team will pick maybe three of its 22 offensive and defensive starters for the following season. So the endless bantering, bloviating, shouting, arguing and contrived bullshit surrounding the draft comprises the worst of sports fandom. I hate mock drafts. I fucking hate them. And I roll my eyes so hard when they start popping up in January. JANUARY! Go outside, nerds!

But.

But there comes a time to take all that collective “wisdom” and aggregate it into one useful chart to see if we can a determine a consensus opinion on what a given team will do. So, I combined the results of 77(!) mocks, mostly using NJ.com’s roundup, which included mocks going back three months and many duplicates from their own writers, and then added in some recent ones from MMQB, Rotoworld, CBS and CSN. This is by no means scientific, but here’s what the breakdown on Eagles first round projections looks like:

All along, cornerback has been the dominant prediction, with more recent mocks having the Eagles take Gareon Conley, Marshon Lattimore or Marion Humphrey, and earlier mocks having them take Teez Tabor or Sidney Jones.

Christian McCaffrey is the popular running back target. And while Joe Mixon has been fun to discuss, no one has the Eagles taking him in the first round (the second round, however…).

There was a lot of early wide receiver conjecture before the Eagles signed Alshon Jeffery and Torrey Smith, but that has (thankfully) mostly subsided. Short of a true game-changer, I hate the concept of using first round picks on offensive skill players, especially when you’re as far off as the Eagles are. History has shown that building around wide receivers is foolish, and good running backs fall out of trees. You can always get one later.

What about defensive end? I tweeted this over a month ago:

Maybe that was a bit foolishly worded given that so much can change, but I’ll stick by it. In fact, lately, the chatter surrounding the Eagles picking a defensive end has increased. Notice that the position was talked about little or not at all during Howie Roseman and Joe Douglas’ ridiculous misdirection conference last week? They gladly fielded questions on basically every other position and conveniently avoided defensive line inquiries. And it would be oh so Eagles to bat around the name du jour while “disappointing” fans by taking a defensive lineman most people think they could get later in the first round or second round.

I’m hardly a draft prospect expert, but conjecture mentions both Derek Barnett and Charles Harris. Only Bleeding Green Nation and Rotoworld have the Eagles taking Harris, who fell in “other” in the overall breakdown, along with Barnett:

But if there’s a move that makes sense in a draft thin on offensive line talent for a team that has its franchise quarterback and some decent wide receiver targets, it’s building from the inside out on defense.

So, need one more prediction? Here’s mine: The Eagles trade back into the 20s and draft Charles Harris.