Are mock drafts worth it?

[The Red King]

Sorry, honest question.  Not looking to ruffle feathers.  I know draft speculation can be fun, and I'm all for it.  Thinking who a team might want in what round and all.  But mock drafts are all balanced on the head of a pin.  One team makes one unexpected move and the whole thing falls apart.  How accurate do they end up being, especially this early on?  It seems like an incredible amount of effort trying to get into the head of 32 GMs and understanding each team's needs, only to have the whole thing blow up on a single pick that doesn't go as predicted.

 

As I noted, I'm more interested in speculation such as, "Will the Bills go for a CB in round one or two?" and "What round should we nab a WR, and who's out there?".  That kind of stuff.  I mean, how accurate has any mock draft been in the past?  Have there been any that have actually been close to the actual draft they predicted?  I mean, there are a million of them, so I'm guessing I'm missing something.  To me it just seems too fragile to be worth the time and effort.  It would be like "Predict the first 10 offensive snaps for the Bills opening day."  It just takes one play not going as planned to completely invalidate the list from that point on.

 

So, why do people do them?  Again, not being nasty about it.  I'm honestly curious.

[BillsMafi$]

Nope. Fun to look at but after the top 5 most “experts” don’t have much right after the draft 

[Solomon Grundy]

2 minutes ago, The Red King said:

So, why do people do them?  Again, not being nasty about it.  I'm honestly curious.

So we can start numerous threads on TBD with multiple pages?🤷‍♂️

[Don Otreply]

In a word, No, 

[Chandler#81]

No. An absolute ridiculous waste of time as no one -repeat NO ONE is ever even closely accurate. Least of all amateurs. 
I never read a single mock draft EXCEPT the final mock by ‘Rastro’.

[Buffalo_Stampede]

Mock drafts are click bait. That’s why people do like 5 now before the draft. Easy content.

 

Fans love it.

[Greg S]

No. The board never falls the way the "experts" think it will.

[Logic]

It depends on what you mean by "worth it".

Brandon Beane, for one, seems to think they have some worth.

He's spoken numerous times about how he assigns his staff each a team (or several) to pretend to be, has them thoroughly study each team's needs, contracts, etc, and then they go through multiple mock draft simulations. After 20 or 30 of them or whatever, they start to see patterns emerging. Perhaps a certain corner is always gone by pick 20, or a certain WR never makes it out of round 1, whatever. 

So as an exercise to game out different possibilities and to gather an aggregate of predictions and projections to help prognosticate how early or late guys may go...sure, it seems to have some value. Our own GM thinks so, anyway.
 
It also has value as pure FUN! One of my favorite parts of following the NFL is the roster building part of it. Maybe it's from growing up playing Tecmo Bowl and Madden, but I love doing mock offseasons, free agency signings, drafts, etc. It's just a really fun exercise that I do, well...just for fun. I don't fool myself into thinking I'll be "correct" -- even the best mock drafters rarely have a high hit rate. It's just a fun way to pass the time, exercise my brain, and get to know the draft prospects.

[junior]

Hasn't Beane said in years past that he gives his scouts teams to "draft" for, and they do countless mock drafts leading up to the real thing? I definitely feel like that was mentioned in some of the post-draft videos the team does. 

[NewEra]

Worth it? Depends on the individual.  
 

I haven’t done one. I’ll start messing around with it after I watch more tape of the prospects.  

[Special K]

12 minutes ago, The Red King said:

Sorry, honest question.  Not looking to ruffle feathers.  I know draft speculation can be fun, and I'm all for it.  Thinking who a team might want in what round and all.  But mock drafts are all balanced on the head of a pin.  One team makes one unexpected move and the whole thing falls apart.  How accurate do they end up being, especially this early on?  It seems like an incredible amount of effort trying to get into the head of 32 GMs and understanding each team's needs, only to have the whole thing blow up on a single pick that doesn't go as predicted.

 

As I noted, I'm more interested in speculation such as, "Will the Bills go for a CB in round one or two?" and "What round should we nab a WR, and who's out there?".  That kind of stuff.  I mean, how accurate has any mock draft been in the past?  Have there been any that have actually been close to the actual draft they predicted?  I mean, there are a million of them, so I'm guessing I'm missing something.  To me it just seems too fragile to be worth the time and effort.  It would be like "Predict the first 10 offensive snaps for the Bills opening day."  It just takes one play not going as planned to completely invalidate the list from that point on.

 

So, why do people do them?  Again, not being nasty about it.  I'm honestly curious.

 

Mock drafts are more opinions than predictions. The opinions of the mock maker rarely  match the opinions of the teams because the teams are working with much more information about the draft prospects and about their own particular team.

 

To me, they are just something fun to do to pass the time between FA and the draft.

[Rc2catch]

It’s easily one of my most hated things. The debate especially by amateurs of who is going to be good and who is not. Every year people parrot what they hear like “Trevor Lawrence is a generational talent” and argue why he will be so good. Very few come back and say yeah that’s not the rookie year I expected from him. Granted it’s just a year in a mess of a franchise he can totally be great still. Nobody knows the behind the scenes stuff. We can blast Beane or whoever for not drafting a kid but none of us have the correct info. They know practice habits, life issues, baby momma drama etc etc.  I do like gunnerbills stuff on here and he’s one of the few who I have seen go back and point out his mistakes. I generally will keep an eye out on certain players I normally wouldn’t based on what I read on here, but I never seek out or follow any mock stuff. So it has its uses even for the haters like me. 

[CNY315]

Something fun to do on my break

[Simon Says]

OMG. For entertainment purposes only..worth as much as any football fan site 

[JimmyNoodles]

They're not great for trying to figure exactly who will pick who once you get past the early picks.  However, I think they have value for seeing where players fall in relation to one another.  On a similar note, Every year I print out a copy of the big board rankings with 300 (or whatever it is) players and, broadly speaking, the players tend to get selected in that pattern by rounds.  I might track the first three rounds or so before I give up and concentrate on 🍺   

[Buftex]

Not enough time in the day

 

[LyndonvilleBill]

Do you play the lottery? About the same chance of getting it right. But still fun do dream. So if I get 1 right, I feel like I won.😁. For some of us (me), I like them because I don't really watch college ball. It gives me a reason to research players, see who else people mention for additional research. All in all for some of us older fans, I think they are good and keeps us busy. Kind of like a hobby this time of year.😉

[wppete]

No but they are a lot of fun to do. 

[MJS]

Worth what, exactly? They are worth about as much as someone is willing to put stock in them, I guess, but they should only be used as a fun distraction, not for anything else.

 

The people mock drafting have no knowledge of how teams are ranking or evaluating players. They have no knowledge of how trades might change things. It really is just throwing darts at a dart board.

[Don Otreply]

Then you get teams like the Raiders…, look at their drafts, mocks don’t necessarily work for the pros, 😁👍

 

 

I’m thinking it’s the hair cut…