The 2022 NFL Draft was a week ago, giving us ample time to dish out draft grades, reactions, and see just how badly the mock drafters did in predicting the 1st round. The 2022 Draft had potential for chaos as there were no blue chip QBs, a lot of teams wanting to trade down, and a quarter of the league had no 1st round pick to start the draft.
So it’s time to revisit the mocks and see who fared best and who did the worst. My mock draft scoring system is simple: for every spot you are wrong by, you get a point. So if you had Aidan Hutchinson going 1st overall, you only got penalized 1 point, if you had Malik Willis going 20th, you got 66 points. If you were bold enough to predict a trade, you got double the points if you were wrong. For example one mock drafter had the Steelers trade up to 17 to take Willis, which earned them 138 points. No one is making you make up trades, so you have to have some risk to that reward. If you were right… well, we don’t have to worry about that.
I scored 25 mocks: 24 mock drafts consisting of the usual suspects and a few new ones that scored well in other scoring systems, and Arif Hassan’s Mock Draft Big Board.
Best Mock Draft: Albert Breer
It makes sense that a transactions centric reporter would have a good mock, and Breer’s mocks are usually respectable. But this one was way better than his usual. Breer had eight picks correct, which tied three others with the most. What set him apart was that 15 of his picks were within 5 spots. That helped him overcome having Malik Willis to the Steelers at 20th overall, which a lot of people had.
Best picks: Breer was one of only two people to have Quay Walker 22nd and Lewis Cine 32nd.
Worst Pick: Malik Willis to the Steelers at 20. Nearly everyone had this one wrong though.
Worst pick That Wasn’t Malik Willis At 20: Breer missed by 16 spots on a pair of pass rushers, he had Jermaine Johnson II going 10th and David Ojabo going 29th. A lot of mock drafters missed on Johnson, but most knew better than to have Ojabo in the 1st.
Worst Mock Drafter By Points: Luke Easterling
Easterling scored 424 points to take the title, which isn’t the worst last place showing this system has had, but is still really bad. But he actually had a really good mock draft! Easterling got 4 correct, was 1 spot off on 6 picks, and 2 or 3 spots off on 8 others. On 18 of 32 picks he was within 3 spots. That’s a recipe for an extremely strong mock draft. On 30 of his 32 picks, he had a score of 150.
So what went wrong? He completely missed on Malik Willis and Matt Corral.
Easterling had the Steelers trading to 13 to take Malik Willis, and the Seahawks trading to 30 to draft Matt Corral. Because this system penalizes projected trades by doubling their score, he got 274 points from those two picks. 13 mock drafts had better total scores than those two picks combined.
Willis and Corral tanked his mock, but the rest of the mock was strong. So this year I’m awarding two losers.
Worst Mock Drafter By Referee’s Decision: Chris Simms
You know how sometimes you can look at something and immediately know that something is wrong, even if you can’t quite put your finger on it? For example a little while ago I was right behind an “I am overcompensating for something” sized truck, from Texas, that was turning left onto an on ramp. I too was turning onto the ramp, so I had a front row seat to what happened. The truck started to turn left and then stopped because there was oncoming traffic, this happened in the span of a second. Words don’t really do it justice, but the way the truck moved and the driver behaved made me think “something is wrong here.” (This is why self-driving cars will never be perfect.) Something was very wrong indeed. Once oncoming traffic cleared he was able to turn onto the on ramp. He got up to at least 30 mph, probably 40 mph. Not until the last second did he realize that the onramp was metered. He slammed on the brakes and attempted to veer out of the way of the car sitting at the meter minding its own business waiting for the light to change. The truck skidded against the concrete wall with the left side of his truck and, because it was too big to pass, rear ended the car with the right side, propelling the car a few car lengths forward. What an idiot.
As soon as I saw Chris Simms’ mock draft I knew something was wrong and he was headed up the on ramp to Wrongsville at rapid speed. Let us count the ways that he was off before taking into account anything that happened in the draft.
-While a few mock drafters had UConn DT Travis Jones in the 1st, Simms was the only one to have him in the top 20, going 17th overall.
-He was the only one to have Derek Stingley in the 2nd half of the 1st round, he had him going 23rd overall.
-He was the only one to have Davonte Wyatt in the top 10, at 9th overall.
-While he was not the only mock drafter to have Jordan Davis top 10 (he had him going 8th), or Devin Lloyd or George Karlaftis top 15 (back to back at 13th and 14th, respectively), or Bernhard Raimann top 20 (16th), or Kayvon Thibodeaux not in the top 10 (12th), or Chris Olave not in the top 20 (22nd), he was the only person to do any two of those combined let alone have all six there.
This draft was destined to fail. And fail it did.
Worst pick: Like many, Simms had the Steelers taking Malik Willis at 20.
Worst pick That Wasn’t Malik Willis At 20: Bernhard Raimann to the Saints at 16. He went 77th.
Correct picks: One (1). He got one correct, a miracle. Sauce Gardner 4th to the Jets.
Simms didn’t have the worst result, but he had the worst process. #Don’tTrustTheProcess
2022 Mock Draft Scoring
| Mock | Points | # Correct | Worst Non-Willis Pick | Mocked | Actual | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mock | Points | # Correct | Worst Non-Willis Pick | Mocked | Actual | Points |
| Albert Breer | 193 | 8 | David Ojabo | 29 | 45 | 16 |
| Danny Kelly | 200 | 3 | George Karlaftis | 15 | 30 | 15 |
| Dane Brugler | 207 | 5 | Drake Jackson | 28 | 61 | 33 |
| Mel Kiper | 208 | 6 | Skyy Moore | 29 | 54 | 25 |
| Daniel Jeremiah | 214 | 5 | George Pickens | 30 | 52 | 22 |
| Charlie Campbell | 216 | 8 | George Pickens | 30 | 52 | 22 |
| Peter Schrager | 226 | 4 | Trey McBride | 31 | 55 | 24 |
| Brian Johannes | 227 | 8 | Jameson Williams | 29 | 12 | 17 |
| Josh Norris | 231 | 3 | Jermaine Johnson II | 8 | 26 | 18 |
| Todd McShay | 238 | 5 | George Pickens | 30 | 52 | 22 |
| Pete Prisco | 258 | 1 | Andrew Booth | 25 | 42 | 17 |
| Charles Davis | 262 | 3 | Skyy Moore | 30 | 54 | 24 |
| Evan Silva | 267 | 4 | Desmond Ridder | 32 | 74 | 42 |
| Eric Edholm | 286 | 8 | Desmond Ridder | 26 | 74 | 48 |
| Matt Miller | 294 | 5 | Travis Jones | 31 | 76 | 45 |
| Hasan Big Board | 309 | 2 | Nakobe Dean | 24 | 83 | 59 |
| Rob Rang | 316 | 2 | Devin Lloyd (via trade) | 12 | 27 | 30 |
| Peter King | 331 | 6 | Bernhard Raimann | 21 | 77 | 56 |
| Lance Zierlein | 340 | 5 | Bernhard Raimann | 26 | 77 | 51 |
| Will Brinson | 377 | 3 | Nakobe Dean | 28 | 83 | 55 |
| Mike Renner | 381 | 4 | George Pickens | 29 | 52 | 23 |
| Doug Farrar | 384 | 3 | Bernhard Raimann | 16 | 77 | 61 |
| Mike Florio | 384 | 4 | Matt Corral | 32 | 94 | 62 |
| Chris Simms | 417 | 1 | Bernhard Raimann | 16 | 77 | 61 |
| Luke Easterling | 424 | 4 | Matt Corral (via trade) | 30 | 94 | 128 |
Odds and Ends
Most Missed Pick: You guessed it, it’s Malik Willis. Everyone except Peter King had Willis in the 1st round.
Most Missed Top 10 Mock Pick: 17 mocks had Jermaine Johnson II going in the top 10, he went 26th.
Most Missed Actual Top 10 Pick: Only 7 mocks had Garrett Wilson going in the top 10, he went 10th.
Worst QB Prediction That Wasn’t A Trade: Mike Renner had the Lions taking Sam Howell with the last pick in the 1st round, he went with the first pick in the 5th round.
Worst QB Trade Prediction That Wasn’t Malik Willis or By Luke Easterling: Peter King predicted the Falcons would trade up with the Lions from the 2nd round to 32nd and take Matt Corral. The Falcons had two 2nd and two 3rds and did not take him, but they did take Desmond Ridder at 74.
Worst Non-QB Trade Prediction: Todd McShay predicted that the Cowboys would trade up with the Texans from 24 to 13 to draft Trevor Penning, and at 24 the Texans would take Tyler Smith. In reality the Cowboys did not trade up and took Tyler Smith at 24.
Did Anyone Predict a Trade Correctly: No. Stop doing this, I am begging you. Or do more of it, go wild.
Worst Non-QB Prediction That Chris Simms Didn’t Also Make: Mike Florio had DeMarvin Leal going 23rd to the Cardinals, he went 84th to the Steelers.
Late 1st Perfection: It’s really hard to get a late 1st pick correct. So kudos to the following mock drafters for getting these picks correct in the last 10 spots in the 1st:
23rd: Kaiir Elam: Doug Farrar
24th: Tyler Smith: Mel Kiper, Todd McShay (half credit, he said it would be via trade)
27th: Davin Floyd: Mike Florio
31st: Dax Hill: Doug Farrar
32nd: Lewis Cine: Albert Breer, Brian Johannes, Mel Kiper
Worst 1st Overall Pick: Doug Farrar said the Jaguars should have taken Kyle Hamilton 1st overall. And maybe he’s not wrong! You’d take Ed Reed 1st overall in this draft if you knew you were getting him. But mock drafts are supposed to be what you think will happen, not what you think should happen. What you think should happen is what we call your draft board.
Did Anyone Have Cole Strange In the 1st?: Of course not.
2022 NFL Mock Draft Grades: Scoring the Experts - Bleeding Green Nation
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