2010 NFL Draft: Lessons Learned From a Seven-Round Mock Draft

Every year the staff of NFL Draft 101 gathers in early April to conduct our annual 7 round mock draft.  

The best way to describe the seven round mock is as a learning experience.  

One can only imagine how many such mocks teams conduct leading up to draft day. 

Here is a sampling of the lessons learned from our staff’s exercise.

Lesson No. 1: Tim Tebow is the hardest pick to peg

As much as draftniks despise the attention Tim Tebow is getting leading up to the draft, he is its biggest story.  

You can even argue he is the draft’s biggest story in recent memory. He is our generation’s most decorated college football player, but does not fit the mold of a traditional NFL quarterback.

After showcasing his flaws at the Senior Bowl, Tebow officially became the draft’s hardest player to peg.   

Some believe his athleticism and intangibles will still result in a first round selection.  There are others who don’t think he is worth a day two selection as quarterback. 

What makes it even more interesting is how the skeptics tread cautiously in their criticism as if they might be struck by lightning and hardly utter a word about him needing to consider playing another position. 

Even as a wildcat he lacks the speed to scare defenses and as an H-back he won’t be selected ahead of teammate Aaron Hernandez. 

Intangibles can only get you so far and his unique skillset will limit the number of team’s who will consider taking him. 

With Washington and Seattle making pre-draft moves to shore up the quarterback position, his options were limited.  In our mock the first team to consider taking Tebow was Cleveland in round two but they took someone else.   

Buffalo passed due to selecting Jimmy Clausen in round one. 

His name did not come up again until New England thanks to their multitude of 2^nd round picks but they have too many needs to make a luxury pick this year.  

Minnesota and Indianapolis gave him casual consideration but he still fell to round three.  Our staff even passed on having Jacksonville taking him in round three because they could not think of a worse place for Tebow to go due to him needing one or two years to develop. 

In the end, Indianapolis bailed us out late in round three.  

In the end, our staff believes Tebow will be drafted much earlier than the end of round three but no one felt confident as to which team was going to be willing to pull the trigger.

(By the way the worst part about writing about Tim Tebow is he seems to hijack your article. My apologies for rambling on call it the Tebow-effect)

Lesson No. 2:  Picking for Al Davis and the Raiders will make you crazy

Most teams consider their needs, scheme fit, depth or best player available, Al Davis and the Raiders look for speed, athleticism and toys.   

No team is as predictably unpredictable like the Raiders and hence the high risk high reward mock.  It is very difficult to think "best athlete" at a position of need.

Lesson No. 3: Expect a run on offensive tackles in round one

Eleven offensive tackles have been selected in the first round the past two years, an average of 5.5 per year and our staff counts eleven teams as having offensive tackle as a potential first round need and a draft with just five tackles with first round grades and a major drop-off after the top seven.

There are also a number of team’s in the back half of the first round (Pittsburgh, Green Bay, Arizona, Dallas and Indianapolis) needing offensive tackles. 

With this being the case if the teams at the top (Detroit, Washington, Kansas City, Seattle, Oakland and Buffalo) want a tackle who can play right away they will likely have to take them in round one.

Offensive tackle is the position teams will be looking to trade up for on draft day.

Lesson No. 4: It’s a defensive draft—get your offense early

Building on lesson No. 3, the talent in this year’s draft is clearly on the defensive side of the ball. 

Aside from offensive tackle, no offensive position has more than two first round candidates and aside from wide receiver the depth is not strong this year. 

The end result, if you have a major need on the offensive side of the ball your team should look to fill it early. 

There will be quality defensive talent in the later rounds.

Lesson No. 5: Cornerback is the deepest position

Defensive end and defensive tackle will get the publicity leading up to the draft with excellent classes at both positions but surprisingly the deepest position is probably cornerback. 

After Joe Haden, it is possible another cornerback might not be selected until round two but the overall depth is impressive. 

Unlike defensive tackle and defensive end, the dropoff from the number two to number 14 corner is not nearly as severe.  

The pre-draft rankings from the various websites and draft services will vary more at cornerback due to the tightness in the grading of the players.

In our most recent seven round mock draft, quality corners such as Amari Spievey, Javier Arenas and small school favorite Akwasi Owusu-Ansah were day three selections and this was after 12 corners were selected in rounds one through three. This quantity and quality demonstrates how deep a class it is.

Lesson No. 6: Grading players without conducting a seven round mock is crazy

The most common phrase heard by analysts is “he is a likely second round pick”.  

You hear it so often that you start to wonder if every team gets two second round selections.  

The best thing to come out of doing a seven round mock is how it tested our draft rankings. 

This is not to say we followed our draft board exactly (it's not possible when you account for scheme fit and teams evaluating players differently than you do) but it caused us to re-evaluate where we had numerous players graded. 

If a player is a second round grade, he should at least enter the discussion in round four.

Lesson No. 7: An educational experience

The number one thing we talk about in our draft room, is learning to read the draft.  Anyone who studies mock drafts knows the folly that they really are. 

It is impossible to determine how a draft will fall when each pick creates a ripple effect through the subsequent picks. 

The benefit of mocks is not their predictive prowess but rather their ability to help read the draft.  

Each pick a team makes is not about just the current pick but about who how it will affect your subsequent picks. 

It is easy to say you take the best player available but when choosing between two players or positions, you need to ask what type of player will be available at that position in a future round too. 

This also comes into play in determining when to trade up , trade back or stand pat. The team’s that consistently draft well are the teams that do the best job of reading the draft. 

There you have it some quick thoughts from our staff’s experience of mocking the entire 2010 NFL Draft.  

While no mock is ever perfect, the learning experience is well worth the humiliation when you discover your seventh round selection goes in round two. 

The seven round mock is by far the hardest and most enjoyable part of the draft season—aside from the draft itself.

Chris Maier is Senior Editor for NFLDraft101.com.  He can be reached at [e-mail].  Follow me on twitter: nfldraft101