A Basic Scientific take on the Mock Draft PT.
What I hope to achieve here is find the optimal 1st round draft selection, based on nothing but the predictions of you fine people. I wont have to delve into team needs (even though I of course did, a little bit ago) or contract situations or inside information, because I’m just going to assume the majority of you have done a little homework before submitting your predictions. I know there is a certain degree of just straight up copying but that’s fine.
So, while it is known that to guess the correct order totally is very difficult on your own, but lovely maths and/or science, says as a group it’s not too hard. There exists a principle known as ‘the Wisdom of Crowds’. Where basically the collective prediction of a large group of people can yield incredibly impressive results. A study many decades ago had 787 people at a carnival guess the weight of an ox right in front of their eyes. Now you can expect your margin of error to be way off. I wouldn’t have much of an idea without googling how much a typical ox weighs, especially to an exact degree from just observation. And while not a single person managed to guess the correct weight, the collective prediction of the group averaged out, was accurate to 1%. Pretty astonishing. So, I’m going to try to do that here. There are factors such as a small sample size (107), people copying like I previously mentioned that are likely to skew the accuracy of the final result, but it’s still fun to do anyway. Also note that this is being done before the expansion draft results, which could result in some mock predictions being adjusted. Let’s begin.
To start I had to copy every prediction into a spreadsheet. Tiresome stuff. Once I had, it became fairly apparent there were a few picks that almost everyone agreed on. Mainly 1, 2, 8 and 12. The middle picks are where things spiral somewhat.
Pick 1 CB, Colt Mendoza
Pick 1 was the first pick that is almost entirely agreed upon to land CB Colt Mendoza after attaining 104/107 votes. A few have chosen DT Phat Boi who is has the highest total TPE in the draft, but like many have said time and time again, TPE isn’t everything, and Colt Mendoza brings a love of sim testing and analysis like no other, along with a solid TPE total. Austin traded up to grab a special someone and it’s become very apparent around the league that that someone is Colt Mendoza. Pretty easy selection for the prediction here, and if you try to be smart and go elsewhere with your guess, you might just come out looking pretty silly. Or a genius but I doubt it.
Pick 2 DT, Magnus Rikiya
NOLA also traded up to get their someone, and like pick 1, it seems no secret who NOLA desires right here. User Tesla’s player Magnus Rikiya not only boasts strong TPE numbers and a monstrous bank account, but is also a DT, which is a shallow class and position of need for a lot of teams. Furthermore, Tesla is loved whole-heartedly by the entire community and I don’t think anyone would have a problem with me speaking for them right there, so with all of that, there is nothing this player doesn’t have and as grasped by the results here, absolutely deserves to be selected at 2oa. Magnus Rikiya is another almost unanimous selection here with 101/107 votes. Lock it in.
Pick 3 CB, Tyler Oles Jr
Pick 3 is where people start to stray a little form the overall consensus. However, half the votes still landed on CB Tyler Oles Jr. For the longest time Oles Jr was another consensus pick to land the 3oa spot, but some have come to question it recently. Even the very player himself. There was drama around the Chicago situation that I’m sure everyone is aware of by now, and Oles himself says he wouldn’t be all that surprised if he fell out of the first round. However, Oles has been around since forever and holds the record for peak TPE gained by a player and that screams dedication. Philly need that help in the defensive backfield and majority agree Oles is the guy. Roughly a quarter have chosen fellow CB Brandon Booker as he currently holds the most TPE at the position, but I believe that is due to Oles missing an update week and will be back on top by the end of offseason. While I imagine everyone isn’t feeling too strongly about this pick anymore, I gotta go with the numbers and they say Tyler Oles Jr is going 3oa.
Pick 4 S, Johnny Hellzapoppin
Pick 4 is the pick where most people are uncertain of who they’ll go for. Over half the selections belong to the two top Safety candidates. Johnny Hellzapoppin was a first round selection in the DSFL Draft after becoming the leagues new DSFL streamer and on top of that has kept up very nicely in the update department. The other is Matt ‘Son of Havoc’ Cross. He currently holds the most TPE in the Safety category, so I imagine that’s a reason why many have chosen him here. Hellzapoppin has the most votes here though with 39 and with a responsible league job he bring s a lot of security to a teams early first round selection.
Pick 5 DT, Phat Boi
Almost half the votes have TPE giant, Phat Boi claiming the 5th overall spot once again. Phat not only brings a wonderful amount of TPE with him but a fiery personality that locker rooms adore. He’s had a taste at being the best and he’ll want to get it again. Another strong candidate for the 5th overall is LB Derred de Ville. Why de Ville here if he’s not even the highest TPE LB in this draft. Well he may not be the highest but still has an astonishing 229 TPE and beyond that, has helped the league in ways such as coding to improve the index, and also has a strong locker room presence that even saw him recreating his entire DSFL team in a modded version of Madden, kitted out with the stadium and everything. Gotta love that. But the mega TPE of Phat Boi in a slim DT class, has him taking the cake here. Not to mention he’d be joining the team of his soon to be former GM.
Pick 6 LB, Stanislaw Koniecpolski
For the second Philly pick, there are a quite a few contenders. Nearly half the votes are for top earning LB Stanislaw Koniecpolski. This was a little surprising only because in the previous pick many users predicted LB Derred de Ville, yet one pick later he receives only 3 votes compared to 52 for fellow LB Stanislaw. Hmm anyway, Stanislaw takes a triumphant lead in the votes with a few other DBs like CB Tyler Oles Jr, CB Brandon Booker and S Johnny Hellzapoppin getting quite a few votes also. Two of which have already been taken theoretically at this point, so Stanislaw takes it here.
Pick 7 DE, Troen Egghands
The top DE comes off the board right here. I believe the DE potential in the upcoming expansion draft is not too impressive for strong talent and like DT, it’s a slim class with few elites in the S22 Draft. Honolulu take their guy right here. 31 users have DT Phat Boi slipping down to the 7th overall right here, but in this instance, he was already selected and so Troen Egghands is the clear selection after receiving half the votes.
Pick 8 CB, Thubba Bumper
This is a pick I do believe to be a huge copy pasta selection for many users. It seems a little odd to take not a giant position of need for the yeti as they still have Louisiana Purchase and a talented Rotticus Scott coming up to be a CB of the future, instead of WR here which looks to be a dire position of need for Colorado with the strong potential to lose WR star Forty-Two to expansion and WR James Bishop to regression, leaving only young WR Red Arrow at the position. But nonetheless, users have CB Thubba Bumper going here. It is somewhat understandable though, since Thubba is a league vet and his last player was elite for the yeti and so there are personal ties between him and the Colorado organisation. Also, this is a historically large Draft class and so teams early on have the luxury of just taking their guy, no matter the value. And that is displayed here in the results of user selection, as Thubba Bumper receives a landslide vote of 95/107.
Pick 9 LB, Derred de Ville
For the Baltimore selection, there are a lot of candidates in almost every position being voted on here. The clear standouts however are between top LBs Stanislaw Koniecpolski and Derred de Ville. De Ville holds a strong 51/107 in the votes and Stanislaw has 37 which together is 82% of the votes. SO many see Hawks going LB here and so we go with Derred de Ville. He has the most votes for one, and also, we have Stanislaw being taken at pick 6 to the liberty. It also appears that practically everyone has Derred de Ville not falling past this point so if you haven’t selected him in your predictions before now, now is the time to do it.
Pick 10 TE, Jeffrey Phillips
The Orange County pick is an interesting one as it kind of comes down to a coin flip between two TPE leaders in different position groups. 94% of the votes went to either RB White Goodman or TE Jeffrey Phillips. Many see the Otters as a team who doesn’t really use a RB all that much as their QB and MVP candidate Franklin Armstrong is something of a RB himself, so the choice to go RB is unorthodox, however, user Gucci will be a highly sought after member for their locker room and so maybe its time to pick up their RB of the future. Armstrong won’t be around forever. On the other hand, as this season shows that they love using their TE. Johnny Blaze was 2nd in league receptions among all receivers. However, being deep into regression and no one to replace him that is currently on the roster, the ideal candidate here is top TE Jeffrey Phillips. And that’s who we go with. He receives 57/107 votes compared to Goodmans 44, and so OCO take their TE of the future.
Pick 11 S, Matt Cross
12 separate players were voted on for the Wraiths selection. Although the glaring need at Safety is captured here in the voting as 70% of the votes are in that position group. The obvious standout and highest voted on is S Matt Cross, who boasts the highest TPE at the position and from what I’ve heard, was a fantastic locker room presence for the Norfolk Seawolves. Other votes were placed on S Johnny Hellzapoppin and DE Troen Egghands, however both have been selected and so Cross is the easy selection here.
Pick 12 QB, Ben Slothlisberger
The final pick in the first round is another landslide victory, this time for QB Ben Slothlisberger. It’s been rumoured for a while that this QB would be heading to NOLA and since they have two first-round picks, why not just take him right here. There are possibly better value picks here, but like I’ve mentioned before, the gigantic S22 class allows for luxury picks early on and why risk losing your guy just to hope to take him 12 picks later. Slothlisberger receives 97/107 votes and is the clear selection for the final pick.
In summary the optimal draft projection is:
Colt Mendoza
Magnus Rikiya
Tyler Oles Jr
Johnny Hellzapoppin
Phat Boi
Stanislaw Koniecpolski
Troen Egghands
Thubba Bumper
Derred de Ville
Jeffrey Phillips
Matt Cross
Ben Slothlisberger
Obviously, I’d like to point out that this is in no way guaranteed to be accurate and I’m not suggesting you follow this at all. In the end go with your gut. I’m simply displaying what the numbers say is the collective prediction of upcoming draft. Its entirely possible no one has the faintest idea how the draft will pan out in which case this prediction will only reflect that. But I believe we’ve got a smart group of people here.
Some other fun statistical analysis I stumbled upon:
The most agreed upon prediction with 29 users predicting it is:
Colt Mendoza
Magnus Rikiya
Tyler Oles Jr
Johnny Hellzapoppin
Phat Boi
Stanislaw Koniecpolski
Troen Egghands
Thubba Bumper
Derred de Ville
White Goodman
Matt Cross
Ben Slothlisberger
Almost identical to our other list, except they have Otters selecting RB White Goodman. The next closest agreed upon selection had only 9 users. Do with that information what you will.
Also below is the percentage of which a player was selected in a user’s predictions. A standout is CB Brandon Booker, who was selected in nearly half the predictions but not enough in any specific spot to land a spot on our optimal list. He was also selected in 8 out of the 12 picks. The most by anyone. Seems no one quite knows where to place him but look out for him, he could very easily be a 1st rounder.
Thanks for checking out my article.
Words: 2268 (1.5x)
What I hope to achieve here is find the optimal 1st round draft selection, based on nothing but the predictions of you fine people. I wont have to delve into team needs (even though I of course did, a little bit ago) or contract situations or inside information, because I’m just going to assume the majority of you have done a little homework before submitting your predictions. I know there is a certain degree of just straight up copying but that’s fine.
So, while it is known that to guess the correct order totally is very difficult on your own, but lovely maths and/or science, says as a group it’s not too hard. There exists a principle known as ‘the Wisdom of Crowds’. Where basically the collective prediction of a large group of people can yield incredibly impressive results. A study many decades ago had 787 people at a carnival guess the weight of an ox right in front of their eyes. Now you can expect your margin of error to be way off. I wouldn’t have much of an idea without googling how much a typical ox weighs, especially to an exact degree from just observation. And while not a single person managed to guess the correct weight, the collective prediction of the group averaged out, was accurate to 1%. Pretty astonishing. So, I’m going to try to do that here. There are factors such as a small sample size (107), people copying like I previously mentioned that are likely to skew the accuracy of the final result, but it’s still fun to do anyway. Also note that this is being done before the expansion draft results, which could result in some mock predictions being adjusted. Let’s begin.
To start I had to copy every prediction into a spreadsheet. Tiresome stuff. Once I had, it became fairly apparent there were a few picks that almost everyone agreed on. Mainly 1, 2, 8 and 12. The middle picks are where things spiral somewhat.
Pick 1 CB, Colt Mendoza
Pick 1 was the first pick that is almost entirely agreed upon to land CB Colt Mendoza after attaining 104/107 votes. A few have chosen DT Phat Boi who is has the highest total TPE in the draft, but like many have said time and time again, TPE isn’t everything, and Colt Mendoza brings a love of sim testing and analysis like no other, along with a solid TPE total. Austin traded up to grab a special someone and it’s become very apparent around the league that that someone is Colt Mendoza. Pretty easy selection for the prediction here, and if you try to be smart and go elsewhere with your guess, you might just come out looking pretty silly. Or a genius but I doubt it.
Pick 2 DT, Magnus Rikiya
NOLA also traded up to get their someone, and like pick 1, it seems no secret who NOLA desires right here. User Tesla’s player Magnus Rikiya not only boasts strong TPE numbers and a monstrous bank account, but is also a DT, which is a shallow class and position of need for a lot of teams. Furthermore, Tesla is loved whole-heartedly by the entire community and I don’t think anyone would have a problem with me speaking for them right there, so with all of that, there is nothing this player doesn’t have and as grasped by the results here, absolutely deserves to be selected at 2oa. Magnus Rikiya is another almost unanimous selection here with 101/107 votes. Lock it in.
Pick 3 CB, Tyler Oles Jr
Pick 3 is where people start to stray a little form the overall consensus. However, half the votes still landed on CB Tyler Oles Jr. For the longest time Oles Jr was another consensus pick to land the 3oa spot, but some have come to question it recently. Even the very player himself. There was drama around the Chicago situation that I’m sure everyone is aware of by now, and Oles himself says he wouldn’t be all that surprised if he fell out of the first round. However, Oles has been around since forever and holds the record for peak TPE gained by a player and that screams dedication. Philly need that help in the defensive backfield and majority agree Oles is the guy. Roughly a quarter have chosen fellow CB Brandon Booker as he currently holds the most TPE at the position, but I believe that is due to Oles missing an update week and will be back on top by the end of offseason. While I imagine everyone isn’t feeling too strongly about this pick anymore, I gotta go with the numbers and they say Tyler Oles Jr is going 3oa.
Pick 4 S, Johnny Hellzapoppin
Pick 4 is the pick where most people are uncertain of who they’ll go for. Over half the selections belong to the two top Safety candidates. Johnny Hellzapoppin was a first round selection in the DSFL Draft after becoming the leagues new DSFL streamer and on top of that has kept up very nicely in the update department. The other is Matt ‘Son of Havoc’ Cross. He currently holds the most TPE in the Safety category, so I imagine that’s a reason why many have chosen him here. Hellzapoppin has the most votes here though with 39 and with a responsible league job he bring s a lot of security to a teams early first round selection.
Pick 5 DT, Phat Boi
Almost half the votes have TPE giant, Phat Boi claiming the 5th overall spot once again. Phat not only brings a wonderful amount of TPE with him but a fiery personality that locker rooms adore. He’s had a taste at being the best and he’ll want to get it again. Another strong candidate for the 5th overall is LB Derred de Ville. Why de Ville here if he’s not even the highest TPE LB in this draft. Well he may not be the highest but still has an astonishing 229 TPE and beyond that, has helped the league in ways such as coding to improve the index, and also has a strong locker room presence that even saw him recreating his entire DSFL team in a modded version of Madden, kitted out with the stadium and everything. Gotta love that. But the mega TPE of Phat Boi in a slim DT class, has him taking the cake here. Not to mention he’d be joining the team of his soon to be former GM.
Pick 6 LB, Stanislaw Koniecpolski
For the second Philly pick, there are a quite a few contenders. Nearly half the votes are for top earning LB Stanislaw Koniecpolski. This was a little surprising only because in the previous pick many users predicted LB Derred de Ville, yet one pick later he receives only 3 votes compared to 52 for fellow LB Stanislaw. Hmm anyway, Stanislaw takes a triumphant lead in the votes with a few other DBs like CB Tyler Oles Jr, CB Brandon Booker and S Johnny Hellzapoppin getting quite a few votes also. Two of which have already been taken theoretically at this point, so Stanislaw takes it here.
Pick 7 DE, Troen Egghands
The top DE comes off the board right here. I believe the DE potential in the upcoming expansion draft is not too impressive for strong talent and like DT, it’s a slim class with few elites in the S22 Draft. Honolulu take their guy right here. 31 users have DT Phat Boi slipping down to the 7th overall right here, but in this instance, he was already selected and so Troen Egghands is the clear selection after receiving half the votes.
Pick 8 CB, Thubba Bumper
This is a pick I do believe to be a huge copy pasta selection for many users. It seems a little odd to take not a giant position of need for the yeti as they still have Louisiana Purchase and a talented Rotticus Scott coming up to be a CB of the future, instead of WR here which looks to be a dire position of need for Colorado with the strong potential to lose WR star Forty-Two to expansion and WR James Bishop to regression, leaving only young WR Red Arrow at the position. But nonetheless, users have CB Thubba Bumper going here. It is somewhat understandable though, since Thubba is a league vet and his last player was elite for the yeti and so there are personal ties between him and the Colorado organisation. Also, this is a historically large Draft class and so teams early on have the luxury of just taking their guy, no matter the value. And that is displayed here in the results of user selection, as Thubba Bumper receives a landslide vote of 95/107.
Pick 9 LB, Derred de Ville
For the Baltimore selection, there are a lot of candidates in almost every position being voted on here. The clear standouts however are between top LBs Stanislaw Koniecpolski and Derred de Ville. De Ville holds a strong 51/107 in the votes and Stanislaw has 37 which together is 82% of the votes. SO many see Hawks going LB here and so we go with Derred de Ville. He has the most votes for one, and also, we have Stanislaw being taken at pick 6 to the liberty. It also appears that practically everyone has Derred de Ville not falling past this point so if you haven’t selected him in your predictions before now, now is the time to do it.
Pick 10 TE, Jeffrey Phillips
The Orange County pick is an interesting one as it kind of comes down to a coin flip between two TPE leaders in different position groups. 94% of the votes went to either RB White Goodman or TE Jeffrey Phillips. Many see the Otters as a team who doesn’t really use a RB all that much as their QB and MVP candidate Franklin Armstrong is something of a RB himself, so the choice to go RB is unorthodox, however, user Gucci will be a highly sought after member for their locker room and so maybe its time to pick up their RB of the future. Armstrong won’t be around forever. On the other hand, as this season shows that they love using their TE. Johnny Blaze was 2nd in league receptions among all receivers. However, being deep into regression and no one to replace him that is currently on the roster, the ideal candidate here is top TE Jeffrey Phillips. And that’s who we go with. He receives 57/107 votes compared to Goodmans 44, and so OCO take their TE of the future.
Pick 11 S, Matt Cross
12 separate players were voted on for the Wraiths selection. Although the glaring need at Safety is captured here in the voting as 70% of the votes are in that position group. The obvious standout and highest voted on is S Matt Cross, who boasts the highest TPE at the position and from what I’ve heard, was a fantastic locker room presence for the Norfolk Seawolves. Other votes were placed on S Johnny Hellzapoppin and DE Troen Egghands, however both have been selected and so Cross is the easy selection here.
Pick 12 QB, Ben Slothlisberger
The final pick in the first round is another landslide victory, this time for QB Ben Slothlisberger. It’s been rumoured for a while that this QB would be heading to NOLA and since they have two first-round picks, why not just take him right here. There are possibly better value picks here, but like I’ve mentioned before, the gigantic S22 class allows for luxury picks early on and why risk losing your guy just to hope to take him 12 picks later. Slothlisberger receives 97/107 votes and is the clear selection for the final pick.
In summary the optimal draft projection is:
Colt Mendoza
Magnus Rikiya
Tyler Oles Jr
Johnny Hellzapoppin
Phat Boi
Stanislaw Koniecpolski
Troen Egghands
Thubba Bumper
Derred de Ville
Jeffrey Phillips
Matt Cross
Ben Slothlisberger
Obviously, I’d like to point out that this is in no way guaranteed to be accurate and I’m not suggesting you follow this at all. In the end go with your gut. I’m simply displaying what the numbers say is the collective prediction of upcoming draft. Its entirely possible no one has the faintest idea how the draft will pan out in which case this prediction will only reflect that. But I believe we’ve got a smart group of people here.
Some other fun statistical analysis I stumbled upon:
The most agreed upon prediction with 29 users predicting it is:
Colt Mendoza
Magnus Rikiya
Tyler Oles Jr
Johnny Hellzapoppin
Phat Boi
Stanislaw Koniecpolski
Troen Egghands
Thubba Bumper
Derred de Ville
White Goodman
Matt Cross
Ben Slothlisberger
Almost identical to our other list, except they have Otters selecting RB White Goodman. The next closest agreed upon selection had only 9 users. Do with that information what you will.
Also below is the percentage of which a player was selected in a user’s predictions. A standout is CB Brandon Booker, who was selected in nearly half the predictions but not enough in any specific spot to land a spot on our optimal list. He was also selected in 8 out of the 12 picks. The most by anyone. Seems no one quite knows where to place him but look out for him, he could very easily be a 1st rounder.
Thanks for checking out my article.
Words: 2268 (1.5x)