Welcome back to another Mocking the Mockers! Last offseason I introduced this series as one of my first articles. This season there seems to be even more mocks published and much more mocking to go around. I’ve compiled all of the drafts and will be taking a look at what each one got right and wrong, as well as seeing what the biggest shocks were to the collective. There’s not a great way to evaluate which mock ‘won’ but by the end we should have a pretty good idea of what the better drafts were this season.
Oh also, I’ll only be able to post small snapshots of the mocks and tables I’m looking at here, so please take a look at the full spreadsheet here to get the full picture.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...edit#gid=0
Here are the mocks I’m using! (links in spreadsheet)
Stegz 1
TubbyTim
Chunt (and Steg)
Stegz 2
Laser
Mocks above this used an outdated draft order
TitanMVP
BigRed
Gragg
Skorch
Amulos
J00 (sorta?)
FirstFray 1
Laser 2
Gragg 2
FirstFray 2 (submitted via discord)
Let’s start off with the obvious measure of success. Who got the most right picks? This will be the correct player at the correct pick # with no regards to the team that picked. The answer may surprise you but that is a shared honor between @TitanMVP, @BigRed, and @firstfray (first attempt). For what it’s worth Titan submitted theirs first which gives them the ‘tiebreaker’ if anyone's keeping score. Now who managed to pick the least correctly? This seems like a good time to mention what a cruddy metric this is for determining the overall quality of a mock. It’s the first go to but identifying the first rounders and what players go to specific teams is much more impressive in my opinion…. Anyway, my second mock posted 2 hours before the draft was the only to get 0 picks correct. Moving right along.
5 TitanMVP
5 BigRed
5 FirstFray 1
3 Laser
3 Amulos
3 Laser 2
3 FirstFray 2
2 Chunt (and Steg)
2 Gragg
2 Skorch
1 Stegz 1
1 TubbyTim
1 Stegz 2
0 Gragg 2
While no one metric can portray how good a mock draft is, ‘average miss’ is probably the one I would pick if I had to pick one. All this does is calculate how many picks off each prediction was and total that up. For instance, if some doofus put Busch Goose as pick 1 and Luke Quick as pick 2, they would be off by a total of 2 (1 each as they went 2 and 1 respectively). If you’re confused you can click on the sheet link to see how it works.
This metric highlights how good Stegz's second mock was, even before the draft order was set. It clocked in a total miss of only 50, the second lowest. The three mocks before that each had over 100. It also brings my embarrassing all-misses mock up to the fourth best. Now this metric isn’t perfect because some players that have a shot at the first end up falling quite far because of weird positional need situations. Namely Saleem Spence is a big mock-breaker here. You could also get several points added by making an incorrect choice of which OL goes first (Cade Williams vs Stumpy Jones) where either would be a great pick there and fill the same team’s need. Disclaimers out of the way, here are the scores for the lazy folk that didn’t click the spreadsheet link:
(sorted by release date)
121 Stegz 1
106 TubbyTim
101 Chunt (and Steg)
50 Stegz 2
76 Laser
80 TitanMVP
73 BigRed
81 Gragg
74 Skorch
69 Amulos
44 FirstFray 1
86 Laser 2
67 Gragg 2
62 FirstFray 2
I wanted to write a bit now on if anyone managed to get the right team/player but missed the pick with the 3 trades happening in the first round. However, no one mocked Chunt to Baltimore (in the first round at last, perhaps some predicted in the 2nd round), and no one got Abed at all. There were 3 mocks, Lasers 2nd, my 2nd, and Firstfray's 2nd, that all predicted Glenn Smart to AZ but missed the trade.
Now that we’ve covered what are probably the primary 2 methods of evaluating mocks, let’s take a look at which specific picks were the easiest and hardest to guess. We can do this simply by looking at how many mockers got a pick right and how far off they were wrong by. First, how many mockers got each pick correct?
9 Luke Quick
8 Busch Goose
0 Anton Bruckner
2 Xavier Walls
4 Glenn Smart
4 Mongo
2 Juno Hu
0 Andrew Warthol
0 Troy Abed
0 Dexter Hall
2 Manhattan Project
0 Prof. Godfrey Gravity
1 Cade Williams
4 Chunt the Badger
Myself, Warthol, and Abed are the big mock breakers here. Xavier Walls, Prof. Godfrey Gravity, and Cade Williams and mostly low because they were projected to go higher and were kicked down by those unexpected picks. Now the average misses (in image form this time because it’s messy. RIP my pay)
As expected Luke Quick and Busch Goose were by far the easiest picks in the draft. Immediately after was the first big surprise of the draft. Myself. Zero mockers got the pick and it was the biggest average miss of the first round. That number is partially driven up by a number of people picking Saleem Spence here to fill OCO’s WR need. The next biggest average miss is Dexter Hall going at pick 10 to Chicago, surprising largely in part because of how many (including myself) expected him to go to OCO.
Next let’s see which players were most often mocked to the first round, and see if the hivemind is a decent mocker.
14 Mongo
14 Luke Quick
14 Busch Goose
13 Prof. Godfrey Gravity
13 Glenn Smart
12 Stumpy Jones
12 Dexter Hall
11 Juno Hu
11 Chunt the Badger
11 Anton Bruckner
10 Xavier Walls
10 Saleem Spence
10 Cade Williams
7 Manhattan Project
6 Romulus Roman
4 Sam the Onion Man
4 Bender Rodriguez
3 Tim Soulja
3 Andrew Warthol
2 C.J. Sonjack
2 Bayley Cowabunga
1 Remus Roman
1 Raeni Clarke
1 IsHe... ReallyInvisible
1 Dexter Zaylren
1 Cole Maxwell
For me the interesting points here are the confidence in Mongo, and how we were all blindsided by Abed. Next lowest number here that ended up getting picked was Andrew Warthol with 3 predictions. Stumpy Jones and Saleem Spence were the biggest omission surprises. The lesson is don’t have a name that starts with an ‘S’ if you want to get picked in the first round.
I’d do a bit more analysis here but I’m kinda running out of time to publish this while it’s still relevant. Instead I’m going to take some wild stabs at what I think the best mocks were this year. Also keep in mind of course that a lot of mocking comes down to dumb luck, so don’t be offended if you’re not high on the list.
Top 5 in alphabetical order:
(not going to try to rank them)
BigRed
5 correct picks, 73 total miss
BigRed is tied for most correct picks but theirs are more impressive because 3 come at the end of the first.
Firstfray 1
5 correct picks, 44 total miss
I know I said I won’t rank the mocks but by statline this is clearly the best mock. Awesome stuff.
Laser 1
3 correct picks, 76 total miss
Maybe the statline isn’t as impressive but they were earlier and the others and let’s be honest, a lot of mockers mostly copied this one.
Stegz 2
1 correct pick, 50 total miss
Maybe 1 correct pick isn’t impressive but 50 total miss with how early Stegz did this mock is fantastic.
TitanMVP
5 correct pick, 80 total miss
The first mock using the correct draft order and gets 5 out of the first 6 picks correct. Good stuff.
I was also going to do a more detailed draft review of my own mock, but maybe for another time. In short, I blame CC for not picking Tim Soulja. Hopefully next season I’ll be able to devote a little more time to this to find most controversial picks and some other fun tidbits. Let me know if there's anything else you want to see.
Oh also, I’ll only be able to post small snapshots of the mocks and tables I’m looking at here, so please take a look at the full spreadsheet here to get the full picture.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...edit#gid=0
Here are the mocks I’m using! (links in spreadsheet)
Stegz 1
TubbyTim
Chunt (and Steg)
Stegz 2
Laser
Mocks above this used an outdated draft order
TitanMVP
BigRed
Gragg
Skorch
Amulos
J00 (sorta?)
FirstFray 1
Laser 2
Gragg 2
FirstFray 2 (submitted via discord)
Let’s start off with the obvious measure of success. Who got the most right picks? This will be the correct player at the correct pick # with no regards to the team that picked. The answer may surprise you but that is a shared honor between @TitanMVP, @BigRed, and @firstfray (first attempt). For what it’s worth Titan submitted theirs first which gives them the ‘tiebreaker’ if anyone's keeping score. Now who managed to pick the least correctly? This seems like a good time to mention what a cruddy metric this is for determining the overall quality of a mock. It’s the first go to but identifying the first rounders and what players go to specific teams is much more impressive in my opinion…. Anyway, my second mock posted 2 hours before the draft was the only to get 0 picks correct. Moving right along.
5 TitanMVP
5 BigRed
5 FirstFray 1
3 Laser
3 Amulos
3 Laser 2
3 FirstFray 2
2 Chunt (and Steg)
2 Gragg
2 Skorch
1 Stegz 1
1 TubbyTim
1 Stegz 2
0 Gragg 2
While no one metric can portray how good a mock draft is, ‘average miss’ is probably the one I would pick if I had to pick one. All this does is calculate how many picks off each prediction was and total that up. For instance, if some doofus put Busch Goose as pick 1 and Luke Quick as pick 2, they would be off by a total of 2 (1 each as they went 2 and 1 respectively). If you’re confused you can click on the sheet link to see how it works.
This metric highlights how good Stegz's second mock was, even before the draft order was set. It clocked in a total miss of only 50, the second lowest. The three mocks before that each had over 100. It also brings my embarrassing all-misses mock up to the fourth best. Now this metric isn’t perfect because some players that have a shot at the first end up falling quite far because of weird positional need situations. Namely Saleem Spence is a big mock-breaker here. You could also get several points added by making an incorrect choice of which OL goes first (Cade Williams vs Stumpy Jones) where either would be a great pick there and fill the same team’s need. Disclaimers out of the way, here are the scores for the lazy folk that didn’t click the spreadsheet link:
(sorted by release date)
121 Stegz 1
106 TubbyTim
101 Chunt (and Steg)
50 Stegz 2
76 Laser
80 TitanMVP
73 BigRed
81 Gragg
74 Skorch
69 Amulos
44 FirstFray 1
86 Laser 2
67 Gragg 2
62 FirstFray 2
I wanted to write a bit now on if anyone managed to get the right team/player but missed the pick with the 3 trades happening in the first round. However, no one mocked Chunt to Baltimore (in the first round at last, perhaps some predicted in the 2nd round), and no one got Abed at all. There were 3 mocks, Lasers 2nd, my 2nd, and Firstfray's 2nd, that all predicted Glenn Smart to AZ but missed the trade.
Now that we’ve covered what are probably the primary 2 methods of evaluating mocks, let’s take a look at which specific picks were the easiest and hardest to guess. We can do this simply by looking at how many mockers got a pick right and how far off they were wrong by. First, how many mockers got each pick correct?
9 Luke Quick
8 Busch Goose
0 Anton Bruckner
2 Xavier Walls
4 Glenn Smart
4 Mongo
2 Juno Hu
0 Andrew Warthol
0 Troy Abed
0 Dexter Hall
2 Manhattan Project
0 Prof. Godfrey Gravity
1 Cade Williams
4 Chunt the Badger
Myself, Warthol, and Abed are the big mock breakers here. Xavier Walls, Prof. Godfrey Gravity, and Cade Williams and mostly low because they were projected to go higher and were kicked down by those unexpected picks. Now the average misses (in image form this time because it’s messy. RIP my pay)
As expected Luke Quick and Busch Goose were by far the easiest picks in the draft. Immediately after was the first big surprise of the draft. Myself. Zero mockers got the pick and it was the biggest average miss of the first round. That number is partially driven up by a number of people picking Saleem Spence here to fill OCO’s WR need. The next biggest average miss is Dexter Hall going at pick 10 to Chicago, surprising largely in part because of how many (including myself) expected him to go to OCO.
Next let’s see which players were most often mocked to the first round, and see if the hivemind is a decent mocker.
14 Mongo
14 Luke Quick
14 Busch Goose
13 Prof. Godfrey Gravity
13 Glenn Smart
12 Stumpy Jones
12 Dexter Hall
11 Juno Hu
11 Chunt the Badger
11 Anton Bruckner
10 Xavier Walls
10 Saleem Spence
10 Cade Williams
7 Manhattan Project
6 Romulus Roman
4 Sam the Onion Man
4 Bender Rodriguez
3 Tim Soulja
3 Andrew Warthol
2 C.J. Sonjack
2 Bayley Cowabunga
1 Remus Roman
1 Raeni Clarke
1 IsHe... ReallyInvisible
1 Dexter Zaylren
1 Cole Maxwell
For me the interesting points here are the confidence in Mongo, and how we were all blindsided by Abed. Next lowest number here that ended up getting picked was Andrew Warthol with 3 predictions. Stumpy Jones and Saleem Spence were the biggest omission surprises. The lesson is don’t have a name that starts with an ‘S’ if you want to get picked in the first round.
I’d do a bit more analysis here but I’m kinda running out of time to publish this while it’s still relevant. Instead I’m going to take some wild stabs at what I think the best mocks were this year. Also keep in mind of course that a lot of mocking comes down to dumb luck, so don’t be offended if you’re not high on the list.
Top 5 in alphabetical order:
(not going to try to rank them)
BigRed
5 correct picks, 73 total miss
BigRed is tied for most correct picks but theirs are more impressive because 3 come at the end of the first.
Firstfray 1
5 correct picks, 44 total miss
I know I said I won’t rank the mocks but by statline this is clearly the best mock. Awesome stuff.
Laser 1
3 correct picks, 76 total miss
Maybe the statline isn’t as impressive but they were earlier and the others and let’s be honest, a lot of mockers mostly copied this one.
Stegz 2
1 correct pick, 50 total miss
Maybe 1 correct pick isn’t impressive but 50 total miss with how early Stegz did this mock is fantastic.
TitanMVP
5 correct pick, 80 total miss
The first mock using the correct draft order and gets 5 out of the first 6 picks correct. Good stuff.
I was also going to do a more detailed draft review of my own mock, but maybe for another time. In short, I blame CC for not picking Tim Soulja. Hopefully next season I’ll be able to devote a little more time to this to find most controversial picks and some other fun tidbits. Let me know if there's anything else you want to see.