Grading the Musket Fire Mock Draft

With the first round officially in the books and the smoke settled, I looked back at my mock draft posted earlier in the week and analyzed where I hit and where I missed. It’s not pretty, though I did hit a home run on some of the big surprises of the draft. What makes putting together a mock draft so difficult is that you cannot predict trades, and this draft was full of them. Still, my performance predicting the picks was less-than-stellar to say the least. I judged “hits” and “misses” based on whether I matched the team to the player, though the spot where that player was drafted may have been off.

If I factored in predicting the position that a team drafted, my grade would have been higher, but that’s like cheating on a test. My mock draft grade is a solid ‘F’, having only predicted 22% of the picks correctly. You could bump that to a ‘D’ if you factor in that I nailed the Dex Bryant and Tim Tebow landing spots, but I’m a tough grader so I’ll leave it at an ‘F’. Here are the picks I hit on:

• QB Sam Bradford to the Rams: I’d have to have drool trickling out of the side of my mouth to miss on this one.
• DT Ndamukong Suh to the Lions: ditto from above
• DT Gerald McCoy to the Bucs: another ditto from above
• OT Anthony Davis to the 49ers: I had Davis being drafted with the 49ers second first-round pick, but matched team-to-player.
• TE Jermaine Gresham to the Bengals: Easy one to pick, though I had visions of Dez Bryant being selected here. Gresham completes the Cinci offense.
• WR Dez Bryant to the Cowboys: I knew that if Bryant slipped into the 20’s that Jerry Jones would scoop him up. Jones had to move up 3 spots to ensure getting him, but he got him. That Cowboy offense looks scary with Miles Austin, Roy Williams, Jason Witten, and now Dez Bryant, and that’s not even counting their stable of running backs.
• QB Tim Tebow to Denver: I had Josh McDaniels picking Tebow earlier, but I just had that feeling that McDaniels was going to pick the Florida QB. I can’t say that I agree taking Tebow in Round One, but Josh is starting to get a rep as a kooky coach. Tebow will learn behind Kyle Orton and Brady Quinn, umm, yeah. McDaniels is a great QB coach and his skills will be tested as patience will wear thin in Denver and the fans will want to see what Tebow can do sooner than he’ll probably be ready to go. Could Belichick not have named an OC to keep that position open for McDaniels if this experiment in Denver doesn’t work?

It’s not the greatest record but not many mocks can boast hitting on many more. Better luck next year!