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It’s time for the 5th annual Mock Draft Scoring. Who is the best? Who is the worst? Did anyone do both really well and yet not well at all? Will anyone actually be held accountable for any of this? (The answer to the last question is “never.”)
The system is simple: for every pick the selection is off, you get a point. So if you mocked Daniel Jones to the Giants at 17, you get 11 points because he was taken 6th. Not everyone predicts trades, so if you predict a trade and get it wrong, you get double the points. However if you predict a team trades up for a player and they do draft that player, just not at that spot, the penalty is waived.
That’s it. Let’s get to the scores.
2019 Mock Draft Scoring
| Drafter | Score | # Correct | Worst Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drafter | Score | # Correct | Worst Pick |
| Evan Silva | 210 | 9 | Jawaan Taylor 7th to JAX. Jaguars took him at 35. |
| Matt Miller | 217 | 8 | Drew Lock to NYG at 17 and Lonnie Johnson to SEA at 29 |
| Peter King | 226 | 9 | DK Metcalf to GB at 30, he went 64th |
| Luke Easterling | 244 | 7 | DK Metcalf to BAL at 22 |
| Daniel Jeremiah | 251 | 9 | Cody Ford 14th overall, he went 38th |
| Albert Breer | 263 | 7 | Drew Lock to WAS |
| Eric Galko | 277 | 9 | CAR trades up to 9th for Andre Dillard |
| Todd McShay | 278 | 9 | Missed Jawaan Taylor, Greedy Williams, and Erik McCoy all by 26 spots |
| Lance Zierlein | 284 | 7 | DK Metcalf to SEA at 21, he went to SEA at 64 |
| Jenny Vrentas | 293 | 12 | DK Metcalf to BAL at 22 |
| Dane Brugler | 295 | 6 | Cody Ford 17th in a trade |
| Mel Kiper Jr. | 320 | 7 | Justin Layne 29th overall, he went 83rd |
| Dan Kadar | 327 | 4 | DK Metcalf to BAL at 22 |
| Josh Norris | 336 | 6 | Chauncey Gardner-Johnson 32nd |
| Will Brinson | 337 | 6 | Hakeem Butler 26th overall, he went 103rd |
| Rob Rang | 339 | 6 | Chauncey Gardner-Johnson 29th, he went 105th |
| Mike Florio | 340 | 6 | Jaylon Ferguson 24th, he went 85th |
| Pete Prisco | 388 | 2 | Chauncey Gardner-Johnson 30th |
| Connor Orr | 424 | 4 | DK Metcalf to CAR at 16 |
| Robert Klemko | 485 | 2 | Chauncy Gardner-Johnson 21st overall |
| BGN Community | 495 | 3 | Hakeem Butler 32nd* |
| Doug Farrar | 525 | 2 | Chauncy Gardner-Johnson 21st overall |
| Steve Palazzolo | 741 | 2 | Amani Oruwariye 29th, he went 146th |
*NickfoleonDynamite has been banned. I’m sorry but those are the rules. It was nice knowing you.
Best drafter: Evan Silva, who was the 2017 winner and finished 5th in 2018. Honorable mention to Jenny Vrentas, who accurately mocked 12 picks, the highest total since I’ve been doing these. Silva had 9 correct picks, but came out on top by being close with the rest of his draft, 9 picks were off by five or fewer spots; his worst miss was Jawaan Taylor 4th overall, but six other mock drafters also mocked Taylor there as well, and everyone else had Taylor as a first rounder.
Worst drafter: For the second year in a row PFF’s Steve Palazzolo had the worst mock draft. I’ve only included him the past two years, so retroactively he might be the best at being the worst. This year Palazzolo had a score of 741, which is an astonishing number and made even more impressive since he didn’t predict any trades to get penalized for. It’s far and away the worst mock draft I’ve ever scored, over 200 points more than his score last year. His only correct picks were the first two. He had two players mocked in the first round who went on the third day: Hakeem Butler (4th round) and Amani Ourwariye (5th round), and two who went in the 3rd round in Will Grier and Chase Winovich. Half his first round was off by at least 15 picks.
Most common miss: The Raiders selecting Clelin Ferrell caught everybody off guard, including Clelin Ferrell. And as mentioned earlier, everyone had Jawaan Taylor as a first rounder, but he went a 35. And this won’t surprise anyone but nobody had Daniel Jones going to the Giants at 6.
Kudos: The end of the draft is nearly impossible to predict, through teams reaching and players falling the board never unfolds the way anyone sees it happening, and generally there are quite a few trades with the last handful of picks that really throw things off. So job well done by Eric Galko, the only person to correctly predict that the Patriots would take N’Keal Harry at 32.
Whoops: Luke Easterling and Will Brinson had the Cardinals taking Quinnen Williams first overall, Doug Farrar had the Raiders trading up to take Kyler Murray there.
Bragging rights: I always include Mike Florio because he admittedly puts no effort into his mock drafts, and he always beats out a handful of people who are supposed experts. I also always include the BGN Community Mock Draft because it is done by people who are not professional mock drafters, and due to the time it takes to create it not every pick is privy to all the information that is available the week of the draft when everyone else is doing theirs. And every year it beats at least one professional football writer. Pat yourselves on the back. Except you NickfoleonDynamite, you bring us all shame. (Kidding. Sort of.)