BUSINESS HORSE 2023 NFL MOCK DRAFT EXTRAVAGANZA
Posted: Wed Apr 26, 2023 10:22 am
Oh yinz thought that since I have actual things I need to be doing to like, pay my bills and shit that I wouldn’t be back with a brand new pimp mock for your limp cocks. Well you thought wrong because I am the 1911 Christy Mathewson of wasting useful time on trivial activities.
As usual, the disclaimers:
1. My rankings are hastily assembled and only feature players I’ve had “time” to watch. So if you are wondering, “hey where the f is Rawjerr Cranberries on your WR list”, well, I didn’t get a chance to watch anything on Rawjerr Cranberries so he’s not on the list. I may look at him later and think he’s awesome. But that leads me to number 2. One such example is Jalen Pitre last year. I had never heard of him when Houston took him in the early 2nd round so there’s no way in hell he was going to be even considered in my shitty mock but it took about 14 seconds to see that this dude was really fuckin’ good. I probably would have had him as a first rounder if I, uhhh, knew who the hell he was.
2. When I say I spent some time watching a guy, I mean that I most likely spent no more than like 5 minutes. There are hundreds of these guys and this is not my job, as in real life I am the guy who watches the urinals through that little glass hole and flushes them after each use. I just simply don’t have enough time or patience to spend what it would require of both to actually make a good mock draft.
3. On top of that, I don’t really know what I’m doing. Like when I watch a left guard it basically boils down to “hmm do I think this guy is good or not good, he sure blocked that other guy really nice there yeah he’s good”. This ranks me a distant 32nd among NFL GMs in competence, ahead of only Trent Baalke.
4. I don’t have the inside information that NFL teams have. For example, most people had Teven Jenkins in the first round in 2020. However, medical checks showed something with his back that scared teams off a bit and dropped him to the 2nd. The Bengals had Willie Anderson in 2021 to tell them that Jackson Carman was a good pl….ok maybe that’s not the best example. I also don’t know how these players interview or what their college coaches say about them.
5. NOBODY knows how these guys are actually going to turn out. NFL teams spend milllllllions of dollars on this process and even the best teams miss a lot more than they don’t miss. Every jump, be it from high school to college or college to the NFL, has a lot of variables that are tough to determine. Here were the top college recruits in the 2015 class according to SI:
1. Byron Cowart
2. Josh Rosen
3. Iman Marshall
4. Martez Ivey
5. Derwin James
6. Kahlil McKenzie
7. Trenton Thompson
8. Damien Harris
9. Calvin Ridley
10. Terry Godwin
I have heard of four of those guys. It’s like each level is a different planet with a different atmosphere and you can do all the testing you want, it’s still going to be difficult to determine how something will react to it until you actually place them in that environment.
6. An apparently still little-known secret – even in the first round, most of these guys won’t be all that good. On average, only about 38% of first rounders make even a single Pro Bowl in their careers. But yet every year you read “the Saints have a glaring hole at ILB, but with the selection of Chernobilus Poppyseed will turn the position from a weakness to a strength”. Uhhh, no it probably won’t. He’s probably not going to be all that great and even if he is it won’t be for a few years. There are very few Micah Parsonses in this world.
7. In that vein, if you like or don’t like a guy, keep liking or don’t liking them even if I or someone else disagrees. Like I said, no one knows anything. I thought Justin Herbert and Josh Allen would suck and that Corey Coleman would be a star.
8. This is a hybrid of what I would do and what I think will happen. It’s not exclusively one or the other. That is because this is for entertainment and not an entry into a mock draft competition, which would be a dumb thing to spend time on.
9. Trades happen in every single first round. If you don’t have any trades in a mock draft then it is occurring in a different reality. Which is fine, I’m just saying.
10. Everything in this mock is guaranteed to happen 100% as I predict it will.
Now a brief overview of my thoughts on the draft that is about to occur in the year of our Lord 2023. I think this class is moderately weak at the very top but not nearly as weak as last years. There is a bit more sizzle this year and we’ve got a bunch of QBs to make it interesting. This draft is also absolutely STACKED at corner and also appears to be really good at tight end. Like of the top 30 players in this draft, 10 of them might be corners. This draft is also pretty deep in the 2nd and 3rd round tiers, which I think last year’s was as well. I would want to horde 2nd and 3rd rounders this year if I could say trade out of late round 1. One thing I do think after watching the guys I picked off a list as the “top prospects” is that I don’t trust any of these lists of top prospects and I think the actual teams are going to have significantly different rankings and it will look like a crazy surprise or something. No, Lukas Van Ness and Nolan Smith just aren’t very good.
To be fair, I also thought 2011 would suck and that became arguably the greatest first round in the history of the draft. Similarly in 2017 everyone said “all these QBs suck there’s no first round QB wait until next year”. Well, that draft included Pat Mahomes and Deshaun Watson and the next year featured Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold in the top 3. You just don’t know so don’t get all up in arms before your teams player actually plays a real game. And we’re kind of doing that again this year. Last year it was “man the QBs suck, wait until next year because that class is gonna be stacked” and now here we are once again poking holes in all of these guys and saying “Play Dead for Caleb” or some shit. Rinse and repeat.
Let’s get started. Here are my positional rankings in a vacuum, as schemes do matter and I don’t know everyone’s scheme because come on man. As was the case last year, there’s no gifs as that just takes way too much time. RAS refers to “Relative Athletic Score” (https://ras.football/), which was created by a guy named Kent Lee Platte and combines all athletic testing metrics and height/weight (ie running 4.38 at 300 lbs is more impressive than doing it at 190 lbs) into one single number from 0 to 10. It’s basically a percentile for each position. Finally, my comps are dumb and for everyone best case is Hall of Famer and worst case is out of football immediately. If I compare a guy to Bruce Smith I don’t necessarily think he is going to be Bruce Smith, I may just see one particular similarity. Ok let’s do this LEEEEEROOOYYYYYYY BUTTTTTTTTLEERRRRRRRRRRR
As usual, the disclaimers:
1. My rankings are hastily assembled and only feature players I’ve had “time” to watch. So if you are wondering, “hey where the f is Rawjerr Cranberries on your WR list”, well, I didn’t get a chance to watch anything on Rawjerr Cranberries so he’s not on the list. I may look at him later and think he’s awesome. But that leads me to number 2. One such example is Jalen Pitre last year. I had never heard of him when Houston took him in the early 2nd round so there’s no way in hell he was going to be even considered in my shitty mock but it took about 14 seconds to see that this dude was really fuckin’ good. I probably would have had him as a first rounder if I, uhhh, knew who the hell he was.
2. When I say I spent some time watching a guy, I mean that I most likely spent no more than like 5 minutes. There are hundreds of these guys and this is not my job, as in real life I am the guy who watches the urinals through that little glass hole and flushes them after each use. I just simply don’t have enough time or patience to spend what it would require of both to actually make a good mock draft.
3. On top of that, I don’t really know what I’m doing. Like when I watch a left guard it basically boils down to “hmm do I think this guy is good or not good, he sure blocked that other guy really nice there yeah he’s good”. This ranks me a distant 32nd among NFL GMs in competence, ahead of only Trent Baalke.
4. I don’t have the inside information that NFL teams have. For example, most people had Teven Jenkins in the first round in 2020. However, medical checks showed something with his back that scared teams off a bit and dropped him to the 2nd. The Bengals had Willie Anderson in 2021 to tell them that Jackson Carman was a good pl….ok maybe that’s not the best example. I also don’t know how these players interview or what their college coaches say about them.
5. NOBODY knows how these guys are actually going to turn out. NFL teams spend milllllllions of dollars on this process and even the best teams miss a lot more than they don’t miss. Every jump, be it from high school to college or college to the NFL, has a lot of variables that are tough to determine. Here were the top college recruits in the 2015 class according to SI:
1. Byron Cowart
2. Josh Rosen
3. Iman Marshall
4. Martez Ivey
5. Derwin James
6. Kahlil McKenzie
7. Trenton Thompson
8. Damien Harris
9. Calvin Ridley
10. Terry Godwin
I have heard of four of those guys. It’s like each level is a different planet with a different atmosphere and you can do all the testing you want, it’s still going to be difficult to determine how something will react to it until you actually place them in that environment.
6. An apparently still little-known secret – even in the first round, most of these guys won’t be all that good. On average, only about 38% of first rounders make even a single Pro Bowl in their careers. But yet every year you read “the Saints have a glaring hole at ILB, but with the selection of Chernobilus Poppyseed will turn the position from a weakness to a strength”. Uhhh, no it probably won’t. He’s probably not going to be all that great and even if he is it won’t be for a few years. There are very few Micah Parsonses in this world.
7. In that vein, if you like or don’t like a guy, keep liking or don’t liking them even if I or someone else disagrees. Like I said, no one knows anything. I thought Justin Herbert and Josh Allen would suck and that Corey Coleman would be a star.
8. This is a hybrid of what I would do and what I think will happen. It’s not exclusively one or the other. That is because this is for entertainment and not an entry into a mock draft competition, which would be a dumb thing to spend time on.
9. Trades happen in every single first round. If you don’t have any trades in a mock draft then it is occurring in a different reality. Which is fine, I’m just saying.
10. Everything in this mock is guaranteed to happen 100% as I predict it will.
Now a brief overview of my thoughts on the draft that is about to occur in the year of our Lord 2023. I think this class is moderately weak at the very top but not nearly as weak as last years. There is a bit more sizzle this year and we’ve got a bunch of QBs to make it interesting. This draft is also absolutely STACKED at corner and also appears to be really good at tight end. Like of the top 30 players in this draft, 10 of them might be corners. This draft is also pretty deep in the 2nd and 3rd round tiers, which I think last year’s was as well. I would want to horde 2nd and 3rd rounders this year if I could say trade out of late round 1. One thing I do think after watching the guys I picked off a list as the “top prospects” is that I don’t trust any of these lists of top prospects and I think the actual teams are going to have significantly different rankings and it will look like a crazy surprise or something. No, Lukas Van Ness and Nolan Smith just aren’t very good.
To be fair, I also thought 2011 would suck and that became arguably the greatest first round in the history of the draft. Similarly in 2017 everyone said “all these QBs suck there’s no first round QB wait until next year”. Well, that draft included Pat Mahomes and Deshaun Watson and the next year featured Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold in the top 3. You just don’t know so don’t get all up in arms before your teams player actually plays a real game. And we’re kind of doing that again this year. Last year it was “man the QBs suck, wait until next year because that class is gonna be stacked” and now here we are once again poking holes in all of these guys and saying “Play Dead for Caleb” or some shit. Rinse and repeat.
Let’s get started. Here are my positional rankings in a vacuum, as schemes do matter and I don’t know everyone’s scheme because come on man. As was the case last year, there’s no gifs as that just takes way too much time. RAS refers to “Relative Athletic Score” (https://ras.football/), which was created by a guy named Kent Lee Platte and combines all athletic testing metrics and height/weight (ie running 4.38 at 300 lbs is more impressive than doing it at 190 lbs) into one single number from 0 to 10. It’s basically a percentile for each position. Finally, my comps are dumb and for everyone best case is Hall of Famer and worst case is out of football immediately. If I compare a guy to Bruce Smith I don’t necessarily think he is going to be Bruce Smith, I may just see one particular similarity. Ok let’s do this LEEEEEROOOYYYYYYY BUTTTTTTTTLEERRRRRRRRRRR