ProFootballWeekly.com (Nolan Nawrocki)

[Estro]

You must be the pot I hear so much about.

 

If it's too early to do a mock, then why do it? And if you're going to do one before the combine and workouts, and before your sources have any info for you, then what are you basing your mock off of? Has to be college performance, right? If he is basing this off college game performance, there is no way in hell that Suh isn't the first DT taken. His explanation didn't even make sense. Suh didn't have some late season rise that came out of nowhere. He was the highest rated DT before the season and was phenomenal all season long. The only explanation for the order in his draft is that he's trying to get people talking about his mock, period. It's a gimmick, nothing more.

 

 

Because the website, which generates 10's of thousands of hits per day has a fanbase that takes an interest in looking at early mock drafts. So they put one out early, and gradually begin tweaking it once a week leading up to the draft. By the time the draft rolls around and all information has been processed and he's talked to his contacts across the league, he puts out his final mock draft, usually the most accurate mock of the bunch.

 

I'm surprised you're shocked that not everyone believes Suh will be taken ahead of McCoy, both are very highly thought of from what I've read. I even heard Mayock mention at the Senior Bowl that he's not sure which one he'd rank #1 as of yet. Personally, I'm with you, in thinking that Suh is #1.

[Stussy109]

Anyone who knows ProFootballWeekly.com or Nolan Nawrocki knows he's the best in the business. Second to nobody and that includes Mike Mayock, a distant second. Tonight he has released his first mock draft:

 

OK NOW THIS GUYS A" EXPERT" ..ROTFLMAO,, HE'S JUST ANOTHER IDIOT THAT TALKS OUT HIS BUTT,, AND WHAT ARE YOU HIS BROTHER? KEEP PILING UPYOUR BS ,BUT DONT GO TOO FAST ,SOME HERE MIGHT ACTUALLY THINK YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR TALKING ABOUT,,

 

The guys mock the day b4 the draft is spot on, look at his history b4 u speak. Its so good it looks as if he has ins in every draft room.

[Stussy109]

You must be the pot I hear so much about.

 

If it's too early to do a mock, then why do it? And if you're going to do one before the combine and workouts, and before your sources have any info for you, then what are you basing your mock off of? Has to be college performance, right? If he is basing this off college game performance, there is no way in hell that Suh isn't the first DT taken. His explanation didn't even make sense. Suh didn't have some late season rise that came out of nowhere. He was the highest rated DT before the season and was phenomenal all season long. The only explanation for the order in his draft is that he's trying to get people talking about his mock, period. It's a gimmick, nothing more.

 

 

Why talk about the superbowl before it's played, it's all speculatiion and worthless crap being thrown around? Bottom line, it draws traffic, eyes, and therefore makes money from the advertisers. Some people must hang with corky too much.

[Thurman#1]

Mayock can only say who the best pick for a team would be. He can't make them pick that player. And I think if you go back over his choices for just the Bills and who the Brain Trust actually picked, he sure looks a lot brighter than the folks at OBD.

 

 

Yeah, that's why they call it a mock draft. Everybody has the same problem.

 

And Mayock has us picking Donte Whitner. Look how well that turned out.

[Thurman#1]

Who'da known trading away a pro-bowl left tackle for chicken scratch would make such a mess. I mean, didn't we all think it was wise to get rid of a solid left tackle and trust the LT spot to a 2nd year 7th round pick with virtually no experience? It was a fool proof idea. Crazy that it hasn't worked...none of us could've known.

 

 

 

 

I know. On paper it looked so good even though virtually no other NFL team has traded away a franchise LT in recent history. Creative, you know, I like to see creativity in personnel moves.

 

And replacing him with a guy who had never played one NFL snap, I thought that would be a terrific idea because I figured the guy would be really fresh and energetic. I was especially excited when I saw them cut Langston Walker, because after all, it's always better to throw your eggs in one basket.

 

Who could have predicted any of this? One of those million to one shots, really.

 

But let's look on the bright side. If you were to get somebody at a different position, Clausen or McClain or Dez Bryant or Derrick Morgan, as we would be able to do if LT wasn't such a screaming need right now, we would probably improve too fast. This might have caused disorientation among those players who've become used to losing. It's much better to kind of eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease into it, get a high draft pick again next year, you know.

[Thurman#1]

This scoring system is a total joke, and they don't even have Nolan Nawrocki included in this study. The true way to score a mock draft is to do the following:

 

If you have someone going 15th overall and he actually goes 25th than you would receive a 10 (because you were 10 spots off). If you have someone going 15th overall and they go 5th the same rule applies, you would receive a 10 (because once again you were 10 spots off). If you happen to have a player picked in the exact spot he ends up being taken you receive a 0 (best you can do). You do this point system for every single pick in the 1st round and whoever has the lowest score is best, like golf.

 

In the point system used in the analysis you provided it's simply a point if your guy goes in the round you picked him to go. That means if I have somebody going 32nd overall (the last pick in the 1st round), and the player actually gets picked with the 33rd pick (1st pick of the 2nd round) I'm rewarded with absolutely nothing, even though I accurately picked where he was going to go within one spot. However, if you have a player going 64th overall and he's picked 33rd overall you receive a point. How does this scoring system make any sense?

 

Essentially any website can claim that so and so has the best mock drafts as long as they create some dumb point system that backs it up. I've followed Gosselin's mock drafts as well, he too is good, but no where near Nawrocki. Just go have a look for yourself. Compare Nawrocki's 2009 final mock draft to Gosselin's 2009 final mock draft and it's not close. I'm not saying he did bad, Gosselin's final mock was very impressive, but once again it wasn't nearly as good as Nawrocki's.

 

Here is Gosselin's (8/32 players going to the correct team):

 

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dw...ft.3ed83e9.html

 

Nolan Nawrocki (15/32 players going to the correct team):

 

Unfortunately, Nawrocki takes the link down for his final mock draft over the summer, but here is the article to prove it-

 

http://www.profootballweekly.com/2009/04/3...hes-set-new-sta

 

15/32 is better than 8/32 right? He was also better in 2008 and 2007 compared apples to apples to Gosselin, that's as far back as I went.

 

 

 

It's over THREE YEARS, not ONE YEAR. That makes it MORE RELIABLE, not less.

 

OK, fair enough, if he takes down the articles, but where are the articles for the years before. And am I the only one to think it's a bit strange that it's Nawrocki's own paper putting out that article?

 

And the system makes perfect sense. Three points for the exact pick and one point for the correct round is simple and solid. You could make up some other system, but it would have it's own faults. This one is simple, it gives credit for being exact and some credit, though considerably less, for being reasonably close. It works the same for everyone. If it punished Nawrocki unfairly, let's hear how.

 

The system you suggest has just as many serious flaws, more in fact. For example, if you picked the Bills to go DE last year, but got the player wrong, picking Orakpo to the Bills, should you be punished more just because, for example, the next team which needed a DE was 10 or 15 spots back? Whereas if you got the wrong, say, LB and two teams in a row needed LBs, why should you be given more credit? If anything, your system is seriously random. Giving only one more point for a perfect hit than for a guy who was lucky enough to miss close? Giving the DE example above a ten times better grade than the LB example, just because nobody needed another DE? This system is absolutely horrible.

 

Guys often drop five to ten spots because of team needs, but if you drop 15 or 20, somebody is going to snap you up regardless of need because you're a bargain. Which is why it makes sense to give points for the correct round, a smaller reward, but a reward. Whereas pretending that a guy whose pick dropped one space because of team needs is five times better than a guy whose pick dropped five spots because of team needs.

 

As I said earlier, Nawrocki is very good, but for basically the same reason that Gosselin is good, they both have guys in many front offices who tell them who the picks will be. Which means that since nobody knows yet, that at this point their mocks are no better than anybody else's, and a bit worse than the guys who are already spending all their time on college player evals. Gosselin and Nawrocki are both working writers and have to spend time on lots of other things.

[Thurman#1]

http://www.profootballweekly.com/2009/04/3...hes-set-new-sta

 

 

 

Hunh? This link goes to a list of many PFW articles. The first hundred or so of which don't show what you say they do.

[JPS]

Do you guys not know how to click links or are you just thick headed? You can say you think anyone you think is the best. It just so happens the guy I said was the best, is in fact the best, and I backed it up with his draft from last year, the one before that, and the one before that.

 

Mayock is also very good and I respect his evaluations on players. I remeber he absolutely hated James Hardy and thought the guy would crap out in the league. So far he's dead on in that assesment.

 

I still think it's funny that the majority of responders to this thread think picking 15/32 players to the correct team in last years draft is not noteworthy and that "joe schmo" picks better than that. I will be offering a $100 cash prize to anyone who matches or beats 15/32 in the 2010 draft (no copying other mocks, obviously). When the time comes nearer I'll make it official, this way everyone can see how difficult it is to peg players to the right team especially once you get out of the top 10 picks.

Not even Nawrocki would say 15 out of 32 is typical.....unless he wanted to sell more draft books. I wold put his over/under at 10 this year.

[Stussy109]

Not even Nawrocki would say 15 out of 32 is typical.....unless he wanted to sell more draft books. I wold put his over/under at 10 this year.

 

I got the over for 100$

[wonderbread]

His mock draft sucks.

[Acantha]

Why talk about the superbowl before it's played, it's all speculatiion and worthless crap being thrown around? Bottom line, it draws traffic, eyes, and therefore makes money from the advertisers. Some people must hang with corky too much.

I don't have a problem with early mock drafts, I was just responding to BillsVet saying how can you criticize a mock so early. My point was that if criticism isn't okay, it shouldn't be published.

 

And as for the rest of it (advertising), that's exactly my point. Throw out picks that no one is expecting so that you get more hits on your site.

[LABills08]

I don't think Claussen will slip that far. After combines and what not, I suspect he'll make a Mark Sanchez type jump up the boards. And I can't imagine Gailey passing on him for an OT, unless that OT grades out higher than Claussen in terms of long term potential.

 

 

I think the Bills will take the best player available to them at a position of need. Everyone thinks they are going to take a rookie LT right off the bat, just because they have a hole to fill. I'm not sure that is the best strategy, they should take whatever top talent is available to them. Something they haven't done in the past and they have paid the price for it.