Mocking the mocks: Reviewing 2014 mock draft accuracy

Last year, right before the 2014 NFL Daft, I gathered a number of final first-round mock drafts from a variety of sources with the intent of scoring the accuracy of each mock so I could track the results. I reviewed 21 mock drafts in all.

The highest points were awarded for the correct team picking the correct player at the correct spot but I did give partial points if a team picked the mocked player in a different spot, if a different team traded up and picked the mocked player in the mocked spot, or if the team picked a different player that played the same position as the one mocked to them.

The results surprised me. The two most accurate mocks of the 21 I tracked belonged to Walter of Walter Football and ESPN’s Todd McShay. Both of them are prolific but don’t have the same respect of, say, NFL Network’s Mike Mayock.

Both Walter and McShay were well above average with the number of correct picks – Walter got 8 of the 32 picks correct and McShay had 7 of them correct. The average over the 21 mocks was 4 correct picks and that average was helped by the fact that the vast majority of writers had the first two picks, Clowney to Houston and Greg Robinson to St Louis, correct.

Here is the breakdown of the scores. This is just one year, obviously, and not necessarily reflective of any particular conclusion. I plan on doing the same this year and carry over some data into future years for more significant data:

Scoring system:

Team, slot, player all right: +5

Player correct but team/slot slightly wrong: +4
-For example: mock has Sammy Watkins going fourth overall but didn’t have Buffalo trading up for him.
-Another example: mock has Saints taking WR Brandin Cooks at 27 (they traded up and took him at 20).

Player correct but slot very wrong: +3
-Example: mock had Cleveland taking Johnny Manziel at 4. They took him at 22.

Player wrong but position correct: +1
-Example: mock had Chargers taking CB Bradley Roby but they actually took CB Jason Verrett.