There isn't much consensus on the likely draft spot for Oklahoma CB Andre Woolfolk, who may go anywhere from mid-first round to mid-second round
One mock draft is nice. Two mock drafts are twice as informative. Three or four mock drafts? Now you're starting to feel like you have a handle on this thing.
Twelve, quite frankly, is a little confusing.
Of course, this time of year mock drafts are in full bloom, springing up like wildflowers in just about every NFL publication, internet sports site and local newspaper. Some are more heavily researched than others, some more adventurous. Singularly, they are engrossing, but as you see more and more of them, it's hard to keep them straight. Did Mel Kiper have Kyle Boller rising into the top 10, or was that Dan Pompeii?
It does helps if you have them side by side, so that's exactly what we've done. The result is a spreadsheet bearing the choice-by-choice guesswork of 12 respected NFL media sources: Kiper, Pompeii, Pro Football Weekly, The Sporting News Pro Draft Preview, Rick Gosselin of the Dallas Morning News, Pete Prisco of cbssportsline.com, sportingnews.com, cnnsi.com, espn.com (formulated by Len Pasquarelli and John Clayton), foxsports.com, The Draft Notebook and Joel Buchsbaum's 2003 Draft Preview, also published by Pro Football Weekly.
The mock drafts created by Kiper, The Sporting News, The Sporting News Pro Draft Preview and The Draft Notebook were all two rounds long, while the other eight concentrated only on the first round.
What did we find? A strong consensus in the top five, and a general agreement on the top 10 players, if not necessarily the exact order. We found defensive tackles in boat-loads and safeties only with a microscope. We saw quarterbacks on the rise, tight ends on the wane and not much accord on who the Oakland Raiders would take with the pick they got from the Buccaneers.
Below are some specifics from the exercise. First, a few disclaimers. These drafts were printed or posted at different times, and it's reasonable to believe that the most recent mocks will be more accurate. Where possible, the picks were updated when the authors themselves provided updates. Only a few of them contain the absolute most up-to-date information, such as the gunshot wound suffered by Oregon State CB Dennis Weathersby on April 20.
Even without dramatic events such as Weathersby's misfortune (he is expected to make a complete recovery but certainly will be more a question mark this weekend), things can change extensively in the six to eight weeks before a draft, and the Buchsbaum draft, which was completed by the PFW staff on March 10, a little over two months after Buchsbaum's untimely death, is offered mostly as an example of this. The Sporting News Pro Draft Preview, also came out somewhat early, but all of the other drafts are as of April 1 or later.
Observations:
