NFL mock drafts are really getting out of hand. It has gone from interesting content for die-hard football fans to absurd articles framed around premises that make no sense. Simply putting out a mock draft with some analysis of each pick is no longer enough.
Instead, writers must contrive some pointless scenario around the NFL Draft. Please don’t take my word for it, however. Here is what ESPN calls its 2023 NFL all-quarterback mock draft. What is happening here? This is in no way, shape or form a mock draft. Why call it one?
There are plenty more examples of NFL mock drafts getting out of hand. Bill Barnwell continues to churn out an all-trades one. There is nothing wrong with this per se. In fact, the article is interesting. But nothing makes it a mock draft. It is simply a list of trades for each draft pick.
Over at CBS Sports, they have published something called a Consensus 2023 NFL Mock Draft. Of course, it is not a consensus. Editors just handpicked 12 analysts and mashed together the results with no real rhyme or reason.
Occasional racist and anti-vaxxer WalterFootball has fallen in love with doing a backward mock draft which is the ultimate exercise in pointlessness. Despite some of his personal flaws, I actually like what WalterFootball does, and he has a lot of great insider information.
But a backward mock draft is freaking stupid. Nothing interesting can be gleaned from this. It is literally an article designed to get a user to open another page on his site so he can raise his CPM from the nine million ad placements.
What’s worse is that this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to NFL mock drafts getting out of hand. Everyone and their mother’s brother is releasing some gimmick mock. Please stop with this football fan fiction.
And that is what this is. At least traditional mock drafts force the author to work within the confines of reality. These hypotheticals open the floodgates for nonsense. It is nothing more than Dwight Shrute penning tales about Captain Mutato.
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