How accurate are 'too-early' mock drafts at projecting prospects? A look back at 2017.

USA Today

13-05-2025

How accurate are 'too-early' mock drafts at projecting prospects? A look back at 2017. Many players projected to go early wound up being high picks, but others proved to be way too early projections for various reasons.
year when initial mock draft projections come out for the 2026 NFL Draft. Heck, we've already got our initial Draft Wire mock first round for 2026 out (thanks Curt Popejoy!).
At this point in the process, it's about identifying potential candidates for future draft prominence. It's usually a melange of players who unexpectedly return to college after draft dalliances, All-Americans from big-time programs, returning athletes who show good athletic potential or upside, and often some pet projects for draft analysts who are seen as potential risers in the coming college season.
This isn't a new phenomenon. Too-early mock drafts have been around for a long time. Just because they're deep-rooted doesn't necessarily mean they're all that accurate, however.
I went back and took a look at some of the initial mock projections for the 2017 NFL Draft. The sampling includes several mock drafts written in the aftermath of the 2016 draft took place in Chicago. I included my own (from RealGM) as well as very early projections from Pro Football Focus (Steve Palazzolo), Sports Illustrated (Chris Burke), ESPN (Todd McShay) and FanSided (Brad Rowland). I also looked at Bleacher Report's initial top 50 big board (Matt Miller) and preseason magazine projections from Athlon Sports, ESPN The Mag, Ourlads Scouting and Pro Football Weekly.
Looking back in time, there was a pretty firm consensus on 10 players who were projected as high picks in those mock drafts:
Myles Garrett, DE, Texas A&M
Deshaun Watson, QB, Clemson
Jonathan Allen, DL, Alabama
Leonard Fournette, RB, LSU
Cam Robinson, OT, Alabama
Brad Kaaya, QB, Miami FL
Jalen Tabor, CB, Florida
Carl Lawson, EDGE, Auburn
Tim Williams, EDGE, Alabama
Derek Barnett, EDGE, Tennessee
If you made a consensus board out of the drafts, that would be the top 10 (not in order). Guys like Christian McCaffrey, Malik McDowell, Charles Harris, Jarrad Davis, Roderick Johnson, Mike Williams, Raekwon McMillan and Jabrill Peppers would be next in line.
Let's jump to the 2017 NFL Draft and see the actual top 10 picks...
1. Cleveland Browns - EDGE Myles Garrett
2. Chicago Bears - QB Mitchell Trubisky
3. San Francisco 49ers - DE Solomon Thomas
4. Jacksonville Jaguars - RB Leonard Fournette
5. Tennessee Titans - WR Corey Davis
6. New York Jets - S Jamal Adams
7. Los Angeles Chargers - WR Mike Williams
8. Carolina Panthers - RB Christian McCaffrey
9. Cincinnati Bengals - WR John Ross
10. Kansas City Chiefs - QB Patrick Mahomes
The too-early projections were spot-on with Garrett, Fournette, Allen, McCaffrey and Williams. Corey Davis, playing in relative anonymity at Western Michigan, was included in some projections. The jump to being the fifth pick was still quite a leap--and fate proved that was a leap too far.
Watson wound up being the No. 12 pick, which should count as a hit for the premature prognostications, too. Barnett came off the board at No. 14, while Charles Harris went 22nd overall to Miami. Peppers was selected by the Browns at No. 25 overall. Cam Robinson turned out to be the second pick of the second round despite eschewing pre-draft workouts.
Some came from nowhere, notably the second and third picks. Trubisky didn't start for North Carolina until the 2016 season, so his meteoric rise was rightfully unexpected. Thomas more than doubled his first-year production at Stanford and declared early from well off the preseason radar. Ross had missed the 2015 college season with a knee injury, keeping his potential draft profile quite low.
Patrick Mahomes
It's hard to remember that Mahomes was a stunning pick at No. 10 even in real-time of the 2017 NFL Draft. Projections largely ignored him as a first-rounder well into the 2016 college season. His funky delivery in a gimmicky Texas Tech offense repelled draft analysts, who touted Minnesota's Mitch Leidner and Luke Falk from Washington State in the preseason projections. Falk wound up being drafted in the sixth round of the 2018 draft, while Leidner is but a footnote in the textbook of too-high expectations. Mahomes is a future Hall of Famer.
Injuries
Health always plays a factor. McShay helpfully included a note about injuries from the 2016 draft in his too-early mock, noting that he correctly identified 15 of the 32 players selected in the first round.
Last year, 15 players who were featured in my way-too-early mock draft ended up going in the 2016 first round. As we saw with Myles Jack and Jaylon Smith, injuries are impossible to predict and certainly impact a player's draft stock.
Injuries certainly impacted the draft fate of Lawson and Michigan TE Jake Butt, a frequent early projection near the end of the first round. The Bengals drafted Lawson at No. 116 overall, while Butt went to the Broncos a round later as the first pick of the fifth round, 145th overall.
The too-early swings and misses
Brad Kaaya is one of the poster children for why too-early mock drafts are indeed premature shots in the relative dark. He was a top-10 projection in nearly every mock from that May. Despite rewriting the Hurricanes' passing record book, Kaaya's lacking arm strength and athleticism sank his draft stock to the sixth round. As the 215th overall pick, Kaaya couldn't make Detroit's roster as a draft pick. He never played a down in the NFL.
Poor athletic testing for his smallish (for his position) size also doomed Tim Williams to the third round, No. 78 overall to the Baltimore Ravens. To a lesser extent, Jalen Tabor (better known as Teez) also fell due to a terrible workout. The Lions took Tabor No. 55 overall, one spot ahead of Raekwon McMillan and one slot after QB DeShone Kizer, who was also mentioned in a few of the first-round projections. Similar to Williams, Louisville EDGE Devonte Fields fell from being a fringe first-round consensus early projection to being undrafted. It's tough to be a 6-foot-1, 236-pound pass-rush specialist with below-average speed. It didn't inhibit Williams or Fields much in college, but it proved to be a deal-breaker for the NFL. That's harder to project early, especially when college programs routinely (more so then than now) inflate player sizes in their listings.
Overall
The too-early mocks did a pretty decent job of landing the players at the top, most of whom ended up as top-40 overall picks. The high projections that turned out to be reaches primarily proved to be quarterbacks, athletically limited players or unforeseen injuries.
The cases of off-the-radar risers like Trubisky, Thomas and Mahomes are why it's important to keep watching and not invest too much stock in the mock draft projections that come out right after the last draft. They're entertaining and good for identifying players to know and watch in the coming college season, but they're also subtitled "too early" mock drafts for good reason.