2021 NFL Draft: Trey Lance lands in top five of way-too-early mock draft
Taking an early look at the 2021 NFL Draft with a way-too-early mock draft.
As we start to think about a football season with as much unknown as ever before, I cannot help but think about what will happen with the 2021 NFL Draft. It seems unlikely that the multi-billion dollar corporation that is the NFL will not play this season, but what about college football? I know that college football is a massive moneymaker, but I have a hard time believing that these universities are going to put unpaid student-athletes at risk.
It is undoubtedly going to be an interesting year plus for many reasons and nobody really has any clue what is actually going to happen. For the sake of these conversations, I am going to assume that we are going to have some form of an NFL and college football season and the 2021 NFL Draft will go on at least somewhat as normal. We will see.
While the future of these events are completely up in the air, we can still move forward and get ready for the upcoming 2021 NFL Draft.
A way-too-early mock draft like this may seem silly on the surface. Even predicting a draft order at this point is impossible, let alone trying to pair specific prospects with their future NFL teams. That being said, we know enough about these players to predict who are potential first-round picks and we can also make educated decisions based on team needs and schemes on who will fit where. Basically, this is just a fun exercise for us all to get to know the 2021 NFL Draft class a bit better.
The order of this mock draft was determined by simulations projections by Pro Football Focus. Based on their Elo rating system, grades and market data, PFF went through and simulated the 2020 NFL season 10,000 times. Based on those simulations, PFF listed projected win totals for every NFL team.
I took this data and simply created a 2021 NFL Draft order with it. The teams with the lowest projected win totals pick at the top and I ran through a quick post-season simulation based on those win totals to determine the last 14 picks of the first round. I randomized the draft order for any teams that had the exact same projected win total. In the end, I think PFF put together a pretty realistic potential 2021 NFL Draft order. It at least works just fine for this mock draft.
Without further ado, let’s learn more about the 2021 NFL Draft by looking at this complete first-round mock draft. Are you happy with your favorite team’s first-round selection? Let us know in the comments section below.