This Week In Mock Drafts
This week I thought I’d do something a little different for ‘This Week In Mock Drafts’ and feature a mock draft written by the same writer that I covered last week in TWIMD. It’s not very often that I get to do such a thing and I thought I’d take advantage of the opportunity while I have it.
Last week’s mock draft was SI.com’s Don Banks’ mock draft version 4.0 and I had mentioned last week how Banks was planning on doing seven mock drafts and we now have his fifth version.
I want to highlight Banks and his current frenzied mock draft coverage to show just how much or how little most mock draft prognosticators know. I’m not singling out Banks or saying he doesn’t know anything about mock drafts; the point I want to make is unless you’re in the draft room for a specific team you have no idea what their draft plans are or who they’re going to take. In fact even the people running those draft war rooms don’t know who they’re going to take until they’ve handed in their draft card and that can be due to a player they coveted not being there when they’re next to pick or going for a player they never thought would reach them by the time their turn came up.
Drafts in any sport are immediate and you can never plan ahead, no matter how much we like to talk about them in the form of mock drafts. Mainly, mock drafts are about having fun and putting on our GM hat for a little while just to see what it would be like to run an NFL team.
Having said that let’s see who the Giants are taking in Banks’ mock draft version 5.0 and compare that to his last mock draft…
So, mock draft 4.0 from Don Banks was released on the 4th of April and saw the Giants select OT Bobby Massie out of Ole Miss. Mock draft version 5.0 from Banks was released a week later on April 11 and you would think that with just a week’s time in between mock drafts and the Giants not really being in the mock draft news cycle that the pick would just stay the same and Massie would once again be the pick, just like he was in Banks’ mock draft version 3.0.
However, and this is where mock drafts show how big of a crapshoot they really are, that’s not the case and the Giants, according to Banks this time, will select DE/LB Nick Perry from USC. Why Perry and not Massie again? It’s not because Massie was mocked to an earlier selection in Banks’ latest mock draft because his name is nowhere to be found in list of 32 mock draft picks and that means Massie has fallen into the second round and beyond list of prospects according to Banks.
Banks mocking Perry to Giants at 32 instead of Massie for a third straight mock just goes to show how difficult it is to predict what teams will pick which players since we don’t work for any of the teams in the NFL. All we can really do when talking about mock drafts is speculate which players go where or tell those listening who we’d draft if we were in charge of such a decision. That’s the main reason why I wanted to feature Banks and his mock draft prognosticating skills for a second week in a row.
One thing we do know about the Giants is that they like to go with the best player available method of draft picking/never saying no to a good DE and that seems to have influenced Banks in his mock draft version 5.0 and he even says as much when discussing his mock selection for the Giants at 32:
“The Giants have greater needs at running back, offensive tackle and inside linebacker, but Perry carries a first-round grade and New York sticks with its belief that you can never have too many quality pass rushers. Perry might even be able to play at weakside linebacker in the NFL, which would allow the Giants to shift Michael Boley to the middle.
Perry has once been featured in a previous installment of TWIMD and if you’ve forgotten about him feel free to refresh your memory. In the meantime do you think Perry will be a Giant? Should Banks of stuck with Massie or another offensive lineman? Are mock drafts worthless? Let your opinions be heard in the comments section!