Making a Mockery of the Mock Drafts

I don't know what I'm doing. Does it matter?

Last week, I posted about what I generally thought the 49ers were going to do in the draft. Spoiler alert - I actually wrote that post maybe two weeks ago and scheduled it, and then promptly forgot about it. So much that I did two mock drafts - one for the 49ers and one for the first round overall - thinking I’d make a post out of it.

I’m certainly not going to let that go to waste! So here are the two versions. One is just the 49ers using all their picks pre-draft. The second is the first round.

Look, none of this will work out this way because there are actually trades which are impossible to predict. I used to do this for the first round and had a scoring system in place:

1. Get one point if the player is drafted in the first round.

2. Get one point if the player is drafted by the team predicted.

3. Get one point if the player is drafted at the exact number predicted. (For instance, if another team traded up to the first pick and took Cam Ward, that would be a point here, even though it wouldn’t be the Titans taking him.)

With that in mind, here’s my first round dart throw:

Ward to the Titans is chalk and honestly I think there are probably only like 5-6 guys on this list who won’t be drafted in the first round. The guys I think are a bit of a reach to be in the first round at all are Benjamin Morrison, Nic Scourton, Grey Zabel and maybe 2-3 others.

For some time, I had EDGE rusher Abdul Carter going to Cleveland to pair up with Myles Garrett and basically destroy offenses, but the reality is that their offense needs so much help and Hunter also can play an incredible cornerback. The Giants also need offense but Carter is clearly the Best Player Available. Which is, in general, how I tried to make the rest of the round fall.

The news that Derek Carr is either injured or trying to get traded makes the Saints a no-brainer contender to take Shedeur Sanders at QB. They could swerve and wait until the 2nd round - they have quite a lot of needs - but Sanders seems to want to come to New Orleans and can be a new answer at the most important position.

My biggest disappointment here is that the first round works out great for the Cowboys, where they sit pretty and get the top ranked (non-Travis Hunter edition) receiver in the draft. We don’t love that.

Here, and below, I have the 49ers reaching a bit to fill their biggest need, DT. Ideally, they could trade down but unless someone wants to come up and grab Tet McMillan so the Cowboys miss out (please! Do this!) I don’t see an opportunity. This could also be Walter Nolen or Kenneth Grant but Harmon just feels like the guy this team would like. But again, I don’t know much.

The Steelers here could reach for a QB if Aaron Rodgers is still meditating on his life next Thursday. It feels like they should have learned a lesson from the Kenny Pickett experiment and wouldn’t do that. That said, they don’t have a 2nd round pick due to the trade for DK Metcalf, so I guess it’s possible that Jaxson Dart or Jalen Milroe jump up into the first to play for Mike Tomlin.

Pickett still out here taking strays.

And here’s my 49ers-centric draft:

Of course, there’s no way this happens. But the nice thing here is that they solve problems on the DL and OL, they get a Dre Greenlaw replacement in Chris “Pooh” Paul, Jr., while filling other key holes like WR (Savion Williams is also considered a Deebo clone). My big whiff here is that there isn’t really edge rush help (apologies to whoever Barryn Sorrell is, he was just listed at the right position.) I think getting an OT, OG and OC would be massive for the program - I doubt the team does that. I took two defensive tackles, and that is a true need, but would they double down?

And because I can’t help myself I couldn’t resist a slightly different tweak, where the 49ers find an edge rusher they like enough to take at 11. Edge is such a premium position that it’s possible they pounce. Consider this my 1B Mock Draft for the 49ers.

One thing a lot of mocks done by national reporters have done for the 49ers is prioritize cornerback, something I intentionally did not do. They did lose Charvarius Ward but with some depth signings at CB plus Demo Lenoir and Renardo Green, I feel strongly the team doesn’t consider it a priority need.

In the nature of transparency, I’ll use my scoring method and report back after the draft to see how I did.

For the record, and because Matty R asked, last year I didn’t do a full mock draft, but I made three predictions about the draft.

My predictions, ranked in order of least likely to happen to most, were:

1. Brandon Aiyuk would be traded (Honestly…I think it was close.)

2. The 49ers would not take an Offensive Lineman in the first round, despite it being an obvious need.

3. The 49ers would “overdraft a low priority position.” My specific quote was: “To me, the most likely way this would happen here is if they take a receiver – tight end or wideout – before the end of Friday (Day 2, Round 3).” Well…they took a wideout in the FIRST round in Ricky Pearsall. Now, it turns out in 2025 this is not a low priority position as Pearsall will likely be starting at least until Aiyuk returns from injury. But at the time it was a luxury.

So, that’s pretty good! At worst, 2 out of 3.

Any comments? Does this look way off-base to you or a good move by whoever you root for?