Q & A: Where is "Insert Name" Getting Drafted?

By:  Bobby Shores
Check out recent Q&A's:  Carl Nicks a Cowboy? Safest Position to Draft in the 1st Round? Arkansas Draft Prospect Jake Bequette-A Future Cowboy Why does the NFL still play the Pro Bowl? What Should the Cowboys do With Anthony Spencer?

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Question:  Where is Robert Griffin III (or any player for that matter) going to get drafted?

ReclinerQB Thoughts:  As it seems almost every single football related site in the world is currently pumping out mock drafts, I gotta say that there is very little that can be said about what is going to transpire in the upcoming NFL Draft with any certainty for multiple reasons.

Can I get in trouble for using this?

Combine - First the combine hasn't happened yet, and the combine has a very large impact on where a player is drafted, what team drafts him, etc. Most people think that the combine is a big deal because of fairly insignificant things like the actual workouts. In reality most teams value the combine for the medical check and the interviews. No matter how good a player looks on film, if they come across as a complete idiot, buffoon, way too cocky, etc. in an interview than that can cause a team to pull him off their board completely. Also just by sitting down with a prospect for 15-30 minutes, a team can really figure out whether or not that player fits within the culture of that team, and just like companies in the business world, each team has its own unique culture that players must be a fit for.

The best way to really see how a player will perform in the NFL is done by watching their college film, not watching them run 40 yards in a straight line in their underwear. As Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com always says "The only time an NFL player runs 40 yards in a straight line is when something either really good or really bad happens", and that's the truth, on 95% of the plays every game a player is only running in short bursts. Now this is not to say that the workouts are not important, as most of the drills have real world applications and will give a team some insight into how the players stack up physically to their peers in the NFL.

The combine numbers should not sway a team one way or the other though, look at Brandon Spikes, a player most people expected to to be a first round pick (a high one at that) who ran a really bad 40 time and it just reinforced what people thought of him on film, that he was a bit slow. Well the Patriots picked him up late in the second round and he has been a starter for them ever since.

Free Agency - The biggest reason in my mind why mock drafts are next to impossible to fill out this early in the off-season is because free agency has yet to happen. A lot of teams will fill a lot of their needs during free agency and can completely change the top of the draft. For example, do you think that a quarterback needy team that lands Matt Flynn or Peyton Manning in free agency is going to spend a Top 10 pick on a quarterback? Yea, me neither.

Let's take the Cowboys for instance, this is a team with a lot of needs to fill, and with where they are drafting there is a better than good chance that they will have a choice of one of one of the perceived premier players at most positions; Guard(David DeCastro), Cornerback(Dre Kirkpatrick/Janoris Jenkins), Safety(Mark Barron), Outside Linebacker(Courtney Upshaw). Defensive End(Quinton Coples/Devon Still). But there is a good chance that they will fill one or more of these major holes in free agency. For example, they will probably take DeCastro off their board if they grab Carl Nicks or Ben Grubbs in free agency.

Rumors/False Information - The last main reason why ANY mock draft is no more than a guessing game is because at this time of year NFL General Managers, Coaches and executives are all doing everything they can to conceal their true intentions. Not only will they publicly lie, they will also spread false information to their most trusted media friends, all in hopes of making their counterparts throughout the league unsure of what their true intentions really are. Some teams will only meet and bring in prospects they have NO intention of taking in the draft, while others will draft only players they publicly paraded around and others still will secretly charter planes and have secret meetings with prospects with nobody else knowing. All this in the name of hiding which 18-22 year old boy you are most interested in.

These are the uncertainties that make doing any meaningful mock drafts at this time of year an exercise in practice and fun. Even I really enjoy trying to predict where certain players will be drafted, it is fun to talk about amongst friends and colleagues and is a lot of fun to read and speculate.Once the combine is over with and after the first week of free agency though, the draft stuff will become much clearer.

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