It's mock roundup time! Highlights are below the jump.
- SB Nation's first round mock is here. They added possible trades, which is a bit unique right now. Not necessarily incorrect, just unique. Pro: they're projecting how people act! Con: there's something else they can get wrong.
- SI.com's first round mock is here. At first glance, it seems pretty normal; maybe this is the control mock. There's a trade, but it's late in the first round.
- ESPN's NFL Blog Network's mock is here. I'm mainly linking to this because this involves guys who may actually know team's weaknesses and needs, not necessarily because I trust they've watched more than five college football games this season. Plus, Todd McShay isn't involved with it, which means it's okay.
Information obtained at a quick glance from these guys - staying SEC-centric, of course:
- Cam "Juice" Newton and Marcel Dareus are pretty much the consensus 1-2. Your requisite pot-stirring goes below. (Unfortunately, none of those mocks have an Auburn player going 28th, much less an Alabama player going 27th.)
- Patrick Peterson - who's been on many occasions called the best player in this draft - goes 5th, 7th, and 4th, respectively. This doesn't sound like the Eric Berry situation where secondary players drop even though they're the best player in the draft, nope. Not at all. And it's not like Berry excelled as a rookie or anything. Did anyone even throw to Peterson's side of the field last season? It's almost like these guys don't watch college ball.
- SBN's mock draft has Jake Locker going 10th to the Redskins. That's exactly the kind of short-sighted, attempted flash-in-the-pan pick I'd expect from Dan Synder. For those of you who are wondering, I'm stuck with Redskins games in the DC area, and I'm not particularly happy about it. I figure that if I have to suffer through watching their games, their fans might as well suffer through watching their games, too.
- The Titans, picking at 8th, are projected to get Blaine Gabbert, Nick Fairley, and Nick Fairley. I don't know what they're going to do to clone Fairley, but there are worse fates.
- Sir Only-Appearing-In-One-Mock: Ryan Mallett! 15th in the SBN mock; apparently they were the only ones to watch him in college. Oddly, all three drafts have Andy Dalton going in the first round, which I don't get. (It's not that he's not good, it's that the things he's good at aren't used in the NFL because they're schematically superior to anything ever. All Hail.)
- SEC player count: 4 of the top 10 in SBN (10 of 32 overall), 6 of the top 10 in SI (9 of 32 overall), and 7 of the top 10 in ESPN (11 of 32 overall). With that being said, in all drafts SEC teams have three of the top 4 - A.J. Green is a consensus 4th pick.