Tis’ the Season to be Mocking

Tis’ the Season to be Mocking

The NFL Draft. Also known as Nerds Christmas Day. Or The Dweebs Super Bowl. At least it is for me, as I am the ultimate draft nerd.

Without question, it is the greatest non-sporting event in the calendar, and quite frankly, it’s better than a lot of actual sporting events we sit and watch every single night. Consider this: I would much rather watch a multi-millionaire in a $3,000 suit walk to a lectern and read out the name of another, younger multi-millionaire in front of thousands of drunk people who then either celebrate or commiserate, than pretty much anything else. Whilst streaming platforms and legacy broadcasters fight over billion-dollar rights for the NFL, the NBA, and the Premier League, give me 67-year-old Roger Goodell speaking into a Sennheiser microphone and telling 21-year-old Reuben Bain he’s taking his short arms to Tennessee or Arizona.

Or back to Miami.

This time of the year, there’s nothing better than a mock draft. They’re everywhere. Dissected by everyone. You make a good pick for the fanbase of Team A, then you’re a hero. A bad one? You’re a jerk off who should rot in hell and turn off his or her DMs for a week or two. Or delete your account.

Or your life.

Yet mock drafts offer hope. The American poet, novelist, literary critic, and Yale professor Robert Penn Warren has a fantastic line which sums them up perfectly:

“This is the process whereby pain of the past in its pastness may be converted into the future tense of joy.”

Of course, Penn Warren was exploring themes of memory, irony, and the contrast between perceived history and personal vision, rather than who he thinks Jon Eric Sullivan should take at pick 75 in the third round, but you get the point.

Mock’s offer excitement. Or dread. If you’re anything like me you spend at least ten minutes a day from September till around ten minutes before the first round begins on those mock draft machines, endlessly making trades, pretending you’re a GM – who’d almost certainly be played by Ryan Gosling in a film – with a laissez-faire attitude to the following years’s picks because hell, this isn’t real life anyway so who cares if I deal next year’s one for another go in round two? Not me, buddy. Not me.

Frankly, some of my mock drafts on Pro Football Network’s simulator should be hung in The Louvre. The Steelers class of 1974, which yielded four Hall of Famers (Lynn Swann, Jack Lambert, John Stallworth, Mike Webster) and undrafted free agent Donnie Shell, to which they built a dynasty, has nothing on what I did on a cold Tuesday in November just before I went to sleep. That 1986 49ers draft where they picked eight massive foundation pieces for their late 1980’s Super Bowl run – Larry Roberts, Tom Rathman, Tim McKyer, John Taylor, Steve Wallace, Kevin Fagan and Don Griffin – and one Hall of Famer – Charles Haley? Not even close to how I moved up and down the PFN board like prime Ozzie Newsome and rebuilt the Dolphins in one fell swoop about a month ago at the bus stop.

2026 provides all of us Dolphins fans with something truly exciting: two first rounders, three picks in the first 43 and seven in the top 94……I haven’t had this much pre-draft excitement since we had three picks in the first round in 2020 and…….well……oh.

Anyway……..

Over the last 48 hours, two of the online big dogs in the draft space have released their latest mocks. In fact, we’re a Mel Kiper away from the perfect trifecta. Alas, Mel’s keeping his latest incarnation of the first 32 selections to himself, so in the meantime, we’ve had drafts from Todd McShay, formerly of ESPN and now at The Ringer, and Field Yates of the self-titled ‘World Wide Leader in Sports’ and who’s shuffled his way into the selection meeting picture over the last few years.

To be fair, the pair each delivered significant joy, albeit I suspect Yates’s holds more truth. McShay, who talks with the confidence of a man who forgot he put three quarterbacks in his 2026 mock last summer, none of whom will likely be taken on the first two days, had the Dolphins taking USC’s stud receiver Makai Lemon at 11, Tennessee junior corner Colton Hood at 30, and UCF’s rising edge rusher Malachi Lawrence at 43. The one standout was that two of the first three picks did nothing to address the very key phrasing that Jon Eric Sullivan used at his opening press conference when he said: “We will build from the inside out.” Of course, GMs don’t always tell the truth. Except that the two other pertinent things Sullivan said in that presser have already happened. Don’t forget that he told us he would get a QB first and then build around him, not the other way around. And that none of the current roster were off-limits when it came to potential trades.

Oh hi Jaylen Waddle!

Oh bye Jaylen Waddle!

And when you read Albert Breer’s column yesterday about the opportunity cost around Waddle’s age versus when Sullivan believes Miami will be competitive, it makes a whole heap of sense. But kudos to McShay regardless, because everyone knows you make lemonade with lemons.

This morning, Yates threw out his two-round mock and had the Dolphins taking what feels like a more realistic trio. Kicking off with Miami’s Francis Mauigoa, who would be a home run starter at RG from day one and who could kick out to RT when Austin Jackson inevitably gets hurt. At 30, he picked Texas A&M speedster Kevin ‘KC’ Concepcion, who’s coming into the facility for a 30 visit and offers the stretch the field explosion that Malik Willis will crave with that big arm. And at 43, he, too, took Lawrence as the Dolphins desperately try to boost that underwhelming pass rush.

There are exactly 30 days till the draft starts. Between now and then, there will be a million bundles of hope offered out by you and me and pundits and draftniks mocking hope, fear, and all the emotions in between. They’re not real. They’re just for fun. The real work starts on April 23rd in the hands of a man who, as a receiver at Gardner-Webb, never featured in a mock draft even once in his life, but who will try to deliver more Robert Penn Warren wisdom than anything we’ve ever had.

And nobody will be mocking that.