2024 Road to the Draft – Part 2

January 24, 2023

By Noonefromtampa

Team Updates

No announcements have been made regarding Washington’s front office structure. The head coach interviews are progressing with face-to-face interviews with candidates eligible for that role. Some of the top candidates will have to wait since the Lions, 49ers and Ravens are still playing.

Draft Data

So far, 103 mock drafts have been published since December and last year we ended up tracking 384 different mocks. The Commanders will have the 2^nd overall pick in the first round.  The position picked by descending frequency is:

The players mock picked to the Commanders at the 2^nd pick are in descending frequency:

Drake Maye is the leader by 2-to-1 over Caleb Williams with Jayden Daniels a distant third. As we get more into the draft activities like the combine, I expect Daniels’ stock to rise and the pick count to increase.

Thoughts

A few mock draft prognosticators still have the Commanders trading up with the Bears to pick Caleb Williams.  I don’t see that as a viable option given the new focus on using analytics. Most football draft analytics stress trading down over trading up, giving greater value to more draft picks over fewer picks. The analytical view is that selecting a greater number of picks allows for a greater chance to find valuable players. The understanding is that no matter how smart you are drafting, you are going to have some misses for various reasons such as injuries. Also, having a greater influx of early career players on rookie deals frees up cap space to re-sign key players and free agents.

Sources: nflmockdraftdatabase.com, nfldraftbuzz.com, overthecap.com, sports-reference.com