Okay, so I’ve been messing around with this NFL mock draft thing, and let me tell you, it’s been a wild ride. I started this whole thing, just wanting to see how it works.
First, I hit up a few different websites that have these mock draft simulators. I tried out the Mockout Sim Engine first. It claimed to be super realistic, simulating all 7 rounds and all that jazz. The trade logic is supposed to be really advanced, taking into account team tendencies and what not. I went through several rounds of drafting, and it seems that this website really works well.
Then I moved on to Fantasypros. Someone told me that they get their quick draft wizard from “*”, which is supposedly the best. Then I spent several hours on this site. I selected some players and saw what would happen. However, I got kind of lost with all the options they had.
After that, I heard about Pro Football Focus, or PFF, which seems to be a big deal these days. They’ve got a ton of in-depth info, and their mock draft simulator is customizable, letting you play GM for any team. Some guys mentioned that Shedeur Sanders and Cam Ward were the top quarterbacks for the 2025 draft. And, there’s also this guy Jalen Milroe from Alabama who’s apparently more of a project than an NFL starter. So, I jumped onto PFF and started making picks. I tried to find a balance between picking the best available players and addressing team needs.
I also checked out the NFL Mock Draft Simulator from Pro Football Network. They have this thing where you can do user-sim, sim-user, and sim-to-sim trades. This process gave me a lot of experience on how draft works.
A friend of mine told me that Sleeper is the best platform if you want a real draft feel. I tried it out, but honestly, it didn’t really click for me. It felt a bit too complicated for what I was looking for.
I noticed that Mel Kiper is supposed to be really good at predicting draft outcomes. I did not know this man before, but I will do more research about him.
Finally, I realized that PFF has been doing a lot of work mapping out the draft landscape. It was interesting to see how much effort goes into this stuff.
So, after all this, I feel like I’ve got a pretty good handle on how these mock drafts work. I completed several mock drafts and got more familiar with the process. It’s definitely a fun way to kill some time and get hyped for the actual draft. I’m no expert, but I definitely learned a lot. I think this mock draft thing is really interesting.