2020 NFL Draft Prospects - April Mocks

Draft mocking has turned into an industry. Let’s add to the pile!

Here’s a fancy little chart that shows value by state:

The next chart is a bit confusing at first.

On the far left is the value for each state based on the players who went to school there. Clicking on that state will show all of the prospects from that state.

The prospects are listed by variance. If the variance is below zero, then teams are projected to “reach” and pick the player higher than what the “big board” would suggest. If the variance is above zero, then the player is expected to “slide” to a later pick. Being on the left side of the chart is good, being on the right side is bad, being at zero is fine. I’ve created a line at zero to make it easier to see. The darker the color and the higher the point number, the more valuable the player.

Checking out the variance from beginning to end is best done via a line graph. If you’re below the line, you’re being mocked lower than your big board value. If you’re above the line, you’re rising above your big board ranking and getting picked earlier than expected.

The rough methodology used for the Leagify charts is this: Each prospect is given a point value based on their current rank, which is given regardless of position (“Big Board” style).

Mock draft values:

• Top Pick: 40 Points
• Picks 2-10: 35 Points
• Picks 11-20: 30 Points
• Picks 21-32: 25 Points
• Picks 33-48: 20 Points
• Picks 49-64: 15 Points
• Round 3: 10 Points
• Round 4: 8 Points
• Round 5: 7 Points
• Round 6: 6 Points
• Round 7: 5 Points

The mock draft comes from DraftTek’s Mock Draft, which is a seven round mock draft. Only the most recent draft from April 7th is represented in the data, but I do have other mocks that go back about two months. This data is scraped, cleaned, and mushed, as well, and the source code is available here.