The Steelers’ coaches and scouts have begun meeting to discuss the draft, the Post-Gazette reports. In these meetings, they’ll do “readings” to give each draft prospect a grade, which they’ll use when the actual draft comes up.
The same post has a note about mock drafts:
I love these mock drafts everyone does starting about two months before the real draft. Fantasy football at its ultimate.
There were, what, more than 9 million entries in ESPN’s bracket contest on the NCAA and two got the Final Four correct? That’s about the record of all these mock drafts when it’s said and done. Maybe two would be high.
Well, the NFL Draft is a lot more predictable than March Madness is. It’s not like we’ll have some guy who had been perceived as a seventh-round talent being selected first overall, at least not completely out of nowhere. I take the author’s point, though, about mock drafts being nearly as unreal as the name “mock” implies. But that doesn’t mean they’re worthless. They help us understand who all the players are and what the goals of each team are, so that when the real NFL Draft comes around, we understand what teams might be thinking.