A draft skeptic tries a Buccaneers mock draft

The NFL Draft has occupied four months of the Buccaneers fan calendar. Since January, Bucs fans have been spending the bulk of their football time speculating about need, hyping up players, and making sweeping statements about where those players will end up in the pros.

If it were up to me, the NFL Draft would take place close to the beginning of March. Why do we need more than one month after the Super Bowl to evaluate prospects? After the Super Bowl, the combine is held. There would be a couple of weeks left for pro days, then the draft would happen. After that, miracle of miracles, the draft would be over.

For those who are not fans of the NFL Draft itself, the four months of draft talk is borderline unbearable. I’m often left with some questions about the event. How many ‘elite’ players do NFL people think are in the league at any given time, for example. Oh do we hear that word a lot come draft season, but to me if the quality isn’t rare within the league, then simply being in the league is enough to give you the status. More or less, ‘elite’ is nothing but a buzzword in football circles, meaning as close to nothing as you can get.

Of course, in saying all of this I am doing little more than raining on the parades of millions of NFL fans. For many, only football will do, and talking about the draft prolongs the amount of time the game is in our minds. Sure, a lot of us can just turn on a hockey game or a baseball game to pass the time until kickoff 2018, but everybody else just has the draft.

It is in that light that I went to a mock draft simulator to conduct my very own mock draft, selecting as the Buccaneers while the computer did the rest. I did some research, listened to some draft talk, and went right into it. Let’s take a look at one possible way the draft could play out.

Disclaimer: Tim Williams is not an NFL General Manager and would undoubtedly make a terrible NFL GM. There would have to be a six-digit number of people that you, the reader, would rather entrust with a war room than Tim Williams.

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In the mock draft simulator I used, the first three players off the board were quarterbacks. This might not be the most likely scenario, given that the New York Giants would then need to figure out whether to start the rookie and part ways with Eli Manning. It is not, however, impossible to imagine.

Keep in mind, hype aside, that NFL Draft prospects are generally lumped close together from pick to pick. Just about everyone in the top ten of somebody’s draft board has the potential to end up in the Hall of Fame. There is a lot of uncertainty this year because there’s little dropoff in the top ten.

I toyed with the idea of picking Minkah Fitzpatrick with the Buccaneers’ first round pick. To me, Fitzpatrick fills a much deeper need for the Buccaneers in a passer’s division. At the same time, trying to put myself in the shoes of Jason Licht, the pressure to draft Barkley would be intense. After all, the way people talk, you would think somebody has already carved out his Pro Football Hall of Fame bust in eager anticipation.

To be honest, I don’t think the Buccaneers employ enough variety in their running attack to bring on somebody like Barkley. All the talent in the world won’t do a team any good if they don’t properly utilize it, and the Bucs are already flush with skill position players who need the football regularly. Personally, I would rather roll the dice with Peyton Barber and a couple of veteran backs than hope that the Buccaneers overhaul their offense for a rookie, which I believe they would have to do.

Still, if Saquon Barkley is on the board at 7, it would be a bigger story for the Bucs to not pick him. A safety can be great and never get his proper due, just ask John Lynch when it comes time for Hall of Fame voting every year. Public demand says the Buccaneers need a running back, that they’re comfortable blaming their lack of run production in 2017 entirely on the people getting carries. If he’s on the board, Barkley is the pick. I’ll admit, I was hoping for Bradley Chubb instead.

In this scenario, Barkley would return kicks and punts as well as playing in the backfield. The Buccaneers’ poor play in the return game was an underspoken reason they were often in a poor position in 2017. They need to improve in the third phase, and getting a premier player who can return kicks and punts would help tremendously in that.

With the splashy pick sorted out, I waited on the Buccaneers’ second round pick. I was left with three solid options: Center James Daniels, Guard Billy Price, or Cornerback Mike Hughes. The Buccaneers’ offensive line needs upgrades and so too does the secondary. With running back sorted out, trenches and defense should be the focus.

In the end, the pick had to be Mike Hughes. The offensive line disappointed in 2017, but improvement in the secondary is mission-critical for one key reason: Everyone else in the NFC South can pass extremely well. The Buccaneers will not improve in their division until they make it difficult to pass on the defense. Last year, it was remarkably easy to beat the Buccaneers in the air.

Hughes also went to Central Florida, after a long collegiate journey that involved stops in North Carolina and Garden City Community College. If Barkley would be unwilling to return kicks and punts, Hughes did a solid job in the return gme at UCF.

Had I been allowed, I would likely have traded up two picks to take Arden Key instead. Key went the pick in front of the Buccaneers in this mock. Granted, with Jason Pierre-Paul and Vinny Curry arriving, there’s less direct need for an edge rusher, but there is no such thing as too much pressure on the QB.

Tampa Bay has no third round pick, so I spent that round watching tackles, centers, and guards come off the board.

In the fourth round, I was left with no options on the offensive line, where the Bucs need help. Wanting to continue locking up the secondary, I went for Marcus Allen out of Penn State. Having the same name as a legend gives me some pause, but if Isaiah Thomas can be a useful NBA point guard, maybe there’s room for multiple people with the same name to be grerat at a sport. Allen has a lot of really good superlatives in his scouting report, and could start right away for a Bucs team so pressed in the defensive backfield that Chris Conte remains on the roster.

Tampa Bay’s fifth round pick gave me few clear cut options, but I ended up taking Scott Quessenberry, a center out of UCLA. If the Buccaneers do not come out of the draft with a lineman or two, they are going to be taking a big risk that their veterans will bounce back from disappointing 2017 seasons.

Toward the end of the mock draft I found myself just guessing. Let’s face it, it’s insane to do a mock draft that covers the entire event. The board will never shape out according to plan, and one would need to read hundreds of scouting reports to have any idea who we’re looking at.

In the sixth round I took Poona Ford and Taron Johnson. Ford, a defensive lineman, can add to the depth of a team that was so pressed on the D-line in 2017 that injuries forced them to run a two man front at times. Johnson likewise adds to depth in the secondary.

The Buccaneers have the second to last pick in this year’s draft. I used it on Phillip Lindsay to provide RB depth in case anything should go wrong with Barkley, which the draftniks assure me is impossible.

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After a seven round mock draft, to be honest I haven’t softened to the concept. Like the draft itself, I was simply glad the mock was over.

If you ask me, the fun part comes after the draft. If you’re going to speculate on rookies, speculate on the ones you know your favorite team will be fielding next year, rather than ones that they could if things work out just so. The latter option only opens yourself up to disappointment, and the NFL Draft is supposed to be about hope.

Sure, many of the same teams are such fixtures in the top ten we can probably pencil them into the top ten again next year. And sure, if picking high in the draft was a franchise must than the New England Patriots are even more impossible than we realized. Largely, the draft is a state for hype and speculation.

That is not to say that fans shouldn’t enjoy Thursday night’s first round and the later days of the draft. It is, however, a warning. Let the drafter beware.