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Me vs. Mel: The Final Tally

In 1994, Colts GM Bill Tobin said this about ESPN's Mel Kiper, "Who the hell is Mel Kiper? Mel Kiper has no more credentials to do what he’s doing than my neighbor, and my neighbor’s a postman."

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Well, the NFL Draft is all said and done. Overall, it seemed to lack the excitement that past drafts had. Only two trades in the first round, and one was just to jump two picks. After all the hype, it was lackluster.

But after months mocking my draft against Mel Kiper, it's time to actually tally up the correct picks to see who actually "knew" more about the draft.

I'll be tallying correct first round picks from the most recent mock drafts that were published online. I'll also be grabbing the first round mocks from ESPN's Tood McShay (even though I can't stand him), Stampede Blue's Josh Wilson and Stephen Reed, and of course the Stampede Blue's Writers Mock Draft.

Let's see who comes out on top:

We'll start with our two friends at ESPN, Kiper and McShay.

Mel Kiper

Kiper tallied seven correct picks, but none after slotting Melvin Gordon to the Chargers. I was most impressed with Kiper slotting Ereck Flowers to the Giants at number 9.

Kiper: 7/32

Todd McShay

McShay outperformed his ESPN colleague by hitting on 10 of the 32 picks, with his last correct pick coming at 24 where he correctly picked D.J. Humphries to the Arizona Cardinals. I was most impressed with McShay's pick of the 49ers and Arik Armstead. With so much defensive names on the board, San Francisco could have gone many directions, and McShay picked the right one.

McShay: 10/32

Now we'll transition to the Stampede Blue Mock Drafts.

Ben Lamers

Well that didn't go well. My most recent mock came in early April as I didn't have time to pump out one right before the draft due to being stuck in LA traffic most of Wednesday (how do people live out here??). That's no excuse though. I only hit on three picks, and they were all within the first four picks.

Lamers: 3/32

Josh Wilson

Josh correctly picked six of the first rounders in his most recent mock draft. He hit the first three (something Kiper, McShay, and myself all failed to do) in the draft, and had a few more scattered about. His latest correct pick came all the down at 26, correctly slotting Breshad Perriman to the Ravens.

Wilson: 6/32

Stephen Reed

Stephen's Mock draft 5.0 correctly hit on four of the first round picks. Stephen had the second oldest final mock (that I could find) out of this whole exercise. He also correctly picked the top three picks, and then had Byron Jones going to Dallas as well.

Reed: 4/32

Stampede Blue Writers

Are five brains better than one? Apparently not. Josh, Matt, Andrew, Stephen, and I only correctly picked the top 3 in our mock draft. It could have been a little better if some idiot (me) had swapped the Browns and Vikings picks at 11 and 12, sorry guys.

Stampede Blue Writers: 3/32

Alright so apparently Kiper knows more than I do, so I guess he can keep his job this year. The big winner, though, was Todd McShay, the only one to have correct picks in the double digits. I can't stand him, but he did well this year.

Also, a note that our own Josh Wilson was only one pick off of Kiper, which is impressive.

For the rest of us, there's always next year.