The music nerd's NFL Mock Draft
A draft board and an Album of The Year ranking are basically the same thing, if you really think about it
I have a big plan for the next few years: At some point before I’m 30, I will be a well-rounded NFL Draft nerd.
At present moment, I am certainly an avid NFL Draft fan.
I watch the perfectly okay Kevin Costner movie Draft Day every year as a tradition. I could rattle off a lot more 7th round prospects than your casual football watcher. But I couldn’t give you much of a scouting report on them.
Most years, I key in on a few players that my Vikings are purportedly interested in. Then I build conclusions on the rest based on 1) what I’ve learned from a few notable football analytics, 2) athletic testing numbers, 3) the opinions of actual draft experts and 4) what I’ve seen while watching games passively, something true draft gurus snidely call the “eye test.”
This is the equivalent of disliking an album you never heard all the way through because you didn’t dig the singles and read a bad review in a music magazine.
I know what you’re thinking.
Gannon, this a music blog. I do not give a damn about the NFL Draft!
I have a point, and here it is: My goal to become a moderately intelligent NFL Draft nerd feels markedly similar to the inflection point when I started becoming a more well-rounded music listener.
This was 2020, in the early pandemic, when we all needed something to fill time. I spurned the TikTok challenges and turned to music obsession instead.
Until March 2020, I would have told everyone who asked me that I was a huge music nerd. I was a host at the college radio station. I went to a few concerts a month. I just began collecting vinyl. I checked the boxes.
But my knowledge was pretty limited to the kind of music I cared about at that time. The stuff my family played growing up, songs I found through Spotify algorithms, radio rap. It wasn’t all bad (though a lot of it was bad). It was just very narrow. When other self-proclaimed big music nerds at the college radio station started making conversation about The Strokes and I only knew “Someday,” I felt like a poser.
Editor’s note: I still love “Someday” and if you don’t, I am mad at you.
So I set out to educate myself. I listened to more than 400 albums that year I’d never heard before, pulling from a list curated by recommendations from people I know and entries on several “Greatest Albums of All-Time” lists.
That summer, I listened to the entire Radiohead discography in one day. I heard The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill for the first time. I made an informed choice about my favorite Beatles album — Abbey Road, by the way, with Rubber Soul close behind. I then did the same thing in 2021, listening to around 300 more albums from across music history to flesh out my knowledge.
In 2022, I focused on current records, listening to more than 400 albums from just that year. I refined my taste, discovering genre pockets like DIY emo and lo-fi folk that would have been foreign to me two years earlier. I’ve listened to a few hundred albums every year since.
In the last five years, I went from a mild music fan to an informed one. I’m by no means a music expert, but at least I can back up my hot takes now. I’m hoping to get to that point when it comes to NFL Draft discussion soon, too.
The best part? Listening to new music and studying for the NFL Draft is actually pretty similar. A Big Board is basically an Album of The Year list. There are data points about every album (release day, genre, sales, etc.) the same way there are about an NFL Draft prospect (college, height, weight, position).
There are your mainstream picks — players from schools like Alabama or Ohio State are your Sabrina Carpenters and Post Malones — but the real joy of draft research is finding a deep cut you rock with. It’s even better when that player turns out to be a star later on. Is Delaware running back Marcus Yarns the Guard Dog by Searows (2022) of this Draft? Probably.
Most of all, draft boards in any given year are as subjective and scattered as year-end album rankings. Brat has haters and so does Missouri wide receiver Luther Burden III. (Me personally, I think they’re both fun and just victims of their own hype.)
Ranking albums and ranking prospects are both harmless and fun exercises that make the core hobby — watching football, enjoying music — a little bit more exciting.
So yeah, I’m a Draft fan. Eventually, I’ll be a Draft nerd. But for now, I’m still going to enjoy making an NFL Mock Draft to predict where each player might land. For the sake of this music blog, I’ll just lean into what I know best.
Here is the music nerd’s NFL Mock Draft.
For the sake of my sanity and yours — and because I don’t really feel like putting Oluwafemi Oladejo in music terms — I’m only writing about the first 10 picks. But I’ll include the full first round predictions for my fellow draft freaks.
1. Tennessee Titans: Cam Ward, QB, Miami
In football terms: Desperate to get their QB of the future, the Titans take the man with the most upside. Ward, if Tennessee can surround him with a good roster, has a chance to be the next big things.
In music terms: When a critically acclaimed album you liked, but didn’t love, keeps popping up at the top of year-end lists. You don’t really get it, but you aren’t a hater enough to argue otherwise. Yeah, Cam Ward, is the Did you know there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd. by Lana Del Rey of this draft.
2. Cleveland Browns: Travis Hunter, WR/CB, Colorado
In football terms: An elite two-way talent, Hunter gives Browns fans something to root for while they wait for their QB savior to come in a future draft.
In music terms: The André 3000 flute album. One of the greatest rappers of all-time can just switch up and go classical for an hour and a half? How does he have the stamina?
3. New York Giants: Abdul Carter, EDGE, Penn State
In football terms: At a point in their rebuild where they just need talent, the Giants decide not to reach on a quarterback and go with the best player available. Abdul Carter is a beast of a pass-rusher to pair with Brian Burns.
In music terms: You wind up at the wrong stage at a major music festival, but end up liking the artist performing more than the one you were planning to see. This happened to me once with The Hives. Everyone should see The Hives at least once.
4. New England Patriots: Will Campbell, OL, LSU
In football terms: The Patriots don’t overthink the “arm size” concerns here, and go with the wire-to-wire best tackle in this class. Drake Maye’s blindside should be secure for the next decade.
In music terms: An artist you love whose most popular album is their worst, making it frustrating to talk about their music with anyone unfamiliar. In my case, let’s say Lupe Fiasco. Enough about “The Show Goes On”! Have you heard “MS. MURAL”???
5. Jacksonville Jaguars: Mason Graham, DL, Michigan
In football terms: New Jaguars GM James Gladstone brings his philosophy over from the Rams: Get a wrecker on the defensive interior and build outward.
In music terms: A rollicking rock record that isn’t perfect, but it’s undeniably catchy and you’re never going to skip it when it comes on. Example: That new Beddy Rays album and also the last Beddy Rays album. Basically anything by those Aussies rips.
6. Las Vegas Raiders: Armand Membou, OL, Missouri
In football terms: Another new GM brings their old squad’s mentality, as John Spytek looks to build a Tampa Bay-tier offensive line in Vegas.
In music terms: A widely beloved — but very abrasive — album. It sounds really grating at first, then it hooks you. The truth is somewhere in the middle, because it’s mostly solid. It just needs to grow on you. The latest Jane Remover album fits the bill.
7. New York Jets: Tyler Warren, TE, Penn State
In football terms: On a roster filled with holes, the Jets go with the best player on the board, a dynamic tight end for new QB Justin Fields to lean on.
In music terms: A producer you don’t really love is taking on one of your favorite artists’ new albums. Maybe it’ll work out like Gnx, but I’m worried.
8. Carolina Panthers: Jalon Walker, EDGE/LB, Georgia
In football terms: Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And there’s a lot of smoke about the Panthers loving Jalon Walker. How will they use him on defense, though?
In music terms: Rebirth by Lil Wayne. Are you a rock album or a rap album? Because the tweener status makes things sound really ugly sometimes. But then again, there’s also the certified banger “Knockout,” so I can deal with a few duds.
9. New Orleans Saints: Shedeur Sanders, QB, Colorado
In football terms: Begging for mercy at the end of the Derek Carr era, the Saints look to the future with this pro-style quarterback who will put butts in seats.
In music terms: A nepo baby whose music you actually kind of like, but not enough to defend them when it comes up. King Princess or Maya Hawke, perhaps.
10. Chicago Bears: Ashton Jeanty, RB, Boise State
In football terms: The Offseason Champions complete their three-peat, grabbing the splashiest steal of the Top 10, a potential final infinity stone to their offense of playmakers.
In music terms: A pop album that’s been played to death on the radio. But you still love it, because a good record is a good record. And goddamn it, Guts is a good record.