86% of mock drafts published since Monday have Cowboys picking a wide receiver – but which one?

All of the mock draft action these days has the Cowboys taking a wide receiver.

On the premise that the predictive value of many mock drafts is greater than that of a single mock, we regularly a take a survey of a large number of mock drafts here on Blogging The Boys.

At the end of January, we published our first mock draft database of the season. At the time, 22 of the 25 mocks (88%) we looked at were projecting the Cowboys to take either RB Ashton Jeanty (13 mocks) or WR Luther Burden (9). I can already tell you that neither of those players shows up in today’s mock draft round up. Not once.

In mid March, right after after the first wave of free agency, we looked at 40 of the latest mock drafts and found that the mock draft community had pivoted quite significantly over the previous six weeks: WR & RB remained the most popular positions but at 48% of the mocks, they were a far cry from the 88% we saw in our January mock draft summary. In total, 18 different players were mocked to the Cowboys in the 40 mocks, so there was clearly no consensus on what the Cowboys would do in the draft at the time.

Today, we’ve summarized 35 of the latest mock drafts published on or after Monday this week (see table at the bottom of this post), and we see yet another seismic shift in the mock draft landscape. 30 of the 35 mocks (86%) published since Monday have the Cowboys picking a wide receiver, with WRs Tetairoa McMillan and Matthew Golden getting 15 votes each. OL Tyler Booker has 3 votes, CB Shavon Revel and RB Omarion Hampton get one vote each.

Interestingly, some of the bigger names in the mock draft business (Daniel Jeremiah, Mel Kiper, Todd McShay, Dane Brugler, Lance Zierlein) have recently thrown their name behind Matthew Golden, and Golden’s rise through the mocks to the No. 12 spot is something we haven’t often seen before.

In January, not a single mock had the Cowboys picking Golden, not one. In March, that number increased slightly, with 5 of the 40 mocks sending Golden to the Cowboys at #12, two more mocks had him going even higher. At the same time, seven mocks had him dropping out of the first round all together. And that was just four weeks ago!

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly who started the Golden-to-Dallas train, but from my records it looks like Daniel Jeremiah of NFL.com was the first “big name” to mock Golden to Dallas on March 18th, and Golden’s stock has risen sharply since.

But how much stock can we put into what a bunch of mock drafters dream up? Some NFL teams do find value in checking out mock drafts.

According to The Athletic, it may be way more than you probably think:

In polling front office members across the league, The Athletic found that 15 of 18 teams utilize mock drafts in varying degrees in their pre-draft process. One NFC general manager believes every team uses them to some extent — and speculated that teams that say they don’t are probably lying.

Cincinnati Bengals coach Zac Taylor said media mocks have been “in every draft room I’ve been in since 2012,” when Taylor first worked in the NFL as the Miami Dolphins’ quarterbacks coach.

“So it’s maybe new that it’s out there in the world,” Taylor added. “But it’s not new to what I’ve been exposed to since the early part of my career.”

According to several general managers, although teams don’t view media mock drafts as infallible, many use them as a tool to help them prepare for a wide range of scenarios that could unfold on draft night.

Rams general manager Les Snead and his analytics department don’t take the mock drafts as gospel, but rather as another source of information they can use in their pre-draft process.

“Sometimes I go, ‘I don’t know why we’re really using that,’” Snead said. “Maybe it helps you make a decision of, in the second round, you might should pick this player over another one because maybe you can get that player in the third round. … But there is a strategy where you can go, ‘OK, this guy’s been mocking in the top 60 picks pretty consistently, so [he’s] probably not getting to (the) third round.’”

Snead said that he thinks that clear differences in certain picks between early and late mock drafts are done as “a favor for an agent.” Therefore, the later mock drafts are likely more accurate and better to gain information from ahead of the actual draft.

“When it gets closer to the draft, it’s almost like, ‘OK, favors are out. I’m gonna go with what I think is gonna happen,’” Snead added. “And maybe at that point they’ve talked to a lot of people and have a better understanding of what might (happen). Maybe as people figure out medical issues, intangible issues, things like that.”

So, here we are, a week before the draft, and mock drafters are aligning on the Cowboys being all in on a wide receiver. But which one?

ESPN’s Draft Predictor, which uses expert mock drafts, Scouts Inc. grades, and team needs to build a probabilistic forecast for the chance every prospect is taken at each pick, has McMillan slightly ahead of Golden.

The model gives McMillan a 50% chance of being available at No. 12, with the Bears (#10), 49ers (#11) and Cowboys (#12) as his most likely landing spots.

Golden on the other hand is projected to be available for the Cowboys almost 100% of the time, and his (current) range is somewhere between #16 and #22.

The ESPN Model was last updated on April 15th and as they update their database with the newest mocks, Golden’s numbers may improve in the coming days.

In the end, it’ll probably come town to a question of how well each player fits into the system in Dallas. On Monday this week, Mina Kimes asked Todd McShay which player would be a better fit in Dallas. McShay wasn’t confident that McMillan is the better player, but thinks McMillan is the better fit for the Cowboys.

Over to you: If the choice at No. 12 comes down to McMillan or Golden and a trade-down is not an option, who are you selecting?

“Coach Jerry” may have already made up his mind.

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