I enjoy watching football. And I am fascinated with the personnel decisions that go into making championship-caliber teams. So, naturally, I really like the NFL draft. It’s always fun to see who teams get, and then imagine how their choices will play out.

There’s just one thing I don’t like about the draft: the endless mock drafts that come before it. Those drive me nuts.

Don’t misunderstand me; I enjoy being an armchair GM and saying “Team X should draft so-and-so” as much as anyone. But most mock drafts aren’t really trying to predict what will happen, or even what you think should happen. They’re just saying “Hey! Team X could draft Player A. And then Team Y drafts player C. Where does that leave Player B and Team Z? But what if C goes to X, B goes to Z, and and A falls to late in the first round?” And on it goes. My point is, once the top quarterback prospects are gone–which is usually by the fifth pick–it’s anybody’s guess what will happen. That’s why you watch the draft–to see who goes where.

Now, I have no problem with predicting outcomes of games. To me, that’s fun. But that’s because I believe you can actually have a success rate significantly greater than 50% if you know the game. (I don’t, by the way.) But with mock drafts, it seems like it’s all just guessing and fantasizing based on nothing in particular. You might have some idea of a team’s needs, but even then they sometimes surprise you by taking a player they don’t need.

I never understood the point of it, myself. Add to all this the fact that teams sometimes deliberately put out misinformation and it makes seem even more like just a guessing game. I prefer to try to analyze a team’s needs and figure out who they should take based on that–though the drawback to this is that I don’t know if I’m right or wrong until several seasons later.