Sports Illustrated

Welcome to my first mock draft of the season, and sorry in advance. This year in particular felt arduous in terms of balancing team needs and trying to match players with certain characteristics coaches like, to the extent we think coaches like them. (An insane amount of coaching turnover doesn’t help matters, either.) This is also our first mock draft since the initial wave of free agency, meaning that rosters—and needs—have changed significantly since our last. A special thanks to Matt Maoncherian and the Sports Info Solutions guys for the work they did in their rookie handbook, which helped me out a lot in terms of coverage stats for defensive linemen, linebackers and corners, which is difficult to put together.