CBS

This mock draft will be a little bit different. Even though my name is on it, these are neither the picks I would make for each team, nor the picks I necessarily think each team will make. Instead, our goal is to capture what the betting world is saying about how the first round of the NFL Draft will unfold using the odds posted in several different markets across multiple sportsbooks. Why does that matter? We've seen in recent years that the betting market can be ahead of conventional wisdom about what's going to happen in the draft, including last year when Travon Walker went No. 1 overall to the Jaguars instead of Aidan Hutchinson. We saw Trey Lance to the 49ers start to emerge in the betting markets before the connection was made by national reporters in the run up to Draft Day. And we're going to be able to point to several line shifts this year after Thursday's action comes to a close and say, 'See, they told us this was going to happen.' Even though betting the NFL Draft involves gauging probabilities and finding value while on the outside looking in, it's not an athletic competition where information only gets you so far. If your sources are good enough, you could theoretically nail every single Round 1 pick in a way that would be impossible if trying to predict the play-by-play of an NFL game. And because betting the NFL Draft is an information race above all else, the sportsbooks have to be careful about what they post, when they post it and how much they allow bettors to 'risk.'