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DN Live Community Mock Draft: Recap

If you don't want to wade through over 1,500 comments from the three drafting threads, here's a neat and concise recap for your reading pleasure.

James Lang-US PRESSWIRE

First off, I want to thank all of the Daily Norseman members who participated in the Live Mock Draft last night.  It was a ton of fun, and this kind of event continues to prove how great of a community we have here in our little corner of the web.  You can read through all of the comments of the story stream to get a good idea of how things went, but I thought I would provide a bit of a recap for those of you that didn't want to wade through hundreds of comments.

The draft started shortly after 7:30pm CST with all 32 team owners accounted for, and the 1st round was full of trade proposals and wheeling and dealing.  Things got off to a pretty dramatic start as the Buffalo Bills pulled off an epic trade with the Houston Texans to move up from #9 overall to #1 overall.  In addition to swapping 1st round picks, the Bills also gave up a 2015 1st rounder and 3rd rounder, and 2016 3rd rounder and their 3rd and 4th round pick in the 2014 draft.  The Texans pulled off quite the haul, while the Bills promptly selected Jadeveon Clowney #1 overall.  There were many other trades in the 1st round, which delayed things a bit as I had to verify if the trades were possible and sufficiently balanced.  The first round took nearly an hour and a half to complete as a result, but pulling off trades of this nature is half the fun in a mock draft!  The first 7 picks had some major surprises.  First off, only one quarterback came off the board: Johnny Manziel to the Rams 2nd overall.  Secondly, no offensive tackles were taken until the Dolphins moved up to #11 to take Greg Robinson.  And lastly, there were three wide receivers and two linebackers taken in the top 7 selections: Sammy Watkins, Mike Evans, Odell Beckham, Khalil Mack and Anthony Barr.  In my opinion this seems unlikely to happen tomorrow night, but stranger things have happened in the real NFL draft.

In any case, when the Vikings were on the clock at #8 we had a lot of options.  MarkSP18 who was controlling the St. Louis Rams were interesting in trading up from #13 with their other 1st round pick, but those of us present to discuss the pick couldn't reach a consensus soon enough on whether we should do it, and Mark pulled the offer from the table.  Bridgewater, Bortles and Carr were amazingly all still on the board, as were C.J. Mosley, Darqueze Dennard and Ha-Ha Clinton-Dix.  After the trade was pulled, it basically came down to a choice between Teddy Bridgewater or Blake Bortles, and more people wanted Teddy Bridgewater, so he was our 1st round selection.   With Clowney, Manziel, Mack, Barr and Watkins all gone by pick #8, it made the choice of Bridgewater pretty easy.

The 2nd round went a little more smoothly as there were less trades for me to deal with, but it still took over an hour to complete.  The Vikings didn't have a lot of options in the 2nd as most of the top flight cornerbacks and safeties had already been taken.  Kyle Van Noy was the clear favorite and an easy choice for us to make, although we did consider a few other options before taking Van Noy.  By the time the 2nd round finished it was nearly 10pm CST and we debated about going forward with the 3rd round or not. But, enough people wanted to continue so I agreed to see it through to the bitter end, with one exception: no more trades.  We whizzed through the 3rd round in under an hour and the whole mock draft took about 3 and a half hours to complete...going just a little bit longer than I anticipated.

As we got deeper into the pool of draft picks, things began to get a little bit murky.  We had such good consensus on our 1st and 2nd round picks that it made the 3rd round seem much more difficult.  There were a lot of suggestions for pick #72 but it came down to a choice between OG Cyril Richardson and CB Bashaud Breeland.  In the end, Richardson appeared to garner just a few more votes and ultimately I let Arif's Consensus Big Board ranking cast the deciding vote as Richardson was ranked nearly 40 spots higher than Breeland.  It was a similar situation with our other 3rd round selection #96 overall.  Things were even murkier there and it came down to a choice between three different prospects: LB Yawin Smallwood, RB Terrance West and CB Jaylen Watkins.  In the end, Jaylen Watkins scored a few more votes than Yawin Smallwood and he became our second 3rd round selection.  So, our first four draft picks once again were as follows:

#8: QB Teddy Bridgewater, Louisville
#40: LB Kyle Van Noy, BYU
#76: OG Cyril Richardson, Baylor
#96: CB Jaylen Watkins, Florida

I'd say we successfully addressed the team's four biggest needs in this draft, and managed to find some pretty good value in the process.  The following is a table of all 100 draft picks in the 2014 Daily Norseman Live Community Mock Draft.

Team

Player Selection

1. Buffalo Bills (from Houston Texans)

Jadeveon Clowney

2. St. Louis Rams (from Washington Redskins)

Johnny Manziel

3. Jacksonville Jaguars

Sammy Watkins

4. Cleveland Browns

Mike Evans

5. Pittsburgh Steelers (from Oakland Raiders)

Khalil Mack

6. Atlanta Falcons

Anthony Barr

7. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Odell Beckham

8. Minnesota Vikings

Teddy Bridgewater

9. Houston Texans (Buffalo Bills)

Blake Bortles

10. Detroit Lions

Aaron Donald

11. Miami Dolphins (from Tennessee Titans)

Greg Robinson

12. Baltimore Ravens (from New York Giants)

Jake Mathews

13. St. Louis Rams

Zach Martin

14. Chicago Bears

Ha-Ha Clinton-Dix

15. Oakland Raiders (from Pittsburgh Steelers)

C.J. Mosley

16. Dallas Cowboys

Darqueze Dennard

17. Cleveland Browns (from New York Giants (from Baltimore Ravens))

Derek Carr

18. New York Jets

Taylor Lewan

19. Tennessee Titans (from Miami Dolphins)

Ryan Shazier

20. Arizona Cardinals

Eric Ebron

21. Green Bay Packers

Calvin Pryor

22. Philadelphia Eagles

Marqise Lee

23. Kansas City Chiefs

Justin Gilbert

24. Denver Broncos (from Cincinnati Bengals)

Kyle Fuller

25. San Diego Chargers

Louis Nix

26. New York Giants (from Cleveland Browns (from Indianapolis Colts))

Xavier Sua'Filo

27. New Orleans Saints

Brandin Cooks

28. Carolina Panthers

Jason Verrett

29. New England Patriots

Dee Ford

30. San Francisco 49ers

Allen Robinson

31. Cincinnati Bengals (from Denver Broncos)

Ra'Shede Hageman

32. Seattle Seahawks

Kony Ealy

1 (33). Houston Texans

Bradley Roby

2 (34). Washington Redskins

Cyrus Kouandijo

3 (35). Cleveland Browns

Morgan Moses

4 (36). Oakland Raiders

Kelvin Benjamin

5 (37). Atlanta Falcons

Antonio Richardson

6 (38). Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Timmy Jernigan

7 (39). Jacksonville Jaguars

Jimmie Ward

8 (40). Minnesota Vikings

Kyle Van Noy

9 (41). Buffalo Bills

JuWuan James

10 (42). Tennessee Titans

Bishop Sankey

11 (43). Green Bay Packers (from New York Giants)

Austin Seferian-Jenkins

12 (44). St. Louis Rams

Deone Bucannon

13 (45). Detroit Lions

Lamarcus Joyner

14 (46). Oakland Raiders (from Pittsburgh Steelers)

Dominique Easley

15 (47). Dallas Cowboys

Trent Murphy

16 (48). Baltimore Ravens

Stephen Tuitt

17 (49). New York Jets

Cody Latimer

18 (50). New England Patriots (from Tennessee Titans (from Miami Dolphins))

Jace Amaro

19 (51). Chicago Bears

Stanley Jean-Baptiste

20 (52). Arizona Cardinals

Tom Savage

21 (53). New York Giants (from Green Bay Packers)

Davante Adams

22 (54). Philadelphia Eagles

Scott Crichton

23 (55). Cincinnati Bengals

Pierre Desir

24 (56). San Francisco 49ers (from Kansas City Chiefs)

Demarcus Lawerence

25 (57). San Diego Chargers

Marcus Roberson

26 (58). New Orleans Saints

Jeremiah Attaochu

27 (59). Indianapolis Colts

Chris Borland

28 (60). Carolina Panthers

Jordan Matthews

29 (61). San Francisco 49ers

Carlos Hyde

30 (62). Tennessee Titans (from New England Patriots)

Keith McGill

31 (63). Denver Broncos

Tre Mason

32 (64). Seattle Seahawks

Gabe Jackson

1 (65). Houston Texans

Troy Niklas

2 (66). Washington Redskins

Jarvis Landry

3 (67). Oakland Raiders

David Yankey

4 (68). Atlanta Falcons

Telvin Smith

5 (69). Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Joel Bitonio

6 (70). Jacksonville Jaguars

Marcus Martin

7 (71).  Cleveland Browns

Will Sutton

8 (72). Minnesota Vikings

Cyril Richardson

9 (73). Houston Texans (from Buffalo Bills)

Christian Jones

10 (74). New York Giants

Daquan Jones

11 (75). St. Louis Rams

Donte Moncrief

12 (76). Detroit Lions

Martavis Bryant

13 (77). San Francisco 49ers (from Tennessee Titans)

Jimmy Garoppolo

14 (78). Dallas Cowboys

AJ McCarron

15 (79). New York Giants (from Baltimore Ravens)

Weston Richburg

16 (80). New York Jets

Carl Bradford

17 (81). Miami Dolphins

Jack Mewhort

18 (82). Chicago Bears

George Uko

19 (83). New York Giants (from Cleveland Browns (from Pittsburgh Steelers))

C.J. Fiedorowicz

20 (84). Arizona Cardinals

Terrance Brooks

21 (85). New York Giants (from Green Bay Packers)

Brett Smithum

22 (86). Philadelphia Eagles

Shane Skov

23 (87). Kansas City Chiefs

Marcus Smith

24 (88). Cincinnati Bengals

Billy Turner

25 (89). San Diego Chargers

Brandon Coleman

26 (90). Indianapolis Colts

Jeremy Hill

27 (91). New Orleans Saints

Bashaud Breeland

28 (92). Carolina Panthers

Zach Mettenberger

29 (93). Tennessee Titans (from New England Patriots)

Kareem Martin

30 (94). San Francisco 49ers

Philip Gaines

31 (95). Cincinnati Bengals (from Denver Broncos)

Travis Swanson

32 (96). Minnesota Vikings (from Seattle Seahawks)

Jaylen Watkins

33 (97). Pittsburgh Steelers (compensatory selection)

Charles Sims

34 (98). Green Bay Packers (compensatory selection)

Taylor Hart

35 (99). Baltimore Ravens (compensatory selection)

Terrance West

36 (100). San Francisco 49ers (compensatory selection)

Kelcy Quarles

Several people wanted to know who might have been left after we finished the 3rd round.  So, using Arif's Consensus Big Board here were the best remaining players heading into what would have been the 4th round:

79th overall: RB Ka'Deem Carey, Arizona
80th overall: DT Ego Ferguson, LSU
83rd overall: DE Chris Smith, Arkansas
84th overall: C Travis Swanson, Arkansas
86th overall: RB Lache Seastrunk, Baylor
87th overall: WR Paul Richardson, Colorado
88th overall: WR Jared Abbrederis, Wisconsin
89th overall: DE Jackson Jeffcoat, Texas
91st overall: SS Dion Bailey, USC
94th overall: WR Bruce Ellington, South Carolina
100 overall: LB Yawin Smallwood, Connecticut

Again, thank you to everyone who participated last night as it was a lot of fun.  It was a time-consuming exercise, but well worth the effort.  And it's worth repeating: for us to come together as a community and pull something like this off continues to prove that the Daily Norseman has the best damn community of any Vikings blog on the internet.