I have to say this years mocks ,expert and amateur alike has been one of the toughest to call in years , with the exception od Fussell at the #1 spot. Heres how they did..... Question. Who is Todd McShay? Answer. Somebody in need of a raise. That's because the guy ESPN hired from Scout.com to do the "other" mock drafts finished with as many right projections as the guru and self-made millionaire himself, Mel Kiper Jr. The mock draft season is officially over, the results are in and it's not pretty, particularly if you work over at the sports Web site SportsNutz.com. Its computerized mock draft can process plenty of things, but big boards are beyond the scope of an iMac. With only five correct picks, it was well off the pace in my survey of success rates for final mock drafts. Brady Quinn to Miami, er, Cleveland. What? (AP) I figured batting .300 in the game of mock drafting should be the fail-safe point. If you can't pick 30 percent of the board, you're in the wrong profession. My expectations proved too lofty. The average final mock draft fell somewhere in the 15-30 percent range, and as you might expect, the further you look down the board, the uglier it gets. There haven't been such grotesque mismatches since Leon-Morita in Collision Course. Of the eight final mock drafts analyzed only one (CBS SportsLine.com's Clark Judge) had more than two correct picks between No. 20 and No. 32. There's no question building a mock draft is tough. With each passing pick the variables change, creating a near exponential amount of possibilities. But for people paid to essentially compile a list of where people should work, particularly in this age of Monster and HotJobs, you'd think more than three boards would bat above .300. Nobody had Brady Quinn slipping anywhere past No. 9 at Miami, so it's easy to justify why the quarterback is a bit peeved off about his freefall to No. 22. Enormous nose tackle Alan Branch was a near-unanimous first-round pick, as was cornerback Chris Houston. Both fell to the second round. Ted Ginn Jr. going to the Dolphins was a sure-fire curveball as was offensive tackle Levi Brown to the Cardinals. Only Kiper pegged the latter. It's easy to pick apart the wrong, but what about the good? There was a lot of it. Kiper came out of the gate like a thoroughbred on NoDoz, nailing his first seven picks, including tackle Brown to the Cardinals. Impressive, particularly since viewership declines with each passing pick, so Kiper hit the ones that mattered, some would argue. Our own Pete Prisco looked good pegging defensive tackle Justin Harrell to the Packers at No. 16, when most had running back Marshawn Lynch going there. John Murphy of Yahoo! and Judge nailed arguably the toughest pick in the whole round, calling wideout Anthony Gonzalez to the Colts with the 32nd pick. But really, the mock draft season, like a placemat with a maze on it, is just there to amuse you, to help you pass the time while you await the main course. So we're not here to torch those who entertain, rather help people understand that mock drafts, like the acting of Steve Van Zandt, shouldn't be taken too seriously. They are there for our amusement, not to set a benchmark in entertainment. So here's how the mock season played out. The Mocktastic How did you know that? NFL.com's Pat Kirwan nailing the Saints' pick of wideout Robert Meachem at No. 27. OK, you're the man: Mel Kiper's string of seven correct picks off the bat set the season's longest streak and made me seem just a bit less weird for keeping his photo on my desk. Thanks-for-playing award: Every mock draft correctly picked JaMarcus Russell at No. 1. Yep, now everyone gets a trophy for participating. 20/20 vision: While pretty much every mock drafter had guard Ben Grubbs going to the Ravens, only Scout.com's McShay and NFL.com's Kirwan and CBS SportsLine.com's Judge were able to nail another post-20 draft pick. For McShay, it was defensive end Jarvis Moss to the Broncos, The Mustache got the aforementioned Meachem and Judge struck gold with Gonzalez and cornerback Aaron Ross. Giant call: Clark Judge calling Ross to the Giants. Living in New York has its perks, like knowing what Tom Coughlin and Co. are thinking. OK, maybe "perks" isn't the right word. Ha Ha! Sure, Reggie Nelson ended up going at No. 21 instead of No. 17, but he still went to the Jaguars. Prisco -- along with nearly every mock draft -- nailed it (if Pete hadn't, we'd have some words). I guess the Jags are just that predictable. Over .300: ESPN, Scouts.com, CBS SportsLine.com (Judge) It's not how you start, it's how you...: Yahoo!'s Murphy placing wide receiver Anthony Gonzalez on the Colts just might make me forget about... The Mockgly Pozlutively wrong: Murphy, Murphy, Murphy. Putting linebacker Paul Posluszny 22 spots before he was eventually picked reeks of man crush. Then again, you did have him going to the Bills, just a round too early. Houston, we have a...: Led by Prisco, six mock draft boards had cornerback Chris Houston as a first-round pick. Prisco had him going at No. 20 to the Giants, or 21 picks before he'd eventually go to the Falcons. Safety comes first: It would make sense for Rob Rang of The Sports Xchange to put defensive end Jamaal Anderson in Washington at No. 6, and for FoxSports.com's Peter Schrager to put defensive tackle Alan Branch with the Redskins, being that the team's pass rush was non-existent last season. But with the team sending out LaRon Landry signals repeatedly, going outside the box outside the Beltway never pays off. As for Branch, he ended up going a whopping 27 picks later. Oops. Drafters under .300: The Sports Xchange, Yahoo!, CBS SportsLine.com (Prisco), SportzNutz.com, FoxSports.com (worst of the bunch with 12.5 percent correct). Question Mocks Goliath picks David: While plenty of mock drafters pegged linebacker David Harris a first-round pick, it's Kiper who eats the most crow, placing the Michigan product a mock-record 35 picks before he actually went to the Jets. Here's hoping the kid's a steal for the tough New York faithful. Black and purple and read all over: Five boards correctly nailed the Ravens selecting offensive lineman Ben Grubbs. Heck, even SportzNutz.com got this one right. Number crunching: According to its Web site, SportsNutz.com's computerized draft took grades from more than 50 NFL Draft sites and crunched that info with some 20 criteria to create its five correct picks. If that doesn't tell you something about the mock season, you're hopeless. http://www.sportsline.com/spin/story/10160867
