Draft week is finally here, the visits and workouts and months of analysis and evaluation are coming to an end. The puzzle that is the 2018 NFL Draft is starting to come into better focus. Thursday can’t get here quickly enough. It’s actually almost go time.
Before settling on a mock draft (which I invariably want to toss up and throw into a trash can within an hour of finalizing it) one of the exercises I go through involves sorting through the first round by position. The goal is to identify the absolute locks to go on Thursday night and then also assess how many total players at each position, should everything fall into place, have at least a legit chance to go in the first round.
Once you get beyond 18-20 players who most evaluators I’ve chatted with believe will be going in the first round no matter what, there is not much consensus about this group. In any draft, there are always a large number of players who seem poised to go somewhere from 25 to 40-ish, based on how the board falls and need. At this point in the process, it’s my goal to have a list of no more than 40-odd names for the inevitable 32 selections.
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Of course, one trade and the entire first round can start tilting in another direction, and one team being an outlier on one particular player – for better or worse in terms of his draft status – can send things in a direction few may have prepared for. Still plenty to sort out, but here’s a look at the players I believe have a strong chance to comprise the first-round class:
Written by Jason La Canfora
