As if we needed proof that the three months of journalistic masturbation that leads up to the NFL Draft is pointless, the first two rounds proved yet again that all the mock drafts and preparatory analysis does little — if anything — to make the draft day picture clearer for fans. In fact, if you go by the percentage of picks that ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. and Todd McShay — and the NFL Network’s Mike Mayock — get right, you’d be convinced that you, too could be a highly paid NFL Draft analyst.

(Analysts on Sanchez: 33 percent right.)

How bad were they? Well, as you can see after the jump, there were only three picks in which all three analysts agreed on the selection … and in which they were correct. Mayock was significantly off throughout — largely because he picked the wrong spot for Sanchez, despite being closer to Sanchez’s actual selection than McShay — and McShay had moments where he completely failed to read between the line (despite the fact that both ESPN analysts cleverly adjusted their drafts to include a Chiefs pick of Tyson Jackson).

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Can we all agree that NFL mock drafts are ridiculous? And that Clever Hans has as good a chance at accurately predicting the first round as Mel Kiper, Jr.? Here’s more evidence, in the form of a 19-year-old kid who claims that his mock draft beat Kiper’s last year, and was in fact “the best in the country.”

(Tweety Bird and a young Seth Rogen discuss Matthew Stafford.)

Let’s leave aside the fact that this is completely unverifiable, as fantasy mock draft leagues have yet to catch fire. What’s Shawn Zobel’s secret that makes his projections so accurate compared to real football writers who have inside sources? He watches a lot of TV.

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