FOXBORO -- NFL teams. They're just like us.
While we're busy putting together full two-round (or longer, in some cases) mock drafts, clubs around the league are doing something similar.
Bill Belichick admitted the Patriots will put together mocks of their own to help them prepare for what happens on draft weekend.
"Sometimes we do that, yeah," he said. "Sometimes we do that. I’d say sometimes it just sparks a conversation. We might internally say, ‘OK, how about Player A and Player B, Player B and Player C,’ and if you did a mock draft, each guy kind of has a team. ‘OK, it’s your turn. You pick this guy.’ And now you look at the board and, ‘OK, it’s our turn to pick and here’s a scenario we hadn’t really thought about. We didn’t really picture that this guy would be there.' "
Rather than simply setting your board and plucking players in order when the draft rolls around, the Patriots obviously want to be prepared for different scenarios. They're typically one of the most active teams during the draft when it comes to trades -- both up and down the board -- and so they want to be ready.
If their pick comes up and they have a cluster of players they've graded similarly, maybe they trade down. If a player they love starts to slip and they want to move up with the capital they have, maybe they jump at the opportunity.
New England Patriots
"That kind of can stimulate some . . . again, we don’t know what the other teams are going to do, and we don’t know what we’re going to do," Belichick said. "Many of them probably don’t know what they’re going to do either. It would depend on what happens in front of them. Again, it’s just an exercise to, I’d say, just kind of complete the process of preparation.
"That’s the way it is on draft day, too. A lot of times you’re sitting there looking at players that, 'I thought this player would be there and he’s long gone. Or, 'I didn’t think this player would be there and he’s still there.' "
The reason why the Patriots do the work they do on a wide range of prospects is so that when something surprising happens on draft weekend -- which it inevitably will -- they can make a decision that they've previously thought about on a player for whom they have a complete write-up.
"One of the problems with [draft-day surprises] is if you haven’t done enough work on the player and he’s still there, but you really don’t know the player as well as you should because you thought he wouldn’t be there, then that puts you in a little bit of a dilemma. You’re kind of in the unknown, which is where you don’t want to be.
"It’s hard enough when you think you know what you’re doing. It’s even harder when you’re kind of guessing because you just didn’t anticipate this. I’d say that’s kind of the purpose of the mock draft. We don’t sit around and do it all day, but we do it as an exercise just to kind of, as I said, stimulate."