National Football League

The 2015 backwards NFL Mock Draft

Published Apr. 29, 2015 11:30 a.m. ET

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By Sam Quinn

Mock drafts are horrible. I said so many damning things in my mock draft last year I probably should’ve been fired. I didn’t think Khalil Mack was good. I didn’t think Teddy Bridgewater was good. I listed Marqise Lee ahead of Odell Beckham Jr. and felt proud of it. I look stupid. Everyone looks stupid. Nobody can watch all of the tape, nobody can reasonably be expected to mine through everything and find the Jerry Rices at the Mississippi Valley States amid all of the crap. You watch what you can, you make judgments on sample sizes that, at best, are based on only a few games, and then you sit back and watch the world burn.

I have watched extensive tape on maybe a dozen prospects. I have strong opinions about five of them (Marcus Mariota and Danny Shelton are stars, Amari Cooper is just below that, Shane Rey may not ever make a Pro Bowl but I know he’ll stick in the league, Jameis Winston is horribly overrated). Everyone else is based on limited information. So rather than make a traditional mock, I’m just going to steer into the skid, admit I don’t know enough, and do something off the wall and write a backwards mock draft. Do I have some altruistic reason relating to rewarding teams for playing well and punishing those who don’t? No, I’m just admitting mocks are useless and that if I’m going to write one, I’m going to write it knowing as such.

1. New England Patriots: Leonard Williams, DE, USC

Bill Belichick’s dream defense is the one he had during the early to mid-2000s: three two-gap war machines on the line who can blow up runs and offer more than a cursory pass rush. He had that with Vince Wilfork, Richard Seymour, and Ty Warren. All three are gone. If he had the chance to grab Williams, a prospect very similar to Seymour, he’d do it in a heartbeat and adjust the rest of his scheme from there.

2. New Orleans Saints: Jameis Winston, QB, Florida State

Is this the right decision? Not even slightly. But it’s what New Orleans would do. Remember, before Drew Brees, this was the team whose last seven leading passers were Aaron Brooks, Billy Joe Tolliver, Heath Shuler, Jim Everett, Wade Wilson, Bobby Hebert, Steve Walsh, and Richard Todd. Let’s not pretend this organization knows quarterbacks just because it struck gold once—only after Miami was scared off by a medical report. If the Saints can survive the Darren Sharper scandal Winston certainly won’t scare them off, and if they’re capable of spending nearly 30 years with those “quarterbacks” leading their team they’re certainly capable of passing on Mariota.

3. Green Bay Packers: Dante Fowler Jr., DE/OLB, Florida

The Packers are playing with house money. They don’t have needs. Therefore, they can afford to take the best player on the board and prepare him to replace Julius Peppers in a year or two.

4. Indianapolis Colts: Amari Cooper, WR, Alabama

Andre Johnson is a stopgap. Giving Andrew Luck Amari Cooper and T.Y. Hilton for a decade afterwards would make up for all of the Trent Richardsons Ryan Grigson could find.

5. Denver Broncos: Brandon Scherff, OG/OT, Iowa

The knock on Brandon Scherff is that he can’t play left tackle. We know he’s a fantastic football player, but he can’t play left tackle for physical reasons (in Scherff’s case, his arms are too short). We said the same things about Zack Martin. How’d that turn out? These are the things you can afford to do when you just went 12–4. Ryan Clady isn’t going anywhere at left tackle, so the Broncos grab the best lineman on the board and figure the rest out later.

6. Dallas Cowboys: Randy Gregory, DE, Nebraska

Greg Hardy is out for the first 10 games of the season. Dallas’ best remaining pass-rusher from last season is Jeremy Mincey, and if you’ve watched Jeremy Mincey play football you know why that’s hilarious. Even if Gregory’s off-field problems become an issue, it’s a fairly safe bet that he’ll last at least 10 games. That’s all the need to weather the storm until Hardy’s return.

7. Baltimore Ravens: Kevin White, WR, West Virginia

Steve Smith is great, but he’s old and small. All things considered, the Ravens would probably like their other starting receiver to be young and big. Kevin White is young. He’s big. And he’s almost definitely more versatile than Torrey Smith, whose entire playbook was “run 9-routes, draw PI’s.”

8. Carolina Panthers: La’El Collins, OT/OG, LSU

Michael Oher hasn’t been a viable left tackle since “The Blind Side.” Collins is probably better suited for the right side or as a guard, but Oher is so bad that he couldn’t possibly be worse.

9. Arizona Cardinals: Melvin Gordon, RB, Wisconsin

Oh hey, a running back. The Cardinals haven’t had one of those in a while. Todd Gurley is a better prospect, but the Cardinals are in win-now mode and would rather not take a medical risk, especially considering the rotating hospital ward their locker room became last year.

10. Detroit Lions: Vic Beasley, DE, Clemson

There’s no one in the draft who can replicate what Ndamukong Suh does, and even if there were, he wouldn’t be available at No. 10. The Lions’ best bet at recapturing the defensive line depth that made them so special last year is to stock up on ends who can collectively come close to matching Suh’s pass-rushing presence while rotating through so many tackles that having fresh players against the run masks their lack of one dominant destroyer.

11. Pittsburgh Steelers: Danny Shelton, NT, Washington

Casey Hampton’s last season in Pittsburgh was 2012. The Steelers finished that season with the No. 1 ranked defense. In the two seasons since, they’ve been 13th and 18th, respectively. A coincidence this is not. You cannot run a pure 3-4 defense without a high-end nose tackle. It’s why Houston broke the bank for a well-past-his-prime Vince Wilfork despite having J.J. Watt. Shelton is the best nose tackle on the board by far. This is the easiest pick of the draft. (Side note: I fall in love with an interior lineman every year. Last year, it was Aaron Donald. This year, it’s Shelton.)

12. Cincinatti Bengals: Dorial Green-Beckham, WR, Oklahoma

You have no idea how much I want to give the Bengals Mariota and immediately make Andy Dalton the carousel’s biggest name addition in years. I came so close. So, so close. But alas, the Bengals believe in Andy Dalton, so the logical move is to give them a receiver besides A.J. Green who can actually stretch the field. He’ll spend most of those plays watching balls sail over his head, but hey, he’s got a mentor for that in Green.

13. Philadelphia Eagles: Marcus Mariota, QB, Oregon

And they trade for Johnny Manziel immediately after.

14. Cleveland Browns: DeVante Parker, WR, Louisville

The last Browns wide receiver with 1,000 receiving yards and not either be arrested for a DUI or suspended for substance abuse was Dennis Northcutt. You know what’s sad about that? Not that it wasn’t actually Dennis Northcutt, but that the fact that it was really Antonio Bryant makes absolutely no difference to you. They’re the same guy. Just throw those two along with Greg Little and Mohamed Massaquoi into a blender and you’d have a pretty definitive Browns wide receiver smoothie that would taste like 54 catches and 600 yards.

15. Kansas City Chiefs: Breshad Perriman, WR, UCF

Andy Reid likes quick receivers. That Perriman is also large, a nice contrast to the miniscule Jeremy Maclin, is practically immaterial. If you can make quick cuts on slants and run a few viable 9-routes per game you can play receiver for Andy Reid.

16. San Diego Chargers: Bud Dupree, OLB, Kentucky

If Chip Kelly passed on Mariota, which he’d never do, this would be the next likely landing spot. Anyway, Dwight Freeney played meaningful snaps for the Chargers last year and that’s just not good business. With Eric Weddle and Brandon Flowers San Diego actually has a pretty good secondary. It just won’t make a bit of difference if they can’t rush the passer.

17. Houston Texans: Jaelan Strong, WR, Arizona State

The Texans traditionally look for receivers that could best be described as guys Andy Reid wouldn’t want. Andre Johnson and DeAndre Hopkins are both big, physical, jump-ball receivers, and it’s a safe bet that whoever replaces Johnson will be as well. When you don’t have the luxury of a useful quarterback, this is the best way to make your passing game decent.

18. San Francisco 49ers: Erik Kendricks, ILB, UCLA

Ah, the old, “replace the superstar in his prime and rookie stud because both retired out of nowhere.” It’s practically cliché.

19. Miami Dolphins: Trae Wayans, CB, Michigan State

Did you know Cortland Finnegan is still an NFL starter? Did you know Cortland Finnegan is only 31? You can get away with sub-par corners on a defense with the best three-technique and the best seven-technique in football, but calling Cortland Finnegan sub-par at this point would be like calling Darrelle Revis good. Miami could really use a corner.

20. New Orleans Saints: Shane Rey, DE/OLB, Missouri

Probably the safest bet among the pass-rushers, Rey slides comfortably into Rob Ryan’s hybrid defense where he can play standing up or with his hand on the ground. Considering the Saints don’t have many players who can do either, having one who can do both is a real asset.

21. Cleveland Browns: Malcolm Brown, DT, Texas

The Browns couldn’t stop the run last year despite wasting the most valuable pick of the Julio Jones trade on Phil Taylor. They need another nose tackle and Brown is the best on the board.

22. Minnesota Vikings: Todd Gurley, RB, Georgia

The Vikings don’t need to compete right away, but they do need an eventual (or potentially immediate) replacement for Adrian Peterson. Gurley is too talented a prospect to fall any further than this, so the Vikings scoop him up to be their running back of the future.

23. St. Louis Rams: Devin Smith, WR, Ohio State

Nick Foles can’t throw deep balls, but the Rams have such a need at receiver and such a lack of big-play options that they’ll talk themselves into Smith, someone potentially in the first round solely thanks to the big-play ability the Rams won’t be able to take advantage of.

24. New York Giants: Landon Collins, S, Alabama

What’s more concerning: the fact that Quintin Demps and Stevie Brown were the best safeties on this team last year, or the fact that neither of them is on the team anymore? The blank space in the Giants’ depth chart might actually be upgrades considering how horrendous the pair was last year, but adding a prospect like Collins would turn a massive negative into a potential positive.

25. Atlanta Falcons: Eli Harold, DE, Virginia

The numbers say Atlanta had 22 sacks last year. I didn’t watch every Falcons game, but I like to think I’m aware enough as a fan to have seen a couple of them. I don’t ever remember seeing the Falcons generating a pass rush. Right now, my hunch is that the scorekeeper just started awarding Atlanta sacks on every play of the fourth quarter in that insane 56–14 Week 3 blowout over Tampa rather than actually watching the game and that none of them are real.

26. Chicago Bears: Jalen Collins, CB, LSU

Kyle Fuller might be a keeper, but at this point Tim Jennings is a crypt keeper. They need a corner of the future to play opposite Fuller, and Collins is the best on the board.

27. New York Jets: Bryce Petty, QB, Baylor

The best part of backwards mocks is the quarterback-needy teams at the bottom who have to take the second-tier guys because playoff teams lucked into the top few. Bryce Petty is the third-best quarterback in this draft and if the Jets don’t walk away from this draft with a quarterback I might start a cult dedicated to the removal of the position from the game.

28. Washington Redskins: D.J. Humphries, OT/OG, Florida

In fairness to Robert Griffin III, it’s pretty damn hard to play quarterback behind Trent Williams and the four holograms that have filled out the Redskins’ line for the past half-decade. They need to improve the offensive line.

29. Oakland Raiders: Sammie Coates, WR, Auburn

Oakland is taking a receiver. Would they rather have Cooper? Yeah, but screw you, Oakland, this is my fantasy world and in here you’re picking 29th. Either way, the Raiders get a deep threat to take advantage of Derek Carr’s arm strength.

30. Jacksonville Jaguars: Shaq Thompson, LB, Washington

Gus Bradley comes from Seattle, a team that loves deploying raw athletes to specific defensive tasks that don’t always require as much football IQ or skill. Shaq Thompson can’t be Bradley’s LEO (think Bruce Irvin, a pass-rushing linebacker/end hybrid), but he’s such an interesting athlete that you have to imagine a defensive mind like Bradley would enjoy figuring out how to use him in both the front seven and occasionally even the secondary.

31. Tennessee Titans: Andrus Peat, OT, Stanford

A real left tackle! Ironically we finally get to one and the team that takes him seems set with Taylor Lewan. But Tennessee needs a right tackle as well, and even though Peat is probably better suited to the left (he’s not nearly aggressive enough in the running game to play the right ideally), he’s the best tackle prospect on the board.

32. Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Brett Hundley, QB, UCLA

I nominate this fictional Bucs team for Hard Knocks. Watching their train wreck of an offensive staff try and fail to coach the very raw Hundley would be hilarious.

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