A prominent NFL Network analyst once said, "The best information about what teams are actually going to do comes in the 48 hours before the draft starts."
It's a reason why we monitor mock drafts so closely in the two days leading up to the draft. And we're not the only ones; teams try to gain information from them as well.
Over the course of the last 24 hours, NFL Media's Mike Mayock, Daniel Jeremiah, Charley Casserly, Charles Davis, Bucky Brooks and Lance Zierlein have filed their final mocks. Trying to make sense of them all, here are 10 nuggets we found telling:
- For all the early chatter about the Dallas Cowboys' interest in Ohio State DE Joey Bosa, Davis is the only one to predict it actually happening. The more common projection for the Cowboys is CB Jalen Ramsey (three analysts) and RB Ezekiel Elliott (two). Bosa, on the other hand, is a near-unanimous choice to go to Jacksonville, giving the Jaguars first-round defensive ends in back-to-back drafts, uniting Bosa with last year's first-round prize, Dante Fowler.
- There isn't much agreement on which player the San Diego Chargers will pick at No. 3 overall, but this much is unanimous: it will be a big man. All six analysts project the Chargers to improve themselves at the line of scrimmage, in one way or another, with either Laremy Tunsil, Ronnie Stanley or DeForest Buckner.
- Four analysts picked a player for the first round that no other analyst had in their final mocks, which seems like a very small number in a draft with so many similar grades between Players 20-50:
» Jeremiah: DB Keanu Neal (No. 20 to Jets)
» Brooks: DL Chris Jones (No. 31 to Broncos)
» Davis: DL Andrew Billings (No. 31 to Broncos)
» Zierlein: QB Connor Cook (No. 31 to Broncos)
- Few prospects are projected with as wide a variance as West Virginia's Karl Joseph, the hard-hitting safety whose knee injury kept him out of combine testing. Nobody has him higher than Jeremiah (No. 14 to the Oakland Raiders), while Casserly, Davis and Brooks have Joseph sliding out of the first round altogether.
- Another big spread: Alabama OL Ryan Kelly. He's going No. 16 to the Detroit Lions in Jeremiah's mock, and will have to wait until Day 2 in projections from Davis and Brooks.
- At least two of six analysts have pegged the same player for the first 13 picks of the draft. At No. 14, however, there is zero consensus on the Raiders' choice. All six project a different selection: Karl Joseph (Jeremiah), Myles Jack (Mayock), Robert Nkemdiche (Brooks), Eli Apple (Davis), Reggie Ragland (Casserly) and Vernon Hargreaves (Zierlein).
- The last-minute love for Michigan State OL Jack Conklin is palpable. Jeremiah, Mayock, Brooks and Davis have all pulled him into top-10 status.
- Louisville DL Sheldon Rankins to the New Orleans Saints at No. 12? Mayock, Jeremiah, Brooks and Davis all think so.
- Nobody knows quite what to make of Ole Miss DL Robert Nkemdiche, and if you've followed him through college and the pre-draft process, it's no surprise. His highest projection comes from Brooks (No. 14 to Raiders), his lowest from Jeremiah (No. 29 to Cardinals), and six analysts have six different landing spots for him. Others include Buffalo at No. 19 (Mayock), Seattle at No. 26 (Davis), Green Bay at No. 27 (Casserly) and Kansas City at No. 28 (Zierlein).
- All six analysts have the Minnesota Vikings taking a wide receiver at No. 23, with five of them projecting Ole Miss' Laquon Treadwell. The lone dissenter: Zierlein (TCU's Josh Doctson).
*Follow Chase Goodbread on Twitter **@ChaseGoodbread*.
