Leading up to the NFL Draft beginning this Thursday, UGASports concludes this year’s annual series on mock drafts with the final edition of the Bulldogs Mock Draft Tracker. We released the tracker's v1.0 in late January, which was followed by v2.0 just over a month ago.
We analyzed the same five mock drafts as before, all of which have been recently updated. Mocks Drafttek, Lines, and Walter Football project all seven rounds, whereas Tankathon and Draft Wire forecast just the first three rounds.
After a record 15 Georgia players were drafted a year ago, which followed a then school-record nine draftees in 2021, it appears as many as 10 Bulldogs will be drafted this year.
Five players are projected by the mocks to be amongst the first 40 picks of the draft (mocks’ average overall selection in parenthesis): Jalen Carter (5.4), Broderick Jones (12.4), Nolan Smith (18.4), Kelee Ringo (37.0), and Darnell Washington (39.4). Entering this weekend, there have been only three occasions when four or more Bulldogs were selected in the first 40 picks of a single draft: 2003 (four), 2018 (four), and, of course, last year in 2022 (five).
In the table below, each player is listed with their increase ⬆️ or decrease 🔻 in average overall selection compared to the last draft tracker, or v2.0. For instance, Nolan Smith’s average overall selection was 28.8 for v2.0, followed by an 18.4 average for the current v3.0. That’s an increase of 10.4 places (10 rounded) since our Draft Tracker for last month.
After their increase/decrease since v2.0, each player is followed by a projected round, overall pick in parenthesis, and selecting NFL team according to the five mock drafts for v2.0:
Eight of the 10 former Georgia players featured in the latest mocks evidently improved their draft status since the last time UGASports tracked them. Nolan Smith’s jump from a late to a mid-first rounder follows a 12-spot leap from v1.0 to v2.0. Ringo’s slight increase follows a 20-spot decrease. Also according to the mock drafts, Warren McClendon and Kenny McIntosh both increased their status by nearly a half-round.
After having an early second-round average for v1.0 (33.8), Broderick Jones is again forecasted by four of the five mock drafts to be the 13th overall pick by the New York Jets. Worthy of mention, the Jets haven’t drafted a Georgia player in seven years (Jordan Jenkins, 2016) while the No. 63 pick (Mo Lewis in 1991) is the highest a Bulldog player has ever been taken by the Jets.
As far as the Bulldogs whose draft status might have dipped a bit, Christopher Smith’s average overall selection dropped from being an early third-round pick to nearly a fourth-round choice.
Stetson Bennett, who appeared in all three of the seven-round mocks last month, is projected to be selected by Miami in the fifth round and Detroit in the sixth round. Bennett would be the 14th Georgia quarterback in history selected in the NFL Draft. The Dolphins have never drafted a Bulldog at quarterback, whereas the Lions have done so twice (John Rauch in 1949 and Matthew Stafford in 2009).
The NFL Draft will run from this Thursday, April 27, in Kansas City to Saturday, April 29.
