How Accurate Are NFL Mock Drafts?

Less than you'd think — and we can prove it, because grading mock drafts is all we do. Mock Draft Scores has scored 203+professional analysts' first-round mocks against actual draft results across six drafts (2021–2026). Here's what the data says.

The short answer

On the Huddle Report scale — 96 points max, where each of the 32 picks is worth 1 point for projecting the right player into Round 1 plus 2 more for matching him to the right team — the median professional analyst scored 37 of 96 points (39%) in 2026. The best single season anyone has posted in our database is 59 of 96 (Josh Norris, 2021). Nobody comes close to "calling" the first round. Experts are good at identifying who goes in Round 1 and much worse at where.

Expert accuracy by year

The year-to-year swing is real: drafts with early trades and surprise picks (see the draft-day trade history) drag every analyst's score down at once. Accuracy is also heavily front-loaded — projections for the top 8 picks hit far more often than picks 20–32, where one trade reshuffles the whole board.

Is ESPN's mock draft accurate?

ESPN's Mel Kiper Jr. is the most famous mock drafter alive, and his results are… fine. His Huddle Report scores (2021: 38, 2022: 40, 2023: 34, 2024: 49, 2025: 47, 2026: 36) land right around the industry median most years — above it in 2024 and 2025, below it in 2021 and 2026. Fame and accuracy are different leaderboards. Todd McShay (formerly ESPN, now The McShay Report) has outscored the median in both years since his return. You can compare any analyst's projected first round to what actually happened on the mock draft vs. actual results page.

So whose mock drafts should you trust?

This is the question Mock Draft Scores exists to answer. There are hundreds of mock drafts published every season; almost nobody checks back on how they did. We do — every year, for every analyst we track. Over the past five drafts, Jason Boris (Times News) leads the field with a 47-point average. See the full rankings on the 5-year accuracy leaderboard, the 3-year leaderboard, or any single draft year— and check any individual analyst's year-by-year record on their profile page before you spend draft season reading their mocks.

How mock draft accuracy is measured

We grade every mock with two industry-standard systems, applied identically to every analyst: the Huddle Report method (96 max: 1 point for the right player in Round 1, +2 for the right team) and the FantasyPros method (320 max, partial credit by pick proximity). Two lenses, same data — full details on the scoring page.

Think you can beat them?

Your mock gets graded on the exact same scale as the pros. The median expert scores 37 of 96 — create your own 2027 mock draft, lock it before draft night, and find out whether you clear that bar. Free, and no signup needed to start.