Mel Kiper Jr. is the grandaddy of them all when it comes to being an NFL Draft analyst.
He’s a bit different from the rest.
But analysts like Daniel Jeremiah and Todd McShay operate more like Albert Breer — they’re deeply plugged in. They talk to many people around the league and often function more as information conduits than just film grinders.
“I worked with DJ at NFL Network, and so, they trade information with those guys in the same way they trade information with me,” Breer, SI‘s senior NFL insider for Monday Morning Quarterback, said on Toucher & Hardy. “And I think in a lot of cases, they’ll look at the way, DJ in particular — [Mike] Mayock was the king of this. Mayock knew everyone. Mayock did his own evaluations and was really good at it, but Mayock had the league consensus, too… Mike was always sheepish about doing rankings because it was like he didn’t break the trust that the teams had with him. ‘I don’t want to do a mock draft, because I know who that team’s picking. So, what do I do?”
Breer added that he’s reached a point where many league sources know not to lie to him. The common misconception, he said, is that teams are always misleading reporters. Eliot Wolf may mislead Peter Schrager, but that’s not usually the case. However, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that Dave Canales lied straight to Kay Adams’ face. That did happen.
But typically, it’s not as simple as an executive telling a reporter directly that they’re taking Player X.”
“I have a few people that will tell me,” Breer admits. “There were a couple last week where I legitimately didn’t mock guys to teams because I knew they liked them. And I kept quiet on it. A lot of the other cases, what will happen is — and a lot of times those people I have relationships with for 15 years — it’s just, there’s different levels of it. And so there are others where I’ll hear from five teams. The [Armand] Membou thing is the perfect example. Everyone mocked Tyler Warren to the Jets; I mocked Membou to the Jets.
Breer said it’s about putting puzzle pieces together. Teams chart everything — top-30 visits, private workouts, combine interviews — and they often share what they’ve heard from others. Everyone’s trying to solve the same riddle.
People ask me, ‘Why would a team tell you what they’re doing?’ For the most part, they don’t,” Breer said. “It’s more, ‘Alright, these seven teams think this team is doing this, so I do too.’ And maybe I’ll have a conversation with somebody from that team where I’ll notice something. And they’ll shut up all of a sudden when I start talking about a player.”
Breer said his mock drafts are about more than picking names; his blurbs often contain real intel.
For instance, he mocked North Dakota State interior offensive lineman Grey Zabel to the Seahawks at No. 18, which was right on the money. But he also mentioned that South Carolina defensive back Nick Emmanwori was in the mix there, and sure enough, the Seahawks traded up to grab Emmanwori in Round 2.
Teams love Zabel. He can play four positions. He’s tough and smart, and in a lot of ways mirrors ex-Duke C Graham Barton last year, as a pick a team won’t regret (and the Buccaneers don’t regret taking Barton). If Zabel’s not here, or even if he is, South Carolina S Nick Emmanwori is another name to watch—he could play the Kyle Hamilton role in Mike Macdonald’s Seattle defense.
“That’s sort of what I’m looking to do,” Breer said. “I’m trying to figure out who likes who, and put them in the best order I can. That information trade happens, and I think guys like Mayock, DJ, and DJ McShay become conduits of information, too, to some degree. The teams are looking at them and saying, ‘This is more or less like a league consensus.’ Like their top-50 can be top-50 can be a league consensus because those guys aren’t evaluating the players for single teams, or single systems. Those guys are evaluating the players based on like all 32.”
So do GMs actually listen to the Mel Kipers of the world? Maybe not directly. But they sure pay attention when the right people start echoing the same names.