100 Days of Mocks: Two Three-Round Mocks

NFL.com's Daniel Jeremiah saw a little bit of Travis Kelce in one of the Green Bay Packers' picks in these mock drafts.
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GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers have used their last three first-round picks on players from Georgia. Could they extend that streak to four?

At USA Today’s Touchdown Wire, Doug Farrar went with Georgia offensive tackle Broderick Jones in Round 1 of a three-round draft.

“Whither David Bakhtiari? There’s no question that when the Packers’ left tackle is healthy, he’s one of the best in the business — but ‘when healthy’ is doing a lot of work these days,” Farrar wrote. “Jones is both a high-level pass-protector and a complete mauler in the run game on the left side, and if Bakhtiari manages a full season for the first time since 2019, Jones has enough positional versatility to project him perfectly to a staff that has appreciated such things in recent years.”

Back from his horrendous knee injury sustained on Dec. 31, 2020, Bakhtiari might challenge Farrar on the health part of the equation. He was positively bullish about his future, saying after the season that he had no surgeries scheduled and could spend the offseason focusing on football rather than rehab.

“I look at the offseason as putting on your armor and then, going through a season, you get deteriorated throughout the year,” Bakhtiari said a day after the season-ending loss to Detroit.

“I don’t have a chance to put on my armor, I'm kind of going into war unprotected so, thankfully, did a really good job talking to training room, strength staff, even bringing in people from outside, making sure I can get myself to grow, because football's not in any rehab that you do coming off of surgery.”

According to Pro Football Focus, Jones didn’t allow a single sack in 470 pass-protecting snaps at left tackle as a redshirt sophomore in 2022. Could he play right tackle? He logged 34 snaps at that spot in 2020 and 2021.

Broderick Jones (Photo by Mark J Rebilas/USA Today Sports)
Broderick Jones (Photo by Mark J Rebilas/USA Today Sports)

The Day 2 picks addressed key needs at tight end and defensive line. The tight end was Utah’s Dalton Kincaid, who we’ve written about frequently in this series. He was Daniel Jeremiah’s pick for the Packers in his latest mock.

“I think he is one of the best players in the draft,” NFL.com’s Jeremiah said in his pre-Scouting Combine conference call. “He is just sudden in everything that he does. … I don't like when you compare guys to all-time great players, but just in his movement stuff, he moves, he kind of looks likes (Travis) Kelce just the way he moves in and out of breaks.”

Pro Football Network’s Arif Hassan went with Notre Dame tight end in Round 1 of his three-rounder.

“The Green Bay Packers haven’t had a franchise-quality tight end since Jermichael Finley,” he wrote. “With Robert Tonyan getting up there in age and a clear TE1 in this draft, Michael Mayer seems like a no-brainer for a team looking to provide friendly options for Jordan Love should they move on from Aaron Rodgers.”

Mayer is the best combo of blocker and receiver in this year’s class. He was Todd McShay’s pick for the Packers in his latest mock.

“He is kind of the king of the combat catches,” Jeremiah said. “He has a good feel on option routes just keeping guys on his back and kind of walling them off and making plays. A good overall tight end, good blocker.”

With the Day 2 selections, Hasan went outside linebacker and safety.

The pass rusher was Kansas State’s Felix Anudike-Uzomah, who was the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year, a finalist for the Ted Hendricks Award as the nation’s top defensive lineman and a second- and third-team All-American in 2022.

In 14 starts, he had 8.5 sacks, 11 tackles for losses and two forced fumbles. That came on the heels of his breakout 2021 campaign of 11 sacks, 14.5 tackles for losses and an incredible six forced fumbles.

Late in 2021, he should have had a record six sacks in a late-season game against TCU but the NCAA’s fumble rules robbed him of two. Nobody could have forecast that type of production.

“In my high school career, for three seasons,” he said, “I had like, seven sacks. Not even seven. Like, five.”

Officially, he had 13 sacks. Kansas State was the only Power 5 school to offer him a scholarship.

“My No. 1 objective was to prove everybody wrong," Anudike-Uzomah told KStateSports.com. “People under-recruited me. I was barely a three-star. Some of my high school coaches said they didn't think I'd be at the FBS level or Power 5 level.

“I had to enjoy proving people wrong. I know my capabilities they don't know.”

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100 Days of Mocks

Starting Jan. 17, when there were 100 days until the start of the NFL Draft, we started our mock-worthy goal of 100 mock drafts in 100 days. Here’s the 100-day-countdown series.

61 days: Playing the slots

62 days: Three mocks, three receivers

63 days: A massive haul for Rodgers

64 days: Three team-issued mock drafts

Packers take tight end in Daniel Jeremiah’s second mock

65 days: Pass-rushing defensive lineman in two-rounder

66 days: A slot/safety?

67 days: Three-rounder starts with receiver

68 days: Grandson of Glory Years legend

69 days: Mayer to Packers in SI mock

70 days: Football Outsiders picks pass rusher

71 days: 33rd Team trades Rodgers in two-rounder

71 days (bonus): Todd McShay 2.0

72 days: Packers take receiver to start NFL.com three-rounder

73 days: Packers fill big need with big man

74 days: Rodgers traded, take two pass-catchers in first round

75 days: Two NFL.com mocks, two different tight ends

76 days: Tight end and pass rusher in two-rounder by NFL Draft Bible

77 days: Rodgers traded to Raiders for No. 7 pick

78 days: A seven-round mock includes Big Ten playmakers

79 days: Rodgers traded in two-round mock

80 days: Packers take safety in ESPN mock

81 days: Aaron Rodgers traded in three-round mock

82 days: Seven mocks, including NFL.com

83 days: Two pass-catchers in first-round mocks

84 days: Aaron Rodgers traded for extra first-round pick

85 days: PFF picks a pass rusher

86 days: Tight end in NFL Draft Bible Mock

87 days: Packers trade back, get extra second-rounder

88 days: Sorry, vacation day.

89 days: A “Eureka!” moment in two-round mock

90 days: Playmaking cornerback at PFF

91 days: Three defensive backs in seven-round mock

92 days: Kiper takes a tight end

93 days: Safety first for Bucky Brooks in NFL.com mock

94 days: College Football News mocks Mayer

95 days: Two firsts if Rodgers is traded

96 days: NFL.com’s Daniel Jeremiah goes back to Georgia

97 days: This pick would break a long drought

98 days: Stud tight end

99 days: Trading for outside linebacker

100 days: First-round quarterback?


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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.