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No one seems to remember who penned the first mock draft, or when the form first came to be. But it is safe to assume that it was born at some point during the rise of The Draftniks, a small group of self-made experts who began evaluating NFL draft prospects essentially as a hobby.

People have been making lists of draft prospects as far back as the 1940s. Ray Byrne, a Pittsburgh-area funeral home manager, is believed to be the first person to publish the names of available prospects. Then over the years, a few others started making a career of it. The Sullivan brothers, the Marasco brothers, Joe Stein, Palmer Hughes. Some of them even went on to work in pro football.

By the late 1970s-early ’80s, a handful of people started publishing their own draft books, complete with player rankings, scouting reports, and, yes, mock drafts. Jerry Jones—no, not that one—was a pharmacist in Mariemont, Ohio, who, in his spare time, produced a book called The Drug Store List. In Brooklyn, a reclusive 20-something named Joel Buchsbaum convinced Pro Football Weekly to hire him as a draft expert; he became the author of the PFW’s draft book. Then down in Baltimore, Mel Kiper Jr. dropped out of college and started making his own book in his parents’ basement.

Mel Kiper Jr., Draft Analyst, ESPN: “When I started in this business, the only way to improve a football team was through the draft. There were no trades, there was no free agency. If your team was going to change from last year to this year, it was through the draft.

“I knew that people would want to know who these players were. There were only one or two college football games on Saturdays then, not 35 or 40. The fans had no access to it. I had the big satellite dish, I was getting tapes from all the schools. I was able to watch all of these kids. I was able to tell them about all these players nobody else could tell them about. So when [their team] drafted a kid from Bethune-Cookman, he was written up in the book.”

John McClain, writing in the Houston Chronicle, 1998: “Buchsbaum went to State University of New York (Albany) to major in political science and become an attorney, just like his father. But his hobby was writing scouting reports on football players. It began when he was a teenager reading the scouting reports of Carl and Pete Marasco in Pro Football Weekly.

“… In 1974, Buchsbaum had transferred to Brooklyn College. He was 20 years old, and he sent his résumé—complete with scouting reports—to 120 newspapers and magazines to see if they would be interested in having him write about the NFL draft. Roger Stanton, the publisher of the Football News, hired him. The 1975 draft was the first one Buchsbaum evaluated for publication.”

Hub Arkush, Publisher, Pro Football Weekly: “I want to say in ’77, He just started hounding us, wanting to write for Pro Football Weekly. In the summer of ’78, my dad thought, ‘Well, why not? Let’s give him a shot.’ He did a couple of columns with analysis. We knew we had somewhat of a following for the draft stuff, so in the spring of ’79 we published our scout’s notebook, where we actually had scouting reports on the top 250 prospects. Then it became a regular feature.”

Bob Trumpy, former NFL tight end and Cincinnati radio host, in a story at wcpo.com:“[Jerry Jones] was bored to death and started putting together his list. He sent me it. I’m like, ‘What the hell is this?’ It had Mariemont, Ohio, on it. ‘Who is this guy?’ I didn’t pay much attention to it really. It wasn’t a book. It was sheets. We would do the draft live. I’m looking at it. I’m like, ‘Holy Christ, this guy knows what he’s doing.’ When the draft was over, I called him. I said, ‘Look, I don’t know who you are, but your list was almost perfect.’ ”

Mel Kiper Jr.: “When I first started doing this, I put everything in there. I put overachievers, underachievers, sleepers, players who improved their rating with an All-Star [game] performance, all kinds of different lists. I did team-by-team NFL write-ups when nobody was doing them. I did draft needs for each team. I wrote up each position of each NFL teams. I had everybody—freshmen, sophomores and juniors—all rated by position. I had all of that in the draft report. … The first book I ever did [in the late ’70s], I had a mock draft of round one, and I also had a mock draft of who I would take. Then it became a three-round [mock] draft. And after that, I went to six.

“That’s what the readers wanted. They wanted the mock drafts. They wanted every round projected and mocked. We gave them what they wanted.”

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