PFT published our first mock draft of the year on Sunday evening and it will surely suffer the same irrelevant fate as every other mock draft ever made once the draft actually starts and the predictable run of unpredicted moves starts happening.
One place where our mock may be off base is the landing spot of Wisconsin running back Melvin Gordon, who we’ve pegged as the Cowboys’ choice with the 27th pick of the first round. Gordon makes sense for a Cowboys team that’s got Darren McFadden as their top back, but Peter King of MMQB.com reports that Gordon’s unlikely to be there.
King reports Monday that Gordon “will not get past” the Ravens, who own the 26th pick in the draft. It’s another sensible landing spot for one of the draft’s top running back prospects as Justin Forsett is closing in on his 30th birthday and the depth chart behind him isn’t particularly experienced or impressive.
King cautions that two weeks before the draft is too early to take this information to Vegas, which is certainly true. There are 31 other teams in the league and teams will be making moves up and down the draft board and Baltimore may be one of the teams deciding to change their position. There’s also the possibility that the Ravens want teams to think they’ve got their hearts set on Gordon when another player is really the apple of their eye, to say nothing of the chance that someone they didn’t think would be available would drop into their laps come April 30.
Given those major caveats, it’s probably safe for the Cowboys and other teams selecting after the 26th pick to still consider the possibility that Gordon will be there for the taking