One Commodore Taken in New PFN NFL 7-Round Mock Draft

No one in their right mind takes mock drafts seriously. After all, most are mainly based on speculations and a guess. Others might come equipped with a dartboard or a fishbowl full of little slips of paper.

This should come with the caveat that the first rounds of some mocks can be reasonably accurate as it is somewhat easier to predict the best players in that particular draft class, but still, getting the exact team correct when picking 32 of them is rare.

We should also give credit to anyone brave enough, or bored enough to take the time necessary to go through an entire 7-round NFL mock draft. So congrats to the fellows at PFN, and in particular, PFN Analyst, Neal Driscoll, who did the dirty work for this article.

So exactly how does one go about putting together such a massive project?

"Each pick in all 7 rounds was made with the goal being to either fill a major position of need or select the best player available while taking things such as salary cap space, potential free agency losses, and draft capital into consideration. Spoiler alert: like a majority of 2021 mock drafts out there, Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence is the first overall pick. After the Jacksonville Jaguars select Trevor Lawrence, madness ensues," wrote Driscoll.

Now for the important part. How many Vanderbilt Commodores did Driscoll project into this draft field?

One!

THat's right, just one Vanderbilt player, Dimitir Moore, taken by the Denver Broncos with the No. 101 pick is deemed talented enough to see his name called in this offering.

Granted, there are other current Commodores who could play their way into the draft conversation with strong seasons-but there's no guaratees on that, or if there will be a season- so there's still hope, however slight.

What does this say about the current talent level of the Commodores?

Vanderbilt has never been a place that has churned out NFL talent on a regular basis like Alabama and Georgia are currently producing. They likely never will, but they could do better than one per season.

Last year with three of the best offensive players in school history in the draft class, only one, running back Ke'Shawn Vaughn was drafted. Both Kalijah Lipscomb and Jared Pinkney went unselected.

The short story here is that while Vanderbilt is an academic powerhouse, and athletics in general and football in particular aren't that important to those running the institution, there is still room for the overall talent level to increase.

Regardless of anything else, this is still an SEC program and should be able to produce a higher level of talent simply because of that association.

It should also be noted that Moore, has opted-out of the 2020 season and won't play one down this season. So the talent level, which was already questionable will be without arguably their best player this season.

That's why they have depth, time for someone else to step up and add their name to the NFL Draft conversation for 2021.

Follow Greg on Twitter @GregAriasSports and @SIVanderbilt or Facebook at Vanderbilt Commodores-Maven.