The 2016 NFL Draft gets going soon, which means mock drafts will quickly be a thing of the past. Well, for a little bit at least. As soon as the draft ends, there will be 2017 mock drafts already in the hopper. People take an initial look right after the draft, and then mocks disappear until the fall.
With that in mind, I thought it would be fun to take a look at a couple 2016 mock drafts that were produced immediately after the 2015 NFL Draft finished. SB Nation's Dan Kadar and ESPN's Todd McShay are the first two I found, so I figured why not look back at them? It's interesting to see how some players rise and fall, but it's also just fun looking at how different things were a year ago in many respects.
Dan had the San Francisco 49ers selecting LSU cornerback TreDavious White, while McShay had the 49ers selecting Ole Miss wide receiver Laquon Treadwell. White ended up returning to LSU for another year. Treadwell was mocked to the 49ers quite a bit early in the pre-draft process, but has slipped to the latter part of the first round in a lot of recent mock drafts.
Both mocks had Christian Hackenberg fairly high up. Dan had him No. 8, while McShay had him No. 1 overall. McShay had Jared Goff in his mock, while neither had Carson Wentz. Dan had Cardale Jones at No. 6, Hackenberg at No. 8, and Connor Cook at No. 9. McShay had Hackenberg No. 1, Cook No. 2, Jones No. 7, and Goff No. 9.
Among potential 49ers picks this year, both had Laremy Tunsil and Ronnie Stanley fairly high. Dan had DeForest Buckner at No. 31, while McShay had him listed with a few players as "other players considered."