By Marc Lawrence, PlaybookSports.com — The 2023 NFL Draft kicks off on Thursday, but today the long awaited Playbook NFL Mock Draft has been released.
It’s the same NFL Mock Draft that has nailed 168 of the 223 (75.3%) players selected in the first round of the last seven NFL Drafts, including 27 of 32 last year, as well as 38 players assigned to their designated teams.
At the top of this year’s pecking order is Alabama QB Bryce Young, projected to go No. 1 overall to the Carolina Panthers.
Legendary NFL Hall of Fame General Manager Bill Polian insists that Young is the most accurate passer to enter the draft since Peyton Manning, who Polian drafted as the top pick of the 1998 draft as the Denver Broncos’ GM.
Manning compares Young to Joe Burrow, saying “Recognition, processing, instincts—you see a little bit of Joe Burrow in Bryce Young.”
Carolina did not trade up to the top spot in the draft to watch Smith be selected by another team. His instincts (per the NFL’s S2 cognition scores) at reading coverage and delivering the ball are the best in this year’s college crop of quarterbacks, the best in fact since Burrow
