I would go back and look at the immediate projection for the 2013 draft, not long after the 2012 draft ended. Invariably some guys pick the first round for the following year.
Now, that list inevitably will look stupid a year later. In fact, I remember Ray Ray Armstrong of the Canes making one of them. He is slow and slower, not to mention questionable judgment, on and off the field. That wasn't an astute pick.
However, a list like that is guaranteed to include many players who were improperly downgraded, for whatever reason, and offer good value in this draft. The defensive tackle from Texas -- Randall -- who we picked very late last year was on those first round forecasts immediately after the 2011 draft.
It's a good refresher exercise. I always get a kick out of fans who immediately denounce the list, as if they are proving something. It's identical to mocking the handful of cases in which college preseason team ratings are way off, like USC and Arkansas last year, instead of marveling at how frequently they are correct, and finding ways to use it.
I don't know if I agree on this one. I think it might be a good exercise with a guy like Okafor who used to be considered a good 1st rounder and now is more like a 2nd rounder, and all that happened in between was him leading the draft's pass rushers in pressures per snap.
But in my opinion the tendency you're talking about would be characteristic of an overly-mature information environment, an environment where most of what you really need to know is already freely available, and the only thing time does is cause people to over-think. I could see how that would be the case at the NFL level with respect to free agents who have played in the NFL against other NFL players for at least 4 years already. But it's not the case when it comes to college versus pro. This far out, you don't have near enough information yet to be confident that guys are being rated correctly...because these players are all still in a heavy developmental phase. Inevitably the juniors flood the top end of every draft every year, and at this stage those guys are only 2 years out of high school. Many have started for a year or less, to this point.
I don't consider myself to be terrible at what I do. But I was asked by Bleacher Report to do a 2013 Mock Draft absurdly within a week of the 2012 NFL Draft. I hadn't done ANY work on the 2013 class. What that meant is that I had to go by common rankings, stuff you find on NFL Draft Scout, which are usually oriented toward the BLESTO preseason rankings and the like.
I'll give the guys I put in the 1st round based on a combination of those rankings, and the very few players I legitimate did have research and opinions about. I'll put stars next to the guys I'd researched pretty extensively and so putting them where I did was in large part based on my own feelings:
QB Logan Thomas, Virginia Tech*
CB David Amerson, North Carolina State
QB Matt Barkley, USC*
WR Robert Woods, USC
LB Shayne Skov, Stanford*
QB Tyler Wilson, Arkansas
DT Star Lotulelei, Utah*
OT Ricky Wagner, Wisconsin
WR Keenan Allen, California
CB Carrington Byndom, Texas*
LB Manti Te'o, Notre Dame*
FS Kenny Vaccaro, Texas*
WR Kenny Stills, Oklahoma
RB Marcus Lattimore, South Carolina*
DE William Gholston, Michigan State
DT Kawann Short, Purdue
OT Oday Aboushi, Virginia
CB Dee Milliner, Alabama*
OC Barrett Jones, Alabama
LB Tom Wort, Oklahoma
DE Jarvis Jones, Georgia
DT Kwame Geathers, Georgia
RB Christine Michael, Texas A&M
CB Tyrann Mathieu, LSU
CB Johnthan Banks, Mississippi State
DE Alex Okafor, Texas*
DE Barkevious Mingo, LSU
OT Justin Pugh, Syracuse
DE Bjoern Werner, FSU*
TE Joseph Fauria, UCLA*
RB Ray Graham, Pittsbugh*
Again the guys with an (*) were guys I'd done enough on to endorse the grade (even Fauria and Graham, unfortunately)...but every other pick, this was all based on NFL Draft Scout's lists for the most part. There's some messed up stuff on there, lol.
I try and be aware of the situations you describe...over thinking...too much emphasis on new information and not properly contextualizing it. IMO, that may be happening with Matt Barkley, Manti Te'o...but the others? Not so sure.
