At this point in the pre-draft process, NFL teams must have a general idea how the entire draft will play out in order to determine how high they're willing to select players they think fit their system.
Note the phrase "general idea" -- accurately predicting team-player pairings is nearly impossible, due to trades and the wide variance in grades different teams apply to players. Although teams' top-50 prospects might be similar, the rest of their boards can look quite different because each general manager and head coach looks for different attributes in a player.
Teams don't treat the draft like a grocery list, picking a player to fill their most desperate need in the first round, their next biggest need in the second round, and so on. Value at each pick dictates how the draft goes and how teams try to fill gaps on the rosters.
Despite those pitfalls, the following seven-round mock draft still attempts to put a face (and name) to each selection, with a quick explanation for picks in the first four rounds -- the range in which most of the league's starters were once drafted into service. So just have fun examining one man's preview of the 77th installment of the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting -- otherwise known as the 2012 NFL Draft.
Click here for a team-by-team summary of picks from all seven rounds.
