If the Fans Were the GMs of Each Team...

Danny Edit - Here are the final results of Jake Smith's exhaustive project where he had SB Nation readers and fans vote for their respective team's picks. As you can see, we were way off. Check it out below and thanks to Jake for the hard work! Well done sir.

Hello All,

I am a Vikings fan... I had a long running experiment going that spanned 31 NFL teams SB*Nation Sites... The trek is finally over, as fun as it was, it was also exhausting... The point of it all was to see from a fan's point of view, how accurate we can be at predicting what our teams might do in the draft.

I started out by giving the teams in the top 10-15, days, to weeks literally to vote. I would keep an eye on how many votes per day, and wait until the amount per day was low enough to move on to the next team. As the draft neared, and I procrastinated a bit, I had to light up a fire under my butt, needless to say, I barely made it, with Green Bay (Acme Packing Company) just finishing things up within the past hour.

In hindsight, there are a few things that I would change, but you can only do so much to imitate the NFL Draft. I would give the top 10 picks a bit more time (say, 5 days?), then give the rest approx. 3 days to figure out who they wanted. For one, it wouldn't leave such a big gap from pick 1 to pick 32, and wouldn't make some of the top 10 picks look a little sheepish. Secondly, it wouldn't leave as much of a difference in how many people voted per team. Although obviously there are sites with more current users than others.

I think the way I did trades, was the best way possible. I could have announced to all of SB*Nation that I was doing this, but if I would have done that, then we would have had all sorts of people from different teams voting, trying to derail somebody so they could get the pick they wanted down the line.

Really, the way everything turned out, was pretty good considering everybody's circumstances. The top teams picked their players before the combine, so when players stocks dropped, it was too late for them to do anything about it... So I don't want those teams down the line to be too hard on the top picks.

I wanted to bring everybody together, to have a good time and talk about the draft. I hope most of you had a great time, and can contribute to the comments section below!

I have made each Team - Player a link to the official results. If you would like to see exactly how the draft unfolded, just click on one of the teams / players below.

The teams with the ***asterisks*** have notes below.

1. ***Carolina (2-14) Nick Fairley - 33/91 Votes***
2. Denver (4-12) Da'Quan Bowers - 109/247 Votes
3. Buffalo (4-12) Patrick Peterson - 315-867 Votes
4. Cincinnati (4-12) A.J. Green - 120 / 228 Votes
5. Arizona (5-11) Von Miller - 41/129 Votes
6. Cleveland (5-11) Robert Quinn - 37/140 Votes
7. San Francisco (6-10) Prince Amukamara - 254/426 Votes
8. Tennessee (6-10) Marcell Dareus - 109/250 Votes
9. ***Dallas (6-10) Tyron Smith - 95/443 Votes***
10. Washington (6-10) Cam Newton - 91/296 Votes
11. ***Houston (6-10) Julio Jones - 11/63 Votes***
12. Minnesota (6-10) Blaine Gabbert - 64/136 Votes
13. ***Detroit (6-10) Jimmy Smith - 25/167 Votes***
14. St. Louis (7-9) Aldon Smith - 41/162 Votes
15. Miami (7-9) Ryan Mallett - 63/212 Votes
16. Jacksonville (8-8) Cam Jordan - 41/116 Votes
17. N. England (14-2) (Oak.) J.J. Watt - 79/194 Votes
18. San Diego (9-7) Ryan Kerrigan - 34/45 Votes
19. NY Giants (10-6) Mike Pouncey - 71/207 Votes
20. Tampa Bay (10-6) Adrian Clayborn - 23/61 Votes
21. Kansas City (10-6) Phil Taylor - 130/202 Votes
22. Indianapolis (10-6) Gabe Carimi - 37/103 Votes
23. Philadelphia (10-6) Nate Solder - 23/109 Votes
24. New Orleans (11-5) Mark Ingram - 22/48 Votes
25. Seattle (7-9) Jake Locker - 236/464 Votes
26. Baltimore (12-4) Justin Houston - 11/33 Votes
27. Atlanta (13-3) Anthony Castonzo - 11/47 Votes
28. New England (14-2) Cameron Heyward - 47/135 Votes
29. Chicago (11-5) Corey Liuget - 24/49 Votes
30. NY Jets (11-5) Martez Wilson - 7/33 Votes
31. Pittsburgh (12-4) Ras-I Dowling - 34/120 Votes
32. Green Bay (10-6) Derek Sherrod - 13/34 Votes

***You will notice if you click on the Panthers link, that they picked A.J. Green as their pick. This IS NOT THE OFFICIAL RESULTS. The official results were taken, and I forgot to close the poll. You will notice the official final count in the comments section on their poll page with Nick Fairley as the official pick.

*** With the #9 pick in the 2011 NFL Draft, the Dallas Cowboys have decided to Trade Down – 201/443 Votes. Since they could not find a suitable trade partner, they have seleted Tyron Smith 95/443 Votes

The Cowboys put in a lot of effort to trade down.

They made unsuccessful efforts to trade with:
#12 Minnesota
#14 St. Louis
#15 Miami
#16 Jacksonville
#17 New England (from Oakland)
#18 San Diego

***With the 11th pick in the 2011 NFL Draft, the Houston Texans have decided to Trade Down - 13/63 Votes. Since they were unable to find a suitable trade partner, they have selected Julio Jones - 11/63 Votes

***With the 13th pick in the 2011 NFL Draft, the Detroit Lions have decided to Trade Down – 31/167 Votes. Since they were unable to find a suitable trade partner, they have selected Jimmy Smith! – 25/167 Votes

Some of the remaining players that could very well be drafted in the 1st round:

There's some intriguing players in this group still...

J. Baldwin - WR

L. Hankerson - WR

T. Smith - WR

R. Cobb - WR

M. Cannon - G

B. Ijalana - G

D. Watkins - G

B. Harris - CB

A. Williams - CB

R. Moore - FS

Q. Carter - FS

D. McDaniel - SS

K. Sheppard - ILB

A. Ayers - OLB

B. Reed - OLB / DE

J. Sheard - DE

C. Ballard - DE

St. Paea - DT

M. Wilkerson - DT

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I want to thank you all for the good times, here are some stats regarding all of you who contributed:

Votes: 6,216

Comments: 1,724

Rec's: 112

CHECK OUT THE OFFICIAL POST ON SBNATION'S MOCKING THE DRAFT AND VOTE/COMMENT THERE!