Mock Block Draft
NFL Draft season is approaching and this is the time of year that everyone becomes a scouting expert. Whether you rely on player comparisons, team fits, or analytics, I can assure you no one cares. NFL GMs spend their lives looking at these players and you just watch a lot of football (See Mel Kiper v. Bill Tobin circa 1994).
Thankfully, I love drafts of other things. While mock drafts run crazy this time of year, there is opportunity elsewhere. You can’t do an aock draft, a bock draft, but instead of wondering what comes next, we’re gonna throw an L in there and draft the top 32 Blocks in the world and take our minds off of football for a bit.
- Trent Williams’ block against the Cardinals, Sep. 13, 2021
Sure, this isn’t supposed to be a football draft, but this display of sheer violence and hell-bent destruction is the essence of an offensive lineman. Trent Williams moves like Juggernaut in X-Men 3 running through walls. 3 feet of reinforced steel couldn’t have stopped him, and that’s what makes this the best block in the world.
2. Lego Block 3001
It doesn’t get much better than this. Old Faithful. There are joints, connectors, gears, and many other Lego bricks with a lot more practical use, but this is where it all begins. The patriarch of Legoland. It’s a fresh reminder of the boundless creativity they bring. When you were without ideas of what to build and that flat green sheet sat in front of you, you snapped a 2x4 block right into the middle and saw where your hands took you from there. I tip my cap to this bastion of youth, and congratulate Mattel on the second overall placement in the block draft.
3. Dikembe Mutumbo Geico Commercial
Geico has been a giant in the marketing game for years, and the series of two guys playing the guitar and metaphorically stating how happy their customers are was headlined by the Hump Day Camel and Mutumbo. Nothing says major sporting event commercial break like the box of cereal tossed by the kid exploding and big number 55 lumbering off. We at the Block Committee have decided to gift Dikembe and the great folks at Geico a 5-way tie for spots 3–7 for all 5 classic and timeless blocks in the ad.
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8. Eastern Bloc
Hey! Everyone Loves Poland! Belarus Is Ever-Never Going Down, Enduring Tons And Infinite Notoriety Every Day! Please Use Twitter If Not Malcontent About Draft! Really Upsetting Some Souls In Article Not Joyful About Its Length! Block East Fills A Selection, Though!
9. Block On Twitter (RECIEVED)
This one is understandably controversial, but I stand by it. Some would rank giving out a block higher than receiving one because you are taking control of your online experience. Receiving a block, however, means you’ve taken a chunk of mental space in someone else’s mind, and that is an establishment of Online Dominance. Being a digital powerhouse and garnering recognition online is going to be an important metric when AI and computers take over, so receiving blocks has extreme utility.
10. Blockchain
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then sorry, but you don’t know money. The economy is passing you up. Bitcoin started the blockchain craze, but NFTs have made it possible to put anything and everything on the block chain. NBA Topshot puts trading cards on blocks. Audio of farts can even be registered.
That 1 megabyte of data is the future, and its passing you up slowpoke. Get on the blockchain now or have fun staying poor.
11. Lebron Chase Down Block
The series. The Superteam. The hometown kid. Mike Breen’s call. Max Kellerman claims he would want Iguodala, but Iggy got pinned to the backboard on Cleveland’s path to a championship, a glory that has been largely foreign to the city. King James has so many other moments in his career to be remembered by, so this block falls a bit, but it is still a moment that lives in sports fame.
12. Massive Limestone Cube
Clickhole’s number 6 thing to pack for college is an absolute essential. When my roommate transferred, my own huge stone block kept me company.
13. 9.21600030720000256x10^17 Way Tie
The committee could not reach a consensus on the 922 Quintillion-ish blocks in a Minecraft world, so we decided to grant them all a spot.
Certain contestants deserve mention like Dirt Block (x,y,z) = (143, 77, 13) and Diamond Ore (x,y,z) = (2291, 5, 90), but all the blocks are fantastic tools for construction and creativity practice, along with online socialization with friends.
14. Pull Block
Pulling a Guard is a great way to establish the run and get your big men cracking skulls in Football. It’s a taste of tradition that is lost in most of today’s spread and RPO schemes. Keeping classic football alive with toughness and strength is a trusty pick, perfect in the middle of the round.
15. Block O (OFFICIAL)
Ohio State Football is a proud midwestern tradition, and at a school of 45,000+, the student body reflects that. The OSU student section powers the world class team and band, making the institution I attend the proud Alphas of the Big 10.
16. MMA/Boxing Block
Dodging a punch matrix style is a far flashier way to reduce damage in combat sports, but we’re in the middle of the round now. In the middle of the round, you no longer are selecting the star QB or Wideout, but rather a serviceable Tight End or off-ball Linebacker. In fighting, sometimes you need a serviceable jab block or leg check to stay in the fight, so this is the perfect place for such a reliable strategy in our draft.
17. Supreme Brick
This is the kind of wild card pick we’d see from Al Davis’s Raiders at this spot. A cultural phenomenon and a masterpiece of capitalism’s pull. A $30 brick had hundreds of grown men lined up in Soho, New York. I, for one, wrote SUPREME on a brick in my backyard. Thankfully, the crack legal team Supreme put together dropped the copyright infringement charges.
18. Block O (Logo)
Another meaning of Block at The OSU is the official logo. The scarlet and gray pantones (HEX codes #BB0000 and #666666) are beautiful complements, and the straight lined and strong O fits the definition of a good mid-round pick. Solid and Serviceable. A trusty logo for a trusty draft position.
19. Tesseract (Marvel)
Sure, you’d think that a glowing cube that is sought after across multiple dimensions and galaxies has a higher place, but the mathematical man in me rejects that.
A tesseract describes a 4 dimensional object, and the human brain can only perceive 3. Sure, there is the belief that these higher dimensional objects exist and we can only see 3 of their characteristics at a time, but that is purely theory. Until Marvel puts some more proven dimensional qualities in their movies, the committee can not rate their block very well.
20. Block on Twitter (GIVEN)
Here’s the other end of the spectrum that was introduced earlier. Blocking someone else on twitter is a good move to prevent things like cyberbullying and helps you control your experience online. It is, however, a sign of weakness if someone interacts with you and you block them. Engaging in discourse with opposing views is something that should be encouraged online and that opportunity is destroyed by a block.
21. Block O (Fraternity)
The third and final entry from my scarlet and gray’s ubiquitous phrase. The area of fraternity houses east of campus goes by the familiar moniker. A good time is often to be had there, but modern fraternity culture gets a bad reputation sometimes, making the selection at 21 a risky pick with hopes of more upside to come under proper guidance. A project with promise, often seen at this level in the first round.
22. H & R Block
Taxation already feels like robbery, and a company that capitalizes on that by taking even more of the payments is a perfect corner in a capitalist market to turn insane profits. Is it my jealousy of their ability to make money that has me slotting them so low? Probably. What we know, however, is that the founders had the last name “Bloch,” so the companies name is a bold faced lie, which is common in the finance industry.
23. Blocking Foul
A blocking foul has the perfect niche of being the worst kind of foul to be called. A shooting foul means some free throws get to be tossed up, a charge has the coolest signal of almost any call in all of sports, but the blocking foul usually leads to an inbound pass. They are also often called due to opinion as opposed to assuming solid defense is being played. Any call that makes a game look more like a referee show than an athletic contest is likely to fall in our rankings, and that shoe fits a blocking call perfectly.
24. Roblox
The positive of Roblox is its generational ability to teach kids about internal economies via Robux. Unfortunately, as so much value is created in the inner workings of Roblox servers, the kids whose parents have the deepest pockets tend to take over. So much importance being placed on monetary parts of the game makes for a dangerous passtime for young children.
25. Blockade
A blockade is one of the oldest ways to impose will upon an enemy country. At this stage in the draft, a blockade is like selecting a running back, as it is only useful if the team is already a powerhouse. Imagining a country like Sri Lanka blockading the entire NATO is like the Detroit Lions drafting a 4.6 40 yard dash power halfback despite glaring needs everywhere else. Won’t work at current size and capabilities.
26. Road Block
The frustration of having to reroute due to things like construction or public events is huge whether you’re on a long drive, late for work, or just running errands. They’re often done for public safety, which is the only saving grace keeping the road block in a draftable position.
27. Writer’s Block
Getting 32 of these is tough. I gave Dikembe Mutumbo 5 whole spots and I’m still grabbing at straws this deep. Writer’s block is kicking my ass right now, so I’m gonna get the last laugh by ranking it this low. That’s how winners do it.
28. Neighborhood Block
The subjective nature of this pick keeps it low on the board. Some people may have grown up with fantastic neighbors, a local park, great wiffle ball games and block parties, but others may have not been so lucky. Neighbors could have been elderly or shut ins with an itchy finger for dialing 911. Regardless, its a part of who you are and that is not lost on the committee.
29. Periodic Table Blocks
Our universe thrives on chaos, entropy, and disorder, so for Dmitri Mendeleev to start organizing the smallest components of our universe into this orderly fashion is insulting. Science would be so much more fun if there was no order in standard information and all conjecture and research was done based on wild guesses, but its unfortunately too late for that.
30. Artery Blockage
Strokes, heart attacks, high blood pressure, cholesterol issues, and countless other medical issues arise from damaged blood flow. Our bodies working against us has plenty of reason to be ranked this low.
31. Tom Brady Block
You had to know I’d get back to football by the end.
There’s plenty of clips of TB12 stumbling around like a newborn deer trying to find a defender to aimlessly put his body in front of. He has admitted himself that he’s a “fish out of water” when trying to lead block. For all he’s done well, the man would have been a bottom tier fullback.
32. Blockbuster
Blockbuster has made itself synonymous with failure and inability to evolve with modern times. A historic fall from grace in the business world. Blockbuster is a horror story for start up companies, useful only to provide an example of what not to do moving forward.
Honorable Mentions
- Blocks beneath the wheels of airplanes to keep them in place
- Lettered blocks for children
- The block in Seattle with 4 Starbucks, one on each corner, that my Grandpa made up and told me and my cousins about
- The actual block in Houston with 2 Starbucks and a Barnes and Noble with a Starbucks inside
- Cinder blocks
Now, instead of commiserating when your team blows the draft on April 29th, like I’ll be doing when my Steelers take a linebacker in the first round and Kyle Trask in the second, we can all wonder what could’ve been if the GMs and coaches decided to pick blocks instead.
