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ESPN predicts 3 players Colts will likely draft with No. 15 pick

Their newest draft simulator had some interesting surprises.

By Cameron Ellis

Rose Bowl Game - Alabama v Michigan
Rose Bowl Game - Alabama v Michigan / Ryan Kang/GettyImages
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With only days left before the NFL Draft starts, we're quickly running out of "new" ways to project how this weekend's event is going to go. All the standard mock drafts are played out, the weird fun ones that include a bunch of trades are repetitive at this point, and at this point we're just kinda waiting for someone to be like "I flipped a coin 100 times and this is why Drake Maye will surprise everyone and go first overall."

Fortunately, ESPN has us covered. Their latest Draft contraption is a Draft Day predictor, which is basically just a fancy simulation built on ... a lot of mock drafts? An algorithm? No one really knows, and that's the fun of it! They certainly don't try and explain anything, but it's ESPN, so everyone just rolls with it. It's content, after all.

And since everyone's doing it, we went and poked around their Draft Day super computer to do some quick Colts intel. When you plug in the 15th overall pick, here are the top three players that ESPN guarantees (that's how this works right?) the Colts will pick:

Terrion Arnold, CB, Alabama
Olumuyiwa Fashanu, OT, Penn State
Taliese Fuaga, OT, Oregon State

*If* Arnold is on the board at 15, ESPN predicts there's a 14% chance that the Colts take him. Fashanu comes in at 13%, and Fuaga a little bit under that. Interestingly enough, Iowa defensive back Cooper DeJean, who's been a really popular pick for the Colts in mocks all winter, isn't even among the top 11 players that ESPN predicts the Colts will go for. Texas' Bryon Murphy, UCLA's Laiatu Latu, and Georgia's Brock Bowers are the last three players to make the cut.

They also do a breakdown of which players will most likely still be on the board when the Colts' first round pick arrives, and if you take their word for it, both LSU's Brian Thomas Jr. and Oregon's Bo Nix have the highest likelihood. I'm not entirely sure why we need a fancy simulator to be told that Bo Nix is still going to be on the board at 15, but whatever. Draft content!

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