Former Times News sport writer Jason Boris (Tamaqua, PA) has once again proved that he is the king of mock drafts. Boris’ 2026 NFL mock draft appeared in Thursday’s edition of the Times News, which marked its 26th anniversary appearing in the newspaper.

In what he deemed one of the hardest drafts to project in years (which resulted in lower scores across the board, in part due to eight first-round trades), Boris finished in fifth place out of 175 entries in The Huddle Report’s (www.thehuddlereport.com) mock draft scoring contest, which is considered the most respected NFL mock draft grading service out there. Boris successfully predicted 27 of the 32 players to go in the first round and matched nine of those players with the team that actually ended up selecting them.

In The Huddle Report’s scoring system, you get one point for each player placed in the first round and two points for matching a player to the team that selected them. Boris finished with 45 points, which was just three points behind this year’s mock draft championship score of 48 points (Theo Gremminger of www.FantasyPoints.com). In 2024, Boris produced a historic mock draft (59 points), which tied for the highest scoring mock draft ever recorded.

Since debuting his mock draft in The Huddle Report in 2009, Boris has finished in the “Top 10” in 10 of the 18 years, including three runner-up finishes (2011, 2013 and 2015) in addition to 2024’s championship mock. He has finished in the “Top 5” in each of the past three drafts.

Boris, regarded as the most accurate mock drafter in the industry for nine of the last 15 years, has been featured in the New York Times, Forbes Magazine, Sports Illustrated and the Washington Post, in addition to making appearances on sports podcasts and radio stations all across the county.

He is currently The Huddle Report’s reigning “Mock Draft King of the Hill,” which compiles an average score of a person’s mock draft from the previous five years. Boris’ five-year average is 47.0 points, which is over three points better than second-place Scott Smith of www.4for4.com (43.6).

Boris has been named the “King of the Hill” a record nine times (2012-2017, 2024-2026), as his annual mock draft is not only viewed locally by Times News readers, but also by thousands across the world. His 2026 mock draft which was shared on Twitter/X was viewed by over 71,000 people in the first 24 hours of its posting.