Is the Draft Ready for Prime Time?

I love the NFL Draft.  It has been one of my favorite pseudo-sporting events for quite some time (right up there with the NBA Draft, my league’s Fantasy Football Draft, and the NHL).  Up until recently, I really enjoyed all of the information the NFL Draft allowed me to drink in.  I loved that there were hundreds of names for me to learn before the draft began.  I took pride in being able to share my educated opinion on the majority of the guys who would be taken in the seven rounds of action.  I liked that there were easy to understand numbers that aided me in forming my opinions, like 40 yard dash times to illustrate pure speed, vertical jumps to display explosiveness, and shuttle run times to determine quickness.  I liked being able to pick out sleepers from small schools or with poor measurables who were going to go two rounds later than they should and surprise all the pundits.  The simplicity of it all was what made it great.  However, that simplicity has gone out the window in recent years.  The draft has gone from being something that was tailored to the diehard fans to being packaged for the masses.  The same way nationally broadcasted sporting events infuriate me with their unsophisticated coverage, ESPN’s (the King of the Draft) coverage of the draft now panders to the lowest common denominator among their viewers while beating us over the head with their voluminous coverage.

While there are many problems with the way the draft is currently covered by the major media outlets, I believe that each issue stems from the amount of cooks in the kitchen.  For the sake of clarity, I’ll focus mainly on the coverage provided by ESPN, as they are the ones who actually televise the event.  Back in the good old days, Mel Kiper, Jr. was the be-all, end-all of draft information.  He had great sources, great incite, and great hair.  He was the total package.  For about three weeks a year, he was on TV more than David Letterman as he gave his opinions on who would be good, who would be a bust, and what player was going to be taken where.  It was the perfect amount of information.  Having Kiper, Jr. as the main voice in my ear allowed me to either agree or disagree with what was essentially the consensus opinion.  Every once in a while, Chris Mortensen would chime in from some team’s headquarters, but nothing he said really meant anything.  I have a strong belief that NFL front office executives were put on this earth to lie to us and send us in the wrong direction, so any information they gave Mort was likely a ruse.  Come draft day, the only opinion that meant anything was Mel’s.  Today, ESPN has two full time draft analyzers that do their work year round (Kiper, Jr. and the enigmatic Todd McShay), a blogger for each division in the NFL who opines on all thing NFL draft during the period from the Super Bowl until Draft Day, and an entire website (Scouts INC.) that contributes mock drafts, player projections, and copious articles.  Add that to the contributions of other ESPN football staff (John Clayton, the afore-mentioned Mortensen, Adam Schefter, ect…), and the amount of information regarding the draft that is available is simply overwhelming.  In most cases, the more information there is available on a certain topic, the better.  But when something like the NFL Draft is concerned, this couldn’t be further from the case.  There no longer exists any consensus opinion on anything.  Is Tim Tebow going to be great or a bust?  It depends on who you ask.  Is Sam Bradford the franchise quarterback that he’ll have to be in order to justify going 1^st overall on Thursday?  Sure!  Well…maybe.  Ask again later.  This has become the problem.  With so many different opinions stemming from information gained from an uncountable number of sources, the opinion regarding an individual player can changes daily.  A player can go from being slotted 10^th overall to being a borderline first round pick based solely on what some guy heard from some other guy.  That player’s ability didn’t change over the course of a few hours.  He didn’t become a worse football player.  He didn’t lose any of his desire to play the game.  Someone simply decided that his value should change.  The rub of all this is that none of this conjecture has anything to do with how the teams view the draft.  Back in the day, teams used a scouting service to give them rundowns of the prospects, but in the modern age of competitive sports, such a system really isn’t palatable any longer.  Each team has their own system and their own scouting personnel that determines how they draft and who they draft.  All this information ESPN is produces simply for the use by the fans, which means that the more often things change, the more they can write about it, and the more page views ESPN.com gets.  Which brings me to my next point:  Money is the reason for everything crappy in sports, including changes to the draft.

Tonight (Thursday), the NFL Draft begins with the first round being aired in primetime on ESPN.  On Friday, the second and third rounds will begin at 5pm CDT.  Saturday, the draft concludes with rounds 4-7.  Three days?  Really?  Three f#%&ing days?  The MLB’s Rule 4 (Amateur) Draft only takes three days, and it has 50 rounds!  Why should the seven round NFL draft take just as long?  Money, my friends…Money.  The NFL is a cash cow for networks.  It is easily the biggest sport in North America, and nobody understands sports exploitation better than ESPN.  If there’s a dollar to be made, The Worldwide Leader will make it.  This is the same network that once tricked Baltimore Orioles’ third baseman Miguel Tejada into coming in for an interview to answer some “baseball questions,” only to throw a birth certificate in his face that suggested Miguel was a couple of years older than he was representing.  You stay classy, ESPN.  The draft moving to primetime is just another way to make a buck.  People will watch tonight.  Lots of people.  People will watch tomorrow night.  Lots of people.  Advertisers will pay big bucks for spots during the early picks.  Chris Berman will reference bands and actors from the 60’s that no one under the age of 35 has ever heard of (I’m not sure if those obscure references get any money for being mentioned…I’ll look into it).  The drama will be thick as Jimmy Clausen slips further and further into the first round (Clausen pulled a fast one on ESPN by deciding not to show up to the draft in order to spend the night with his grandfather.  ESPN will make sure this costs him).  Everything is in place to make ESPN a load of money on this thing, which means that we had better get used to the format.  Money makes the world go round, baby.

So what can the average “Draft Rube” do to come to terms with all these changes to this wonderful event that has made it more accessible?  I’m a big proponent of Mock Draft Leagues.  This is a great way to prove to yourself how smart you are!  (Never mind the fact that you’ll get about 10 of the 32 first round picks correct.  It’s not about the results, it’s about the process.  Now go get another beer and finish up that second round mock!)  Second, pick your favorite draft expert and focus mainly on his information.  For me, it’s always been Mel Kiper, Jr.  He knows the system.  He knows the front office guys.  He scouts college players very well.  He’s my guy.  Some people really like Todd McShay.  He’s a little young for my taste.  How could someone who looks like he’s fresh out of college have the grizzled nature it takes to do this work?  I’m not convinced.  Either way, focusing on one expert takes a lot of the riff-raff opinions out of the equation and makes it easier to understand what is going on.  Lastly, and this is what I struggle with the most, it’s important to simply enjoy the draft for what it is.  Your favorite team has the opportunity to pick up their next wave of franchise players.  As has been proven by guys like Tom Brady (6^th Round), Joe Montana (3^rd Round) and John Randle (Undrafted), you never know when that next great player is going to come along.  The NFL Draft is a wonderful, albeit flawed, event that football fans should enjoy, regardless of the packaging.  The bottom line is that when Roger Goodell walks up to that podium for the first time, all the problems will be washed away for me, and my love for the draft will be renewed…

Unless the Vikings screw this thing up.