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NFL’s draft coverage overhyped, overrated, overdone

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by Robert Panger

Friday, April 27, 2007

The NFL draft is this weekend? I couldn't care less.

Nothing annoys me more in this world than hype. If it were up to me, the Super Bowl would be played the day after the AFC and NFC championship games. That would leave Sean Salisbury, Ron Jaworski and the gang only one night to over-hype one of the most consistent letdowns in American sports. Yet, they would still probably beat it into the ground.

The discussion about the NFL draft begins as soon as the college football season ends, but it begins in earnest during the sports vacuum that is the month of February, when the cheese dip stains from Super Bowl parties have barely faded and Mel Kiper Jr. comes out of hiding to break down every possible draft-day scenario. Seriously. Every one of them. Twice.

The hype the NFL draft receives every year is just another part of the invasiveness of the NFL into Americans' daily lives. The NFL Network offers 24/7 coverage of the sport, while ESPN devotes large chunks of SportsCenter to NFL stories all year round — even at times when the players are thinking more about foosball then they are about football. NFL Live's season is year-round, while the football season lasts only five months.

Then comes draft day itself. This year, ESPN and ESPN2 will offer 11 hours of draft coverage on Saturday and seven hours on Sunday. That's 18 hours of trying not to figure out the over-under on the number of tins of pomade in Kiper's hair.

To be fair, the draft offers sports fans ample material for debate. Online forums light up with talk of who teams should pick, who are the most overrated and underrated players in the draft, and who this year's sleeper pick will be. The draft can affect a team for years to come. That could be a good thing (1986 49ers) or a bad thing (1998 Chargers). The draft debate can start as early as midseason in the year before, and it lasts until every player taken in the draft has either proven his worth or has left the league. It's endless.

But the NFL draft and its blanket coverage are for sports geeks. The kinds of guys who log 20,000 posts in twelve different NFL forums are the ones who catch every pick of the draft so they can be the first to comment. Casual fans may have the draft on in the background while they do their Saturday chores, but they will only do so to find out who their team picked in the first few rounds.

But watching the NFL draft or any of the coverage is pointless. To most fans, it only matters who their teams pick, and they can find that out in the Sunday paper or by quickly checking online. Analyses be damned. The fans will see how the picks pan out in September.

Besides being pointless, the NFL draft is also tremendously boring. Waiting to see if Matt Millen will draft another wide receiver in the first round is only slightly more exciting than waiting to see if your lunch date is going to go with the Italian sub again or shake it up and opt for roast beef and ham. In the end, it doesn't really matter. You won't even get to eat the sandwich.

How many times have you flipped on ESPN Classic to see slow motion replays of Paul Tagliabue handing a Dolphins hat to a draftee with the NFL films voiceover guy talking in the background about Tagliabue's mastery of his trade? None. That kind of DVD is only available at flea markets in Gary, Ind.

With the NHL and NBA playoffs heating up, and baseball season in full swing, few things could really matter less right now than the NFL draft. Yes, a team's future hangs in the balance. Yes, it could be the difference between watching your team in the Super Bowl and giving up on your team before Week 7. But if I have to hear someone talk about a player's "upside" or about the Cleveland Browns' "war room," one more time, I will go Tonya Harding all over that person.

Do you remember Ryan Leaf or Akili Smith? Of course you do, because sports commentators and columnists can't wait to break out their Top 10 Draft Busts the week before the actual draft, saving them enough time and effort from doing a real news story to get in an extra round of golf that day. Their only hope is that they won't have to change the list, making next year's story that much easier to write.

NFL draft coverage is the epitome of the National Football League's delusion of self-importance. Pretending people actually care enough about the draft to mindlessly watch it for 18 hours assumes the worst about Americans. It also assumes NFL football is worthy of exhaustive year-round coverage.

No sport is worth that. Not even football.

So get outside this weekend. Get updates from your loser friend who is actually watching the draft at home. Fly a kite. Play football with friends.

Or better yet, go fishing like Joe Thomas.

Robert Panger is a senior majoring in journalism. If you would like to make plans to do anything other than watch the NFL draft with him for Saturday, he can be reached at rbpanger@wisc.edu.

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Anonymous (April 29, 2007 @ 10:07am):

"Pretending people actually care enough about the draft to mindlessly watch it for 18 hours assumes the worst about Americans."

According to Sports Illustrated, last year the NFL draft got better TV ratings than the NBA playoffs. So assume away, because Americans are eating this stuff up.

Anonymous (April 30, 2007 @ 1:20am):

I have four words that I know ESPN has heard that rendered their overcoverage of the draft irrelevant earlier this decade and possibly for all time:

Tom Brady, final selection

Anonymous (April 30, 2007 @ 4:02pm):

The draft is ridiculously overrated and overhyped, as is pretty much everything even remotely connected with the NFL.

But credit Pete Rozelle and his successors for building the brand. The NFL, along with Budwesier "beer", Jerry Bruckheimer "films", and the Dubya "Presidency", is a sterling example of the stupidity, poor taste, and eminent brainwashability of millions of our fellow Americans.

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