The Evolution of the Draft

Personally, this is my favorite time of the year for a few reasons. First and foremost, winter exits and spring enters, and with the advent of spring comes not just the beautiful weather, but also, the very first true “Spring Classic,” THE NFL DRAFT!

I cannot help but smile as I write this article because it has brought back so many fond memories of growing up in Brooklyn. I did not have access to cable TV until 1988, so I never even watched a telecast of the NFL Draft until 1989. It wasn’t until then that I discovered the king of the draft, Mel Kiper, sporting his trademark DA hair-style, By the way, if you people think Mel has big hair now, well, bare in mind that the 80’s were all about big hair and Kiper not only had a lot of jacked-up hair, but between he and Jimmy Johnson, well, lets just say the two of them kept the share-holders for the hair-spray companies very happy. Sorry Mel! I’m a big fan.

Back in the day, when we needed an up to the minute scoring update, we would call “Sports-Phone,” which was essentially a recording that was updated about every half hour by a variety of the local sports reporters in New York. You would call and get a recorded message with all the up to the minute scores. Sports-Phone was especially beneficial to us sports fans if we were at a wedding, for instance, or if it were late in the baseball season during the pennant race and we wanted to find out what some of the rivals were doing. Lets be honest about something, though; Sports-phone was created for and became the degenerates gambler’s life-line. Trust me! Unfortunately I know ! But I digress. Sports-phone really came in handy because it was the only access I had to the up to the minute selections on draft day. Whereas today, I could just check my phone. I remember calling every fifteen minutes for about 8 hours on the first day of the draft, just so I could get each selection as they came. I would pretty much do the same the very next day, too.

Remember that back in the 80’s, the NFL Draft was not 7 rounds, it was 12 rounds. The thing with Sports -Phone was that, well, in addition to being a really cool tool, it was a little pricey, though. Luckily, not as pricey as the sex-phone chat lines. Not that I would know! Anyway, when mom got Aprils phone bill in May, let’s just say she found another use for the big wooden spoon she regularly used for Sunday pasta!

The draft has evolved into a phenomenon that is almost mind-blowing. As you may know, the draft is entering it’s 75th year. That’s 75 years of intrigue, excitement, drama, busts, and home runs. If you look at the evolution of the draft, it’s not as if it has been a meteoric rise from the start. Far from it, in fact. The draft started out and had been paired down from over 14 rounds. Back then, the NFL teams did not always have the funds to send scouts all over the country to check out many of the small school talents. As a result, it was not uncommon to have some small school “finds” stay home and play with the NFL team that the player was geographically closer to. No prospect goes unnoticed today, regardless of the school he attends.

There are no secrets in the area of scouting today, not even when it comes to finding those truly obscure, small school “gems” or “sleepers.“ Think of Andre Reed, who hailed from a little known school called Kutztown State or Jerry Rice, who was the product of a great football factory, Mississippi Valley State. In today’s NFL, however, everyone is a known commodity. Gary Jeter, the former Ram great was a guy drafted at the end of the draft in the 14th round. With the finances NFL teams invest in scouting, and with the advent of the information highway, small school stars are not only heavily scouted, but they may even be selected very high in the draft, like Dallas Cowboys OLB DeMarcus Ware (Troy State).

The draft has always had something of a cult following with a select few of NFL fans, otherwise known as “Draftniks.” By the way, for the purpose of full disclosure, yours truly is, has been, and will always be a die hard Draftnik! Years ago, when the draft was shown exclusively on ESPN, and cable TV was not an option for everyone, many of us would make the trek to the Marriot Marquise Hotel in NYC to watch the draft in person. Attending the draft is not completely understood by the masses, even by many die-hard football fans. My brother (a Jets’ fan), for one, could never quite grasp the concept of getting into the whole draft frenzy, especially traveling to and seeing it in person. He would ask me “So you’re going to wait on line for 6 hours just so you can to get into the Marriot, and then you’re going to sit there for another 6 hours and listen to a guy announce a name every fifteen minutes?” Of course, I responded rather incredulously “Yeah! And what is it “you” don’t get here?“ Yes, I was indeed a draftnik and a football “geek!” And I embraced it!

I remember my first trip to the NFL Draft back in 1993. I waited in line with a peculiar bunch, to say the least. Honestly, It felt as if I were in line at a Star Trek convention. No, Folks, I am not a fan of Star Trek and really don’t understand the whole “trekki” mind-set! Try to picture this, though. Some of the fans in line were seemingly in their mid 30’s and had that “I still live at home with mom look.” What’s more, some even came to the draft sporting those “uber-cool” transistor radio-ear phones that were such a big hit back in the 1980’s! Indeed, you had a very unique and vast array of fans who attended the draft years ago. I have to admit, though, I got a real kick out of all the Raider Nation fans who showed up. I couldn’t resist taking some pictures with them. Those guys were great! The outfits were hilarious, and seeing them brought me back a few years earlier as a kid growing up and watching wrestling. I was a big fan of the Road Warriors and that’s exactly what some of these guys reminded me of.

Once inside, the Jets’ fans at the 1993 NFL Draft were extremely vocal and we made it abundantly clear whom we wanted them to draft. Marvin Jones! In fact, what I will always remember about that day was how we made a 20yr old man feel like he was on top of the world. Jones was one of the 8 or 9 players invited by the NFL to attend the draft. Not only was this young man about to be selected by an NFL team and become a newly minted millionaire, but he was thoroughly embraced by the Jets’ faithful! Thanks to the telecast of the draft on ESPN, the entire country knew New York wanted their guy, Marvin Jones! He could not show his face on stage without the Jets’ fans getting whipped up into a frenzy, shouting and pounding the balcony seats while screaming his name. All morning long, all you could hear from the balcony were chants of “Mar-vin Jo-nes!” The place just erupted when the commissioner called his name. Surely, it must have been a great feeling for “Shadetree Jones!”

The response from the fans in the balcony has always been interesting. Especially when it came to the Jets fans. First off, back then the Jets were not the well run and aggressive organization they are today. It was always “how are they going to screw this pick up this year?” So to have the Jets’ faithful overwhelmingly approve and cheer a selection is very rare, to be sure. Who can forget the film clip from 1983 of former commissioner Pete Rozelle with the smirk on his face as he announced the Jets selection of QB Kenny O’brien, from Cal- when DAN MARINO WAS ON THE BOARD? Yes, the Jets have a litany of draft misses and busts. What’s more, some of those busts came at the expense of passing up players like Richmond Webb, Junior Seau, Emmit Smith-and that was just one round from the same draft!

The Jets were never safe from the criticism of media members like Mel Kiper, either. My first memory of a televised draft was Mel Kiper and his big hair ripping the Jets to shreds for not knowing what the draft was all about and how to maneuver through the draft. Kiper went nuts over the jets selecting Jeff lageman, who was a pretty good prospect and turned out to be a solid player. The problem was that, according to Kiper and some NFL scouts, Lageman had an across the board 2nd round grade. What’s more, he was drafted ahead of Michigan State WR Andre Rison, and wide-receiver was a major need for the Jets that year, too. Kiper’s on-air ripping of the Jets is still shown from time to time when ESPN pops on some of the NFL draft flashbacks.

As the draft began to really become a national phenomenon with NFL fans, Kiper had his share of on the air tussles with various football executives. One of the more notable confrontations was with former Indianapolis Colts GM, Bill Tobin. Tobin went into an on air tirade, basically calling into question the knowledge and integrity of Mel Kiper, after Tobin bristled at Kiper’s ripping of his decision to pass over QB Trent Dilfer. The Colts, prior to the arrival of Peyton Manning, were just an awful, and absolutely inept organization and Tobin took umbrage with Kiper‘s criticism, who in Tobin’s mind was under-qualified in the scouting department and nothing more than a sports handicapper.

He looked at Kiper as nothing more than a guy who sat alone in his basement watching film of college players. The late Joel Bushbaum, a proud Brooklyn alumni, who unfortunately died way too young in 2002, was exactly that. In fact, he was the guy who paved the way for the likes of Mel Kiper and Todd McShay. Bushbaum knew his business, too. His scouting was not only respected, but he was often referenced by some NFL teams and scouts. In fact, he was so good at his work that he would often turn down offers to work in the scouting department of NFL teams. I always made it my business to get Bushbaum’s annual draft edition and his work never disappointed. He was in a class by himself

The draft has become every fans “off-season super bowl!” What made this such a huge phenomenon, in my opinion, was the fact that teams who were perennial door-mats, the Cardinals (prior to Whisenhunt taking over), my Jets, the Bengals, just to name a few, had a chance to close the gap a little each April. Fans were excited at the possibility of their lovable losers striking gold and coming up with an all time great, like Lawrence Taylor, Peyton manning, or a Larry Fitzgerald. They say in baseball that “Hope springs eternal in February!“ Well, in football, “Hope springs eternal in April!”

For many years, ESPN has enjoyed sole possession of the broadcast rights to the draft. And for the last 20 years or so, the NFL draft has become a ratings boom and a major money-maker for the network. Thankfully, for people like myself, who have really grown tired of the on-air droids at ESPN, the NFL network was born. The NFL network is the one and only true source to televised pre-draft coverage. As a fan of the draft, you’re lucky if ESPN devotes even a few moments to the draft on either NFL Live and/or Sportscenter. Conversely, the NFL Network, however, floods the air with pre-draft coverage. Really, can anyone say Mike Mayock is not only the best in the business, but a great listen, too? His voice never gets old and you never want to throw a brick through the TV like I often want to do when I hear a guy like Dick Vitale. Thank the Lord Dicky V. is only a basketball guy!

The popularity of the NFL Draft is getting to be so outrageous. So much as so that the NFL has looked to capitalize on its popularity by making the first round of this years draft a prime-time show. The draft is scheduled to begin at 7:30pm (EST) on Thursday, April 22, with rounds 2 & 3 scheduled to take place on Friday, April 23rd, and the remaining rounds of the draft concluding on Saturday.

The spike in popularity is not just evident in the NFL’s decision to switch the broadcast of the draft from Saturday afternoons to prime -time, but also with the growth of internet draft sites, as well as the plethora of draft magazines that have flooded the news stands over the past few years. To be sure, the NFL draft is a bigger off-season event than most of the post-season games that are televised by the other major sports. Would anybody be surprised if the 1st round of this years draft scores a higher national rating than the opening round of the upcoming NBA and NHL playoffs?

The televising of the draft is entertaining for so many different reasons. It’s not just the anticipated Bronx jeers that we hear when the teams make an unpopular choice, like when the Philly fans viciously responded to the choice of Donovan McNabb over the flakey Texas RB, Ricky Williams. Hey Cheese-steak fans, how’d that one turn out for you? For me, I love it when we hear the fans boo some obscure offensive guard taken from a school like UAB or one of the MAC schools. Because we all know how the draft-nicks know all about a guy like Sebastian Vollmer, or Vladamir Ducasse. It often amazes me at how so many fans seemingly go to the draft just to boo a selection or even call into their local sports talk radio right after the pick to rip their favorite team. Even with all the access we have to prospects today, the fickle nature of fans never ceases to amaze me.

I remember shaking my head in disbelief at the 2000 draft when the Jets selected a DE from a terrible South Carolina squad. The fans booed like crazy and were more than enraged at the pick. It was highly unlikely, however, that any of those fans got a chance to see South Carolina the previous fall because they were such a terrible team, and therefore received minimal national exposure. I turned to my buddy and said this guy’s going be “our best pass-rusher since Gastineau and Klecko!” The player was John Abraham! What was amusing was the reaction right after the selection. Immediately after the selection, the giant screen in front of the fans in the balcony flashed all of Abraham’s many highlights. It was impressive, to say the least. The boos stopped and you could a pin drop. It was almost as if everyone looked around at one another and said, “Well I didn’t boo! Wasn’t me! Nope!”

After 75 years there is no doubting how much the draft has grown and just how far it has come in its popularity. It is truly amazing, because in some respects when you get right down to it, the criticism we draft-geeks hear is somewhat warranted to an extent. We work ourselves up into a crazy frenzy just to hear a name called. There is something overtly strange about this whole phenomenon.

I for one, however, could care less. For I love spring-time because I love the draft! I love Mel Kiper and I love his hair. Most of all, however, I love all the information overload leading up to the draft and I love the fact that I no longer have to call Sports-phone 50 times a day during the draft! So get ready to boo or cheer that selection of a player you’ve never seen before and probably wouldn‘t know if he mugged you and took your girlfriend, because you’re a draft-nick and that’s your duty! That’s right, Scream at your television when your team drafts a player that you “know” will be out of the league in 2 or 3 years when, in fact, he will become an 8 time pro bowler and future hall of famer. Because you’re a draft-nick and that’s what you do! Yes, kids! The NFL draft is back and it’s bigger and better than ever!

By John Avvento bambam3qqq@aol.com