shaneo69
04-26-2005, 08:48 AM
http://www.kcchiefs.com/news/2005/04/26/dawes_daft_about_the_draft/
DAWES: DAFT ABOUT THE DRAFT
Apr 26, 2005, 8:30:35 AM by Media Watch by Rufus Dawes
The annual NFL draft played out before a national television audience and running no less than 17 hours on television over two days is one of the most anticipated events of the sports year. It is among ESPN’s most watched programming, according to the network, and accompanying traffic to this web site last weekend attracted 1.6 million page views. Even the opening weekend of the NFL season doesn’t come close to attracting the attention the draft does.
From weeks of lead-ins on ESPN to the thousands of mock drafts and analysis, to queries on potential strategies and players appearing in newspapers and on web sites around the country, coverage is seemingly endless. We can read for weeks of those players who media believe are “rising/falling” or “overrated/underrated.”
But it is the two days of coverage of the draft on ESPN that ranks as one of the highlights of the television sports year. The TV anchors are decidedly more animated following picks than they are following a touchdown pass or a goal-line stand. A major reason that this event has become such anticipated television is that the NFL has made itself much more video-accessible since ESPN came on the scene.
War room shots are de riguer, commentary from respected coaches – NFL and college – players including our own Trent Green, self-appointed experts before and following each pick, are available for anyone to see. Web sites offer video of player workouts at the annual NFL Combine accompanied by in-depth analysis that attempts to put into context what a GM or coach may – or should I say be – thinking about said player.
In striking shots, we can see the smiles on faces of team personnel following a selection, see anxious parents hugging a son as he dons a team cap and heads to the dais where the NFL commissioner congratulates him and poses alongside for photographs. See the embarrassment and disappointment on California quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ face as he fidgets and waits for his name to be called. These are images reflective of the Academy Awards, the Emmys, the Golden Globes or the twenty or more other award programs that now appear annually on television.
Quick assessments are the order of the day as each pick draws raves or moans from the commentators, pundits, or crowds of fans gathered in parties to watch something that has become a spectacle. Close to home, the local press see the selection of Derrick Johnson in the first round in a glowing light, and view the first day in general as a rousing success with the addition of cornerback Patrick Surtain, obtained in a trade with the Miami Dolphins.
“Good job, Peterson and Hunt,” writes the usually caustic Jason Whitlock, of the Kansas City Star, although he can’t resist tossing a barb at poor Greg Robinson, former Chiefs defensive coordinator and Johnson’s coach at Texas. Colleague Adam Teicher, noting that the team was “mindful of the criticism of recent top picks,” an accusation that is left unverified by anyone from the Chiefs camp, sees the Johnson selection in the context of the entire acquisition process. “That’s a significant overhaul – but the Chiefs needed it,” he writes as the draft heats up. Columnist Joe Posnanski of the Star says of day one: “you could not ask for more.” Randy Covitz, a former Chiefs beat writer for the Star now apparently working the national scene for the newspaper, wraps up the two days this way: “The Chiefs adequately addressed needs on Sunday.” He gave the draft an “A-.”
Working at a decided disadvantage since they traded their second round pick to the Miami Dolphins for Surtain and don’t have a third round pick , the Chiefs’ garner little excitement for their draft from outside the Kansas City metro area.
To wit, CBS SportsLine.com’s Pete Prisco, while admitting that Johnson “fills that need” at defense, also writes that “the problem with him is that he is a run-around defender, a guy who doesn’t take on blocks.” Prisco incorrectly calls compensatory third round selection Dustin Colquitt “a second round pick” and questions why Kansas City would ever waste it on a punter. Obviously, he is unaware of both where the player was taken as well as the team’s 32nd rated punting numbers from the previous year.
But John Czarnecki and Brian Delucia of Foxsports.com believe Johnson to be a “solid pick” saving their superlatives for the deal that brings the team Surtain. Mel Kiper, dean of ESPN.com’s analysis, likes Johnson but says the team “took two questionable offensive players in the seventh round.” What seventh rounders aren’t questionable, we might ask? Who among seventh round players has any realistic chance of making a team that took them? He offers no evidence.
The Sporting News’ Dan Pompeii turns out be a generous grader giving the Chiefs an “A”; Rick Gosselin of the Dallas Morning News, always a tough tester, opts to pass out a “D.” A passing “C,” in the always subjective media grading scale, is generally the best the Chiefs personnel gurus can hope for when all the report cards come out. Philly and Baltimore, as is usually the case, get rave reviews and the crummy teams get their piece of the action, too. Draft Day is always their day.
Is this coverage accurate, as we can question in Prisco’s easy to spot errors? Moreover, is it excessive? There are untold numbers of pro football fans in this country, but that hardly makes something so lacking in visual elements as a “draft” good viewing. Pictures should always trump words on TV but, as TV critic Robert Bianco noted in the non-stop television coverage of Pope John Paul II’s burial, today’s broadcasters “believe no momentous occasion is complete unless they talk over it” and with so much down time this drives the TV commentators to even more excessive talk as the names slowly come off the board. (USA Today, April 11, 2005) Even as the hours roll on, ESPN’s draft “expert,” Mel Kiper, shows no signs of fatigue. Like the struggling teams, this is his day too, and he’s going to make sure he takes advantage of it.
The lure of “backroom” wheeling and dealing appears irresistible to many sports fans who consider themselves experts and believe they know as much as personnel directors who have spent a year preparing for this moment; and some teams have received such bad publicity in previous drafts that each year fans eagerly anticipate the draft as a time to gloat even before a player has taken the field. Memories are short after draft days. Missing, for instance, are the untold number of experts who stood on tables in sports bars back in 1999 applauding the drafting of supposedly one of the greatest classes of quarterbacks in draft history that included Tim Couch, Akili Smith, Cade McNown, Daunte Culpepper, and Donovan McNabb. (Couch, Smith and McNown made no lasting impressions as we know now.)
In truth, the draft has become a quintessential story of today’s sports world: in the disproportionate reaction to what was a once a simple matter of player procurement handled in earnest by a team’s personnel office.
Is the draft important? Yes, and more important than free agency.
As a TV event? No.
Perhaps it is Michael Wilbon of the Washington Post who most astutely summarizes this about the draft.
“It’s the fuss over the draft I despise,” Wilbon writes. “Mock drafts are worse than allergies as a sign of spring. I particularly hate those. And I hate that the people watching this junk on TV all weekend act as if they can judge the merits of line play and therefore have some idea of which big, fat guard should be selected by whom when they haven’t the slightest clue.”
Hate may be too strong a word, but he’s right when he writes that “there’s no sense in taking anybody at face value when it comes to the NFL draft,” particularly if they envision themselves as experts. (April 22, 2005) “Drafts are to be judged in two to three years,” Wilbon concludes, “not Monday morning.”
Amen.
DAWES: DAFT ABOUT THE DRAFT
Apr 26, 2005, 8:30:35 AM by Media Watch by Rufus Dawes
The annual NFL draft played out before a national television audience and running no less than 17 hours on television over two days is one of the most anticipated events of the sports year. It is among ESPN’s most watched programming, according to the network, and accompanying traffic to this web site last weekend attracted 1.6 million page views. Even the opening weekend of the NFL season doesn’t come close to attracting the attention the draft does.
From weeks of lead-ins on ESPN to the thousands of mock drafts and analysis, to queries on potential strategies and players appearing in newspapers and on web sites around the country, coverage is seemingly endless. We can read for weeks of those players who media believe are “rising/falling” or “overrated/underrated.”
But it is the two days of coverage of the draft on ESPN that ranks as one of the highlights of the television sports year. The TV anchors are decidedly more animated following picks than they are following a touchdown pass or a goal-line stand. A major reason that this event has become such anticipated television is that the NFL has made itself much more video-accessible since ESPN came on the scene.
War room shots are de riguer, commentary from respected coaches – NFL and college – players including our own Trent Green, self-appointed experts before and following each pick, are available for anyone to see. Web sites offer video of player workouts at the annual NFL Combine accompanied by in-depth analysis that attempts to put into context what a GM or coach may – or should I say be – thinking about said player.
In striking shots, we can see the smiles on faces of team personnel following a selection, see anxious parents hugging a son as he dons a team cap and heads to the dais where the NFL commissioner congratulates him and poses alongside for photographs. See the embarrassment and disappointment on California quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ face as he fidgets and waits for his name to be called. These are images reflective of the Academy Awards, the Emmys, the Golden Globes or the twenty or more other award programs that now appear annually on television.
Quick assessments are the order of the day as each pick draws raves or moans from the commentators, pundits, or crowds of fans gathered in parties to watch something that has become a spectacle. Close to home, the local press see the selection of Derrick Johnson in the first round in a glowing light, and view the first day in general as a rousing success with the addition of cornerback Patrick Surtain, obtained in a trade with the Miami Dolphins.
“Good job, Peterson and Hunt,” writes the usually caustic Jason Whitlock, of the Kansas City Star, although he can’t resist tossing a barb at poor Greg Robinson, former Chiefs defensive coordinator and Johnson’s coach at Texas. Colleague Adam Teicher, noting that the team was “mindful of the criticism of recent top picks,” an accusation that is left unverified by anyone from the Chiefs camp, sees the Johnson selection in the context of the entire acquisition process. “That’s a significant overhaul – but the Chiefs needed it,” he writes as the draft heats up. Columnist Joe Posnanski of the Star says of day one: “you could not ask for more.” Randy Covitz, a former Chiefs beat writer for the Star now apparently working the national scene for the newspaper, wraps up the two days this way: “The Chiefs adequately addressed needs on Sunday.” He gave the draft an “A-.”
Working at a decided disadvantage since they traded their second round pick to the Miami Dolphins for Surtain and don’t have a third round pick , the Chiefs’ garner little excitement for their draft from outside the Kansas City metro area.
To wit, CBS SportsLine.com’s Pete Prisco, while admitting that Johnson “fills that need” at defense, also writes that “the problem with him is that he is a run-around defender, a guy who doesn’t take on blocks.” Prisco incorrectly calls compensatory third round selection Dustin Colquitt “a second round pick” and questions why Kansas City would ever waste it on a punter. Obviously, he is unaware of both where the player was taken as well as the team’s 32nd rated punting numbers from the previous year.
But John Czarnecki and Brian Delucia of Foxsports.com believe Johnson to be a “solid pick” saving their superlatives for the deal that brings the team Surtain. Mel Kiper, dean of ESPN.com’s analysis, likes Johnson but says the team “took two questionable offensive players in the seventh round.” What seventh rounders aren’t questionable, we might ask? Who among seventh round players has any realistic chance of making a team that took them? He offers no evidence.
The Sporting News’ Dan Pompeii turns out be a generous grader giving the Chiefs an “A”; Rick Gosselin of the Dallas Morning News, always a tough tester, opts to pass out a “D.” A passing “C,” in the always subjective media grading scale, is generally the best the Chiefs personnel gurus can hope for when all the report cards come out. Philly and Baltimore, as is usually the case, get rave reviews and the crummy teams get their piece of the action, too. Draft Day is always their day.
Is this coverage accurate, as we can question in Prisco’s easy to spot errors? Moreover, is it excessive? There are untold numbers of pro football fans in this country, but that hardly makes something so lacking in visual elements as a “draft” good viewing. Pictures should always trump words on TV but, as TV critic Robert Bianco noted in the non-stop television coverage of Pope John Paul II’s burial, today’s broadcasters “believe no momentous occasion is complete unless they talk over it” and with so much down time this drives the TV commentators to even more excessive talk as the names slowly come off the board. (USA Today, April 11, 2005) Even as the hours roll on, ESPN’s draft “expert,” Mel Kiper, shows no signs of fatigue. Like the struggling teams, this is his day too, and he’s going to make sure he takes advantage of it.
The lure of “backroom” wheeling and dealing appears irresistible to many sports fans who consider themselves experts and believe they know as much as personnel directors who have spent a year preparing for this moment; and some teams have received such bad publicity in previous drafts that each year fans eagerly anticipate the draft as a time to gloat even before a player has taken the field. Memories are short after draft days. Missing, for instance, are the untold number of experts who stood on tables in sports bars back in 1999 applauding the drafting of supposedly one of the greatest classes of quarterbacks in draft history that included Tim Couch, Akili Smith, Cade McNown, Daunte Culpepper, and Donovan McNabb. (Couch, Smith and McNown made no lasting impressions as we know now.)
In truth, the draft has become a quintessential story of today’s sports world: in the disproportionate reaction to what was a once a simple matter of player procurement handled in earnest by a team’s personnel office.
Is the draft important? Yes, and more important than free agency.
As a TV event? No.
Perhaps it is Michael Wilbon of the Washington Post who most astutely summarizes this about the draft.
“It’s the fuss over the draft I despise,” Wilbon writes. “Mock drafts are worse than allergies as a sign of spring. I particularly hate those. And I hate that the people watching this junk on TV all weekend act as if they can judge the merits of line play and therefore have some idea of which big, fat guard should be selected by whom when they haven’t the slightest clue.”
Hate may be too strong a word, but he’s right when he writes that “there’s no sense in taking anybody at face value when it comes to the NFL draft,” particularly if they envision themselves as experts. (April 22, 2005) “Drafts are to be judged in two to three years,” Wilbon concludes, “not Monday morning.”
Amen.