On the pundits...

[cdcox]

As soon as the draft is over, every football writer in the business rushes to get out their draft grades, and we fans are equally eager to see how our team was graded. The pro scouts do this full time. Each scout spends thousands of hours evaluating talent. The teams know their own needs better than anyone. Each team has several scouts.

In contrast the reporters have many aspects of the game to cover, even if they cover only the NFL. They work alone. They don't spend face time with most of the draftees. They cover training camps when the scouts are scouting. They cover the NFL season when the scouts are focused on the college game. They cover free agency when the scouts are compiling reports and endlessly rating players. They work alone.

Yet 6 hours after the draft is over, the journalists are able to pass definitive judgement over the work of a profession to which they don't belong. The very concept is absurd.