Christmas season is over for me.
While most of the world celebrates it on Dec. 25, mine occurred on April 27 … and the 28th … and the 29th.
If you know me, you know where I’m going with this.
Of course, I’m talking about the NFL Draft, which just ended its three-day extravaganza.
No annual event gets me more engaged, more enthused than the draft.
It’s funny that I don’t remember when I was told that Santa Claus wasn’t coming to town anymore, but I do remember my first NFL Draft.
It was 1971.
That was the first year I began reviewing every pick. Before that, I only cared what the 49ers did. It also was the first time quarterbacks were drafted 1-2-3.
You may have heard of one of them. Still.
Archie Manning was picked No. 2 behind Heisman Trophy winner and eventual Super Bowl winner Jim Plunkett. Dan Pastorini was picked No. 3.
The Manning family is NFL royalty. Archie’s sons Peyton and Eli have become Super Bowl winners and icons. Archie’s oldest son, Cooper, has a son — Archibald or Arch — who was a coveted five-star QB who’s now at Texas with his spring game already being televised.
That year triggered something in me, and from that point on, I’ve done a mock draft, crazy as it may seem. I did it privately, of course — and I still have the browned-color papers to prove it — because no one else I knew seemed interested.
But look at the draft now — the NFL Network did a mock draft segment every week prior to the draft, three networks (ABC, ESPN, NFL) telecast the event worldwide.
According to the NFL, 11.4 million viewers (TV and digital) watched the first round. That nearly matches live viewership of last year’s NBA Finals (12.4M) and the World Series (11.8M), according to statista.com. It has almost twice the viewership as the Masters (5.8M in 2022). It was more than ESPN’s telecast of the Warriors-Kings Game 4, which peaked at 10.4 million and was the highest-rated first-round NBA playoff game in 21 years.
Now, everyone does a mock draft, or at least a partial one. My older daughter and her husband have done them (soon, she’ll be having her kids do them). My real estate agent will tell me who the Cowboys will pick and why. A colleague, Jeremy Nitta, has studied more than 350 prospects. He’s definitely more maniacal than me.
At the very least, I figure all the sports media follow it because they have a favorite team. Kanoa Leahey is a Lions loyalist, Stephen Tsai and Gary Dickman are faithful to the Jets, Chris Hart stans the Steelers, Bobby Curran loves the Giants just as much as he hates the Cowboys, Rob DeMello is a “lifelong Saints fan” who also loves everything Vegas.
Hawaii actually proved to be beneficial for an ordinary kid like me to be doing mock drafts back in the ’70s.
Back in the day, the Hula Bowl was played in Hawaii and featured the top college players, which attracted all the NFL scouts.
It is where, as a then-young reporter, I would go from scout to scout and get rejected like a wimpy kid at a middle-school dance.
But I was lucky enough to find some who would actually talk to me — some became NFL general managers, another one still helps me to this day.
The Hula Bowl also was where I got to interview people during their so-called age of innocence.
It is where I got to ask then-UCLA quarterback Troy Aikman what team he wanted to be drafted by. He said “anybody.” I said, “Even the Cowboys (who had the first pick because of their 3-13 record)?” He said, yes “even the Cowboys.”
He was drafted No. 1 overall by the Cowboys in 1989 and is now a Hall of Famer and a top NFL analyst.
It is where I got to meet a young, aspiring agent named Drew Rosenhaus. I saw him work his magic and be chummy with all those Miami of Florida players — his future clients.
He told me then he was a Hurricanes alum and was attending Duke University law school (Juris Doctor, 1990). Rosenhaus and his sports agency have negotiated more than $7 billion of NFL contracts. On Thursday, he was in the NFL green room with Jalen Carter, who was drafted by the Eagles. (I guess his loyalties are with Georgia guys now.)
In 1996, Rosenhaus, because of his tough negotiations with NFL teams, was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, with the words “The most hated man in pro football.”
The Hula Bowl also provided funny memories.
It was on Maui for the bowl where Tsai and I got to see Drew Brees and all the players get their height measured.
In a room full of scouts after a practice, an NFL official measured Brees and announced that he stood a little over 5-11. Brees stepped back, glared at the official and said, “measure me again.”
When the official re-measured Brees and announced to the room that the then-Purdue QB was a shade over 6 feet, the whole room applauded.
Such anecdotes can only be experienced with human interaction. These are opportunities that local media and young draft bloggers don’t have anymore. Having a face-to-face conversation makes a difference. Now, we all have to rely on internet research and network reporting and commentary.
Still, it’s way more information than the Street &Smith magazines we had back when I started.
Even with this proliferation of information, teams and their highly paid player personnel departments whiff on picks. That’s why there’ll be a debate on which quarterback — Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud, Anthony Richardson or Will Levis — will be a hit and who will be a bust.
And that unpredictability is what makes the NFL Draft so fascinating — back then, now and beyond.
