PFT TEN-PACK

2007 DRAFT

 

Another draft has come and gone, a blink of an eye in comparison to the weeks and months of buildup.

So what have we learned?  Well, several things.  Ten of them, to be exact.  It's funny how it always ends up on that number.

Of course, we've only got five for now.  The other five will come to us soon enough.

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1.  The Selling of (False) Hope.

We've finally figured out why the draft is so popular.  And it only took us 30 years.

The draft sells one thing to the fans of the 32 NFL teams.  Hope. 

It is the great equalizer, in which the dregs of the league can acquire that one player who will help their followers to believe.

And that belief translates into many things that are good for the sport.  Ticket sales go up.  Jerseys and hats and other stuff are purchased in droves.  Anticipation builds for the coming season.

Yes, the draft sells hope.  In some cases, legitimate.  In others, false.  And that's the beauty of it.  By the time the fans realize that a first-round draft pick is a bust, at least one more draft has come and gone -- and another one lingers on the horizon.

What other gift doesn't reveal its defects until years after the package is opened?

Part of the process is the manner in which the media sells the picks.  Ever since Mel Kiper jumped the Colts for taking Trev Alberts over Trent Dilfer, has there been a first-round pick that hasn't been generally praised by the sock puppets?

We suppose that there are some exceptions, but for the most part a process that has a low success rate when it comes to turning out good NFL players rarely generates the kind of criticism that would even hint at the reality that more than a few of the guys who have been selected will not help the teams that take them.

Or their fans.

But still the sale of hope continues.  Every April.  Every year.  It is sports' ultimate marketing ploy.  And even though we've finally figured it out, we already can't wait for the next draft.

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2.  The Management of Expectations:  The Miami Dolphins.

There's a caveat when it comes to selling hope.  The fans and the media must be willing to buy it.

And the teams have a key role in this process.  In the months that lead up to the draft, the guys (and gals) who get paid to write (and talk) about the local team like to come off as knowledgeable about something other than the latest biosphere project, or whether the main staple there will be pastrami and other salted, cured meats.

This year, there was rampant speculation in the local and national media that the Fins would pounce on quarterback Brady Quinn, in the unlikely event that he slid through to No. 9.  The Miami fans desperately wanted to see this happen.  And for good reason -- ever since Dan Marino called it quits, the Fins have been flopping the boat in their quest to find his replacement. 

Though there's hardly any guarantee that any first-round signal-caller will become a franchise quarterback, round one is the best place to find one, with rare exceptions (Joe Montana, Tom Brady).  And the presence of Quinn on the board at No. 9 gave them the best opportunity since Marino left to get back to the game he only visited once.

Hey, second-round selection John Beck might turn out to be better than Quinn or the guy who went No. 1 overall, JaMarcus Russell.  We'd heard last week that some teams had a first-round grade on Beck, and that one team drafting in the top fifteen rated him in the top ten.  And if the Fins have Beck rated higher than Quinn, we respect that.

But they should have let someone know about it.

We know, we know.  No self-respecting football type would ever tell (God forbid) the truth about his team's plans for the draft.  But, in this case, what would it have hurt?  First of all, none of the other teams would have believed them.  Second, it's not like that would have prompted them to lose their shot at Ted Ginn, who likely would have slid all the way past No. 20 if Miami hadn't taken him.

The fact that Ginn is still damaged goods makes the contrast between the guy the fans thought they were getting and the guy they got even sharper, and even more difficult for the fans to accept.  One good friend of PFT who bleeds orange and aqua had a dream several months ago that Quinn was on the board at No. 9 -- and that Miami instead took a receiver named Troy Johnson.

Troy Johnson, Ted Ginn.  Same difference.  The key is that the name called was not Brady Quinn, and as a result of it the franchise now has a big problem.

It's a lesson learned for Miami.  And every other team.  We hope.

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3.  The Coverage Should Be Merged.

Okay, so we initially started watching ESPN's coverage of the draft, with an eye on NFLN, because more people have access to the Bristol broadcast.  And, frankly, there's a certain comfort level with the ESPN production, since they've been doing it for decades.

It soon became clear, however, that NFL Network has nailed this thing in only its second try.

But the channel owned by the league might want to be a little more careful with the company that pays $1.1 billion per year for the rights to Monday night.  If, as we assume, NFLN's product will continue to improve, ESPN just might hinge its decision to give even more than $1.1 billion annually as of 2014 on the league's willingness to get out of the business of covering the draft.

So we have a suggestion -- the league and ESPN, partners 363 days of the year, should merge their draft-day coverage and pipe the same images and sound over both networks.  They can mix up the sock puppets, as long as NFLN produces the thing.  It would make for compelling television, and it would allow "B"-level talent on both channels (we won't name names, but you know who you are) to be benched.

The fans would benefit from it, too.  It's simply too hard to watch both broadcasts simultaneously, and we constantly felt like we were missing something.  The sponsors that bought air time didn't get the full bang for their buck, since we (and presumably many others) had the two channels on split screen and jumped to one when the other went to commercial.  (In this regard, our friends at Sprint played it just right, saturating the actual NFLN coverage with logos and product placement.)

Our advice to Bristol?  Raise the issue now.  We have a feeling that, in due time, the league will make a run at Mel Kiper, and the league's ratings on draft weekend will explode.

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4.  The Order Should Be Changed.

With each passing year, we believe that our idea for revolutionizing the draft becomes far less radical.

As the salary cap continues to expand at a record pace, so does the lottery prize that gets paid out to the players taken at the top of the draft.  So how can it be regarded as a reward for the worst team in the league to be forced to pay someone who has never played a down in the NFL $30 million in guaranteed money?

It isn't.  It can't.  And it leaves the franchise who "wins" the top pick at the whim of the quality of the specific draft class.

What's that, you say?  They can always trade out of the top spot?  Good luck with that.  This year, the Lions couldn't get anyone to make the jump for a player who could be the best receiver of this (or any) generation. 

And so we think that, in the first round of the draft, the league should let the worst team in the league pick the spot in which it will select.  Then, the second-worst team calls its slot.  And so on, until the Super Bowl team is stuck with the final chair, wherever it might be. 

The only downside is that, in some years, the presumptive No. 1 choice will make it known that the team with the worst record should not pick him.  But that already has happened under the current system.

Though the team with the No. 1 spot could always pass, the fans and the media would go bonkos if anyone ever did it, and the franchise would be labeled as a laughing stock.

Even if, in some years, it's the smartest thing they could do. 

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5.  The Cash Cows Must Die.

Along these same lines, we still don't understand why the NFLPA allows so much money to go to so few guys at the top of the draft.  Every dollar that goes to the ten players whose names were called out first is a dollar that could go to the guys who have spent years toiling in the league.  On average four or five of those ten guys at the top of the draft won't ever do much of anything to merit the money.

But, wait.  We do understand it.  As we've explained in the past, the agents who typically have top-ten picks count on their annual share of that $50 million bonanza.  And one of those agents who always is in range for such money, Tom Condon, represents NFLPA executive director Gene Upshaw.

So Upshaw never puts on the table the issue of capping rookie salaries because, as Upshaw and the other NFLPA muckety-mucks would say, the rank-and-file have never asked for it.

But isn't spotting the needs of the many one of the primary functions of a union?  How can anyone credibly argue that handing over contracts worth well in excess of $100 million to ten guys who have done nothing at the NFL level to earn it is fair to the other 1,700 or so guys in the league?

With that said, times eventually could be changing.  Many folks presume that the successor to Upshaw will be NFLPA president Troy Vincent.  And Vincent currently is represented by Drew Rosenhaus.  And Rosenhaus rarely has a player in the top ten, typically by choice.  As far as we can tell, Rosenhaus would rather represent veteran players who have already proven their worth.

Thus, if/when Vincent is running the show, look for Rosenhaus to try to put guys like those he represents in position to get the bulk of the booty that currently goes to newbies who simply don't deserve that much money.

It's the fair result, and it's long overdue.

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