I sing of the hair of Mel Kiper, the everlasting streams of scouting reports, big boards and mock drafts and the perpetual glut of hype and hyperbole that lead up to this weekend's crown jewel of the NFL offseason.
Yes, the draft is almost upon us.
This event is pushed on us (mostly by one very large television network) and accompanied by handy, authoritative slogans like ""The Draft Matters."" Unfortunately, it does not matter in the way that the coverage suggests.
The draft process above all is imprecise, yet its coverage puts on an air of certainty. Experts babble about how ""this guy is a sure thing"" and are never held accountable for their poor predictions.
For example, Robert Gallery was hailed by experts as capable of protecting his quarterback's blind side for the next decade. Watch a Raiders game and ask yourself if any Oakland signal caller is protected on the blind side, seeing side, back side or front side.
Tim Couch was the same story. Kiper discussed him as a franchise cornerstone when he was drafted, and a few years later said the pick was one of the bigger mistakes in team history.
No one has to stand by what they say, they just say it with energy and a pretty graphic next to them. Anyone is allowed to keep spouting off about how one guy is a surefire star that just can't be passed on.
And then we arrive at the cult of measurables.
There may be some value in a 40-yard dash or the three-cone drill, but it is not the point of the process. The point is to get a football player, and that often seems to be overlooked.
If a wide receiver can't run the 40 in under 4.55 seconds, it becomes a stigma. You know who ran a 4.6 40? Jerry Rice. Want a few more? Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin (and Boldin was taken behind Taylor Jacobs and Bryant Johnson because he wasn't ""fast"" enough).
But it's the quarterbacks who receive the worst of the physical evaluations, especially in draft coverage. The first thing observers look for is strong arms, really strong arms. Then mobility and height are factored in, far before, you know, actually having football skills.
Even after Tom Brady was called ""too weak,"" ""too slow,"" and ""not athletic enough,"" who is the projected top quarterback? Matthew Stafford, because he's got the rocket arm and can ""just make all the throws,"" whatever the hell that means.
Somewhere along the way, the emphasis of the draft shifted from actually being a good football player to being a potentially good football player or worse yet, a good prospect. As long as someone could run, shuffle and jump, the ability to tackle, hit and read a play were somehow made secondary.
Finally, no draft would be complete without the useless exercise of draft grades. Yes, they are an excuse for fans to get excited, but they don't mean anything.
The measure of a draft is how it helps a team on the field. If the players don't perform, it was a bad draft. Yet Monday morning, every so-called ""expert"" will be giving useless letter grades to each team (and even in the draft there is grade inflation, as almost no teams get C's, D's and F's).
After all this, it seems clear that the draft is covered far too much. It is fun to imagine how good all these players could be, but in the end that's all the draft is about: what someone imagines a player can do, something wholly fleeting and entirely illusionary.
Will you use this warm Madison Saturday for something other than watching the draft? Tell Ben about it at breiner@wisc.edu.
