ESPN's Draft Coverage Is Disappointing

Another NFL draft has come and gone, and it's possible that you spent much of your weekend glued to a television set laughing at the Raiders and screaming for your team to find the next Tom Brady at the bottom of the sixth-round. If you're like me, you live in an area of the country where your only option for draft day coverage is ESPN's wire-to-wire mayhem.

If you happened to miss the draft, or watched it on the NFL Network, here's what you missed.

Apparently, only the first round matters: Make no mistake, the NFL draft is an important weekend for the 32 franchises fighting for Super Bowl glory. This is where championship teams are built, while head coaches and general managers spend as much time scouting their potential seventh-round picks as they do their potential first-round picks (the good teams do, anyway). So, wouldn't it make some sense if ESPN spent a few minutes covering the picks beyond the first 32? After all, the worldwide leader spent the past two months shoving non-stop draft coverage down our throats, hammering us from every angle, only to, essentially, stop covering it after the opening round. Can't you at least show us the second rounders being announced? Or devote more than 30 seconds on each pick to simply mention their name and what school they went to? Do we really need hours of Matthew Stafford and Mark Sanchez analysis when teams are picking potential starters and impact players in the second and third rounds (and beyond)?

By now, don't we already know about Stafford, Sanchez, Aaron Curry and the rest of the top picks? Wouldn't it be worthwhile to focus on some of the players taken in the second and third rounds that will also make an impact this season and beyond?

Welcome to the NFL Draft, Erin Andrews: ESPN's top sideline reporter and the subject of every male fantasy on every college campus across the country, Erin Andrews made her debut at the NFL Draft this year and there's really only two words that can possibly describe it:

Epic. Fail.

Honestly, this was just a massive pile of sadness. No more than 30 minutes into the pre-draft coverage on Saturday, I was already bored with her presence when she started asking Michael Crabtree the questions we were all demanding answers to ... questions such as: "How many text messages have you received?"

When Crabtree, the top receiver entering the draft, responded that he hadn't read any of them yet, she followed it up with "what's the best one you've received." Wonderful. As if that wasn't enough, she closed out the session by turning to one of Crabtree's relatives and asking him what time the Texas Tech receiver made it back to his hotel on Friday night. The relative, obviously blindsided by the question, had no idea what to say. None of your (expletive) business would have worked just fine. On day two, they hid her in New Jersey with Bill Cosby and former Texas wide receiver Quan Cosby. More on this in a bit.

The Staged Drew Rosenhaus Phone Call: Did anybody else catch that shot of super agent Drew Rosenhaus prior to the start of the draft on Saturday? He was staring into the camera with his telephone glued to his ear, acting as if he were hammering out some sort of draft-day deal. The whole thing seemed forced, as Rosenhaus looked terribly awkward and uncomfortable. When the camera stayed on him too long heading into the commercial break, Rosenhaus abruptly pulled the phone away from his ear and had an are we done with this look on his face. Do football fans really find Rosenhaus so interesting that ESPN felt the need to have him stage phone calls on the biggest day of the offseason? Of course, that uncomfortable scene came just minutes after he was interviewed and announced that Anquan Boldin would have a very good chance of becoming a member of another team by the end of the first round.

Other Observations

... Watching people have their dreams crushed on live television is somewhat disappointing. Throughout the weekend, ESPN had camera's with former Michigan State quarterback Brian Hoyer and former Texas wide receiver Quan Cosby as they waited for an NFL team to call their name. Every hour or so they would go to a live shot of Hoyer sitting on his couch waiting (and hoping!) for his phone to ring. It never rang, and I'll be honest, I felt kind of bad for him.

Meanwhile, Quan Cosby was spending day two of the draft in New Jersey with Erin Andrews and Bill Cosby, which led to a bizarre series of interviews that featured (Bill) Cosby dressed like a Temple Owls football player as he gave Andrews a hard time, while (Quan) Cosby sat off to the side trying to laugh at the absurdity that was taking place around him. Meanwhile, back at Radio City Music Hall, a bunch of guys got picked by some teams. They might play in the NFL one day, they might not. Nobody ever really talked about them.

... In the seventh round Trey Wingo was losing his mind, screaming for teams to just start making random picks because the process was taking too long for his liking. At one point, with the Chicago Bears on the clock, he was yelling because three minutes had gone by (teams have five minutes to make a selection in rounds three through seven) and he couldn't figure out what they could possibly be discussing.

Uh, Trey? Perhaps they're trying to find a good player. He finally turned to Herman Edwards and asked, jokingly (I hope), if teams ever start "throwing darts" and just picking players at random. Thankfully, Edwards brought some sound reasoning to the discussion and explained what teams were looking for at that point in the process. Wingo continued to make jokes about how long it was taking, and continued to scream for teams to just pick somebody. Because, after all, the seventh round is so insignificant that no good players could ever be selected thanks to some sound scouting and research. Just ask Ahmad Bradshaw, Cortland Finnegan, Marques Colston, Matt Cassel, Patrick Crayton, Derrick Ward, Ronald Curry, Brett Keisel, T.J. Houshmandzadeh, Eric Johnson, Patrick Pass, and Donald Driver. Just to name a few in recent years.

In Defense of ESPN

After writing over 1,000 words trashing everything they did this weekend, it's worth keeping in mind that putting on a production around the NFL draft has to be mind-numbingly difficult. This is, after all, nearly 17 hours of television crammed into two days. There's only so much you can talk about during that time to keep it even somewhat interesting (obviously).

My biggest problems with the coverage revolve around the perception that only the first round picks are worthy of coverage, inane interviews asking players about their text messages, and hosts screaming at teams to just pick somebody because they're taking too long in the seventh round.

Basically, offer some more analysis and information on later picks so football fans (the people actually devoting their entire weekend to this thing) learn about the players their team has invested time and money in. I know Mark Sanchez is good. But what can you tell me about T.J. Lang?

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

4-27-2009 @ 10:20AM

Stephanie Stradley said...

What no mention of the endless promos of E:90? Steroid guy and Matt Stafford getting a makeover. Yes, blue collar Detroit likes nothing more than a quarterback receiving twice as much guaranteed money as Tom Brady getting a makeover. Because of course...cough cough...they've never been burnt by high pick quarterbacks before. Not.

Good blog post.

4-27-2009 @ 11:23AM

Adam said...

I was watching as I came in and out of the house, and flipping between ESPN and NFLN. The beginning rounds had good analysis and discussion, but I began to wonder why they need dedicated coverage for the second day. Even the fans who were at Radio City seemed bored, and the commentators on both networks ended up devolving into dumb jokes and unprofessional silliness. It's sort of funny to see Rich Eisen with a big head, but is that what draft coverage should be?

I know later rounds can produce unexpected talent (I know as a Skins fan seeing a 7th round compensatory pick turn into a productive starter last year), but generally speaking those later round picks end up on the practice squad, if they stay on the team at all. The NFLN guys were joking about how the video department couldn't find tape of some of the more obscure picks, so maybe that's a sign we don't need to cover it all. If they're not covering the picks that are going on behind them, they're over-analyzing earlier picks or just talking fluff, so they'd be better off not doing anything.

And as much as I like Bill Cosby, and as much as I like to look at Erin Andrews, that bit was really dumb.

Jeff Satterley said...

Good post. I switched over to NFL network after the first round. The only reason I was on ESPN in the first place is because I like Kiper.

You did forget about Steve Young blathering on and on (ad infinitium) about how you have to have a quarterback to win. STFU already!

4-27-2009 @ 11:39AM

horatiowrd said...

I thought I was the only who felt ESPN was "off". What was once Mel Kipers grandstage became this... i cant even describe it. Meanwhile NFLN went through just about every pick, Rich Eisen would shush everyone if a pick was being announced, Jon Gruden I felt did really REALLY well. To cover the draft, to watch the draft, you gotta really like football. ESPN just didnt really care, NFLN, probably cause its all the do, seemed to actually care about what was going on.

Laura said...

I absolutely agree with your assessment. I could not, for the life of me, figure out why or how Erin Andrews had earned herself a spot in draft coverage. I wanted to turn my TV off every time they cut to the Cosby ridiculousness on Day 2.

They really did need to provide more information and analysis on the later picks. That actually happened sporadically in the 5th through 7th rounds when anyone asked Kiper anything (annoying or not, the guy has a stupid amount of prospect knowledge in his head). He was able to shoot off stats, upside, challenges and his opinion on the value of the pick when he was allowed to. If only we had gotten that much information on all of the later draftees.

As fans, I think we watch the whole damn thing because we hope against hope that something good will come of it for our team. If we don't get the analysis, we can watch the whole damn thing and still have no clue.

4-27-2009 @ 11:46AM

John said...

I watched NFL Network coverage, and am glad I did. But now they are fighting with Comcast who is trying to maintain status quo while NFL Network wants more money and more access to houses. Their coverage was good though, they even talked about some 6th-7th round picks.

Meanwhile every article on ESPN is now an inSider article you have to pay for. Absolutely ridiculous. I am sick and tired of ESPN

4-27-2009 @ 12:17PM

Steve said...

I completely agree with your assessment. Let's face it, the networks focused the pre-draft on the Stafford's and Sanchez's. They'll focus the post-draft on them. And that's fine because maybe the average fan doesn't care about who Green Bay selected in the 3rd round. But DURING the draft, us schlups who are actually watching are somewhat knowledgeable NFL fans and WANT to hear about the TJ Lang's. Aren't we the target audience? Otherwise, why are you even covering it?

4-27-2009 @ 12:50PM

amy said...

I thought it was me too. ESPN wasn't as good as usual. I thought Chris Mortenson, Keyshawn, and Steve Young were all pretty bad. The second day I switched to NFLN and thought Mike Mayock was really good. I agree that interview with Erin Andrews and Bill Cosby with Quan Cosby was really weird.

4-27-2009 @ 1:05PM

Kyle said...

The draft isn't TV friendly and the internet may be a better forum. Teams were announcing their picks via twitter even before espn had announced it. I had epsn.com up for much of the 2nd day, and it was a better use of my time. My browser played a jingle every time a pick was made - and they instantly had a link with everything i needed to know about a player. I could've used some highlight video though. If I had NFL network (stupid cablevision) i'd probably have watched some on there.

4-27-2009 @ 2:05PM

Mike said...

I couldnt agree more. I have felt for a long time that Mike Mayock is better than Kiper, mainly because espn just hypes everyone while Mayock shows how and why a players game will translate to the NFL, even showing weaknesses in players. I watched the first round on espn with my other television DVRing the NFLN coverage so that when my team (Redskins) picked i could get good analysis on whats going down. The only reason why i watched espn was because it just gives me an old school nostalgic feeling, but after the dissapointment this year i doubt i will make the same mistake. And whats with espn showing every players reaction on his cell phone 2 minutes before the actual pick!?! Way to ruin the suspense. Just show the emotion and drama after the pick.

4-27-2009 @ 2:49PM

Morgan Wick said...

ESPN seems to alternate how they treat the second round: last year they paid it pretty close to proper respect, this year they barely treated it any differently than the second-day rounds. That they ever disrespected it in the first place really galls me now that the first round is 10 minutes per pick like the second used to be and we see ESPN treat the first round like they should have been treating the second.

I have no clue why ESPN "covers" the second day (certainly on regular ESPN instead of the Deuce or even the News) when they don't actually cover it, loading it up with fluff and filler and first-day analysis instead. I think Trey Wingo was complaining because by that point we were over an hour past the point the coverage had been slated to end and SportsCenter had been completely obliterated. I bet ESPN had run out of pointless fluff and was being forced to (gasp, horror) actually cover the draft. Besides, Trey may have had a point: shouldn't teams have draft boards and all day to analyse their 7th-round compensatory picks before actually going on the clock?

ESPN is decent for the first round because of Berman and Kiper, but stay far away from it on the second day. Last year NFLN streamed its coverage online and there was no excuse NOT to catch its REAL analysis. Even NFLN is not completely immune to filler. If I were running a draft broadcast on the second day I'd put a host, an analyst, and a draft expert in a studio (mayyybe onsite but it's a little pointless), have a second studio with another host and another analyst to give the first group a break for lunch and the like, and just do rapid-fire, only doing filler in what little downtime there was and even that would be stuff like "when is Quan Cosby going to be picked?" instead of "how will Mark Sanchez do in the NFL?" which we already milked the shit out of in Round 1.

4-27-2009 @ 3:50PM

sal said...

Glad to hear I am not the only fan sadly disappointed in ESPN's coverage of the draft. At times I thought it was an all afternoon audition for giving a lecture. They talked over picks, they seemed determined to show up each other with the "I knew it before you" and "it's in my book, I knew it". And Berman at times actually appeared to be lost. I honestly thought someone had a three martini lunch. Kiper gets trite, Mortensen seemed confused and Young is certainly true to quarterbacks as messiah for any and all teams....The second and third rounds were ignored..except when the word passed was "supposedly" used by Dallas. Berman sobered up enough to say, hey I heard it...didn't I? Did anyone else hear the work "Passes" Not forgetting the massive amount of advertising. But that is for another argument as TV watchers are beginning to write their Congressperson and complain about lack of regulation on TV. After all Government just forced everyone to go digital. Now they better protect the watcher from 12 minutes of ads in every 30 minute segment.

4-27-2009 @ 4:26PM

ren said...

You didn't have to write a book on the worst draft I've ever seen. It's very simple to sum up:

Drool over Mark Sanchez...uh, the FIFTH pick, not the first. Embarrass Brian Hoyer, which anyone who knew anything about Michigan State knew wasn't going to be drafted. Pick only the most popular players of the least popular players in every round other than the 1st to "highlight" for exactly 30 seconds...and then, of course, return to drooling over Mark Sanchez. Throw Erin Andrews out there every time they suspect men might get fed up enough with ESPN's boring coverage and turn the channel (and then have the nerve to yell at some people for falling asleep over that boring schitt in the audience), and for absolutely no other reason than that. Defend "Everybody Hates" Mel Kiper by showing how "right" he's been over the years. Do a dumb skit that, I suppose, was supposed to be ESPN's attempt at comedy with Erin, the irrelevant Bill Cosby and his adopted son Quan Cosby, who both finally got wise and ditched ESPN. And, finally, let's go on and on about how weird some of the first round picks were and Rey Mauluga (and maybe a couple others) dropping to the 2nd round, when MANY of the other round picks were about as odd as some of the first round picks (and explain Graham Harrell not being drafted???? No, we were outraged he wasn't invited to the Heisman ceremony, but not outraged enough to spend the draft pretending like he and other standout players who went as free agents don't exist because (gasp) THE JETS TRADED UP TO TAKE SANCHEZ!!!!).

There--THAT, ladies and gentlemen, was the 2009 NFL draft coverage on ESPN in a snap. Am I hired yet, AOL? HAHA.

4-27-2009 @ 6:11PM

wdolphinsfan said...

no it was not disappointing it flat out sucked i was tired of hearing about mathew staford or what ever his name is i was tired of hearing about the steroid guy the commentators sucked they werent talking about the teams as they were picking they would always be talking about some other stupid thing they would always go to break right when the miami dolphins would be picking which is my team so thats why i got pissed and they keep being stupid and doing that face thing where they change your head or mouth or what ever and make it bigger or smaller it jut sucked thank god they put all the info on the screen so we can know whats going on cause if it wasnt for that we would all be lost cause half of the team or all the team they were acting like idiots

go dolphins

4-27-2009 @ 8:01PM

ernie said...

I also found the entire coverage snore city except the first round when my team the Jets jumped ahead and grabbed Sanchez. But do I really have to know what size underwear he wears?
LOL...they covered him like a glove. The NY press
were telling us all week the Jets were gonna jump so what news?? They next day was borrrrrring!!!!!!ZZZZZ. Anyway, good day to wash the car.

4-28-2009 @ 9:48AM

cook2630 said...

YES I agree ESPN and the NFL network did major damage with its coverage of the NFL draft. how many time can one watch the and understand the NY jets selection,and that Cleveland trade away so many picks, NEW FLASH your opinion don't matter nor count, and the same with Mel Kip and listening to Mike Mayock both explain their picks and the teams reasons for their picks, Erin (personally I think she had a problem with rich african americans, sorry no racial) got played and dumped really fast, DR false sales pitch really BAD. In essence the draft was like watching FOX News election coverage all over again, can't wait to see the Nielsen rating. Boring after the First Day I think I heard Mel crying and pleading for his low hopefulls in the 7th rd TOO LATE buddy this should have been started in the begining of the college football season.

4-28-2009 @ 5:40PM

mmusclemadness said...

Its starting to get old. ESPN has just about run its course. Now the NFL wants to stretch the draft to 3 days in prime time! I think I'll pass next year!