I agree, 100% Ed. It was brutal. Remember the good old days when they actually showed highlights of the players being drafted? There was basically none of it in Days 2 and 3.

My other big pet peeve was how they would go to one of their investigative journalists who knew what the pick would be, or if they’d show a guy crying on the phone before Goodell announced it on stage. WHY would they do that?!?!?!?!? It’s like going to a movie when you already know the ending. Just awful. If you want to capture that moment… fine – Go back to it AFTER the pick.

Rounds 1-3 should follow this exact formula for each pick…

- Commissioner announces pick
- Go right into highlights, preferably with the old NFL Primetime music in the background
- Analysis of how that player fits in with his new team, and if they like/dislike the pick
- Time permitting, reaction of the player on the phone or other non-football related anecdotes about the player

That’s it – It’s tried and true. Don’t mess with it.

I also hated, that’s H-A-T-E-D the new prime time version, but I could go on for hours about that, and nobody wants that.

But it was just painful by the time the end of the 2nd day rolled around.

I’m watching the broadcast to see who was drafted, maybe see some highlight videos, get some background on the lesser known players. THEY REFUSED TO SHOW WHO WAS DRAFTED! I ended up listening to a couple talking heads and they occasionally listed 4-5 draft picks at a time, without discussing them, without introducing them. Nothing.

Eventually I gave up and just went to Yahoo’s text-based tracker. It was just less irritating, and didn’t waste as much of my limited internet bandwidth.

Awlful coverage. Every time the Giants were about to pick the douches went to commercials. Ed is right all we want is the pick some highlights and if the pick is good or bad according to the so called experts.

This was my first draft, and overall an enjoyable experience. I liked it being Primetime, but I generally enjoy watching programs after work and then passing out. Hey I got to pass out drunk when we picked JPP! Win-Win!

However Day 2 and 3 were less plesant. I hated the constant skipping of picks, and I really hated how often they would discuss Day 1 stories. I recall three or four picks completely skipped to talk about the Tim Tebow pick. I mean it’s ESPN—I have no doubt they’ll discuss this story to death in the other 18 hours of their station’s programming.

Jeff Gordon goes to pass… what about that Tebow pick? Think McDaniels is out of his mind?

Perhaps I’m jaded in thinking that with the availability of internet news, newscasters, and especially sports casters should keep old stories to headlines and let people search for debate and discussion through their own website.

At the time of writing this, a search for Tim Tebow on ESPN brings up 4,255 related stories, with at least five pages of stories regarding the draft pick, including news stories, blog posts, podcasts, and insider news. At that point, with that much content, I just can’t fathom why you’d skip picks to talk about Tebow. I mean there’s an aftershow for that sort of thing. If I’m interested in seeing what Gruden, Kiper, and Berman have to say about the Tebow trade, I’m going to watch the Draft Aftermatch show on Day 1—NOT the second day of the draft. I’ll watch the second day of the draft to watch teams pick their second and third round rookies.

Day 3 was unwatchable. Picks zoomed by, and some had no commentary to them. I remember hearing the Giants draft Dillard and I said “okay who’s Dillard” and I think Kiper summed it up as a “[linebacker with good speed, should pose some competition for the MLB spot]”. Then all I remember was a ridiculously long video meant to pump up Bruce Cambell. I know Cambell is the sexy pick, but I just feel like if you aren’t a Bruce Cambell fan or a Raiders fan, you had no reason to stick around. I know I didn’t. I opened NFL.com and watched the rest of the picks there.

I didn’t hate my first draft, but I’m bias in that this is all I know. If I had to make improvements I’d say:
- Keep all previous day headlines to just that: headlines. Discuss them on the aftershow and promote fans to head to ESPN.com to read plenty of coverage on the big Day 1 picks.
- Focus on individual picks as they happen. With five minutes between picks on Days 2 and 3, I figure the first three minutes of a pick should be dedicated to talking about the pick and the team. I mean yeah talking about Zoltan going to the Patriots for three minutes might not be easy, but at least try. I mean the poor Cardinals had the misfortune of picking after Tebow. I’d like a team to focus on the previous pick, and then before hand briefly glance over the upcoming team, and who they might go for. If there’s time left, sure talk about Clausen falling, but I don’t think that should be the main story.
- Make the picks about football. When everyone got picked their screens where them dancing or flexing with a football. Why couldn’t they get clips of them in some football gear playing at their respective position? I mean for a receiver show them catching a pass, and for a lineman show them pummeling some sandbag. I mean selecting JPP doesn’t mean much if my first shot of him is him dancing.
- Don’t show the calls. I don’t get it. There’s no suspense when the commish steps up to make the announcement if for the last three minutes we’ve been in the dude’s face as he’s on the phone. Imagine the shock of the Tebow pick had we not been in Tebow’s home for the last five minutes. “Who are the Broncos looking at? Clausen maybe? Who?” That to me is more interesting.
- Props to the Commish. Not an improvement, but man Goddell wasted no time. I feared a big speech was coming, but he pretty much said “It’s the draft, welcome, now St. Louis get your butt out here and draft Bradford.”

But again, I enjoyed the draft overall.

Was worse for me, I had both on and I just couldn’t stand the deion and irvin crap

was streamed online on NFL.com.

The only thing entertaining about having Young on the set is the looks Gruden would shoot over at Steve when he would go on and on about something.

and for the record your draft profiles were far more informative than ESPN throughout the Draft.

i understand that its hard to host something for 3-6 hours without going off a little tangent every now and again to fill time, but this was just stupid.

I feel like they didn’t talk about each pick because they didn’t know about each(and every) pick past the 2nd round.

But the highlight was definitely the newly formed balding spot on Kiper. Or when they put Sam Bradfords name on the bottom of the screen a good 30 seconds before it was announced, nice work Technical crew, way to keep the suspense building

 Honestly, the first day was fun. I took a mental health day to enjoy the first round festivities. it was a controlled environment where adequate time was taken to evaluate each pick! fun fun fun, beyond that it was a chaotic obnoxious infomercial, where the commentators spent more time interviewing pete carrol and jerry jones than evaluating any and all picks!! First day was christmas morning, 2nd and third day was your 4th cousins birthday, when you hang out with the extended family you dont like and they talk too much!!

Good tv, in case you havent seen it, ESPN.COM still has it

i would love 2 see small clips of each player instead of those idiots rambling with interviews of jerry jones or showing us tim tebow 500 times, it’s a time 4 fans 2 get familiar with every player not a time 2 be forced to watch meaningless bull crap fill in the time yappers

Because I don’t have television (I watch games at the in-laws.)

And the radio coverage was pretty damn good in the first round. The later rounds they began to gloss over picks talking about old stuff too, though…