The evolution of draft coverage … For those that haven’t seen it, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune has a neat article on the evolution of draft coverage and especially the mock draft going back to the 1970s. It certainly resonates with us because in many ways its also how we came to the business. Fact is that back in that era there was almost coverage of the NFL draft at all and if one wanted to follow along you pretty much had to put the stuff together yourself. I can remember back in those days working in a large government office at coffee breaks while people were talking about hockey or the weather or knitting or whatever they’d look over at me and ask what I was doing and I got some really strange looks when I would say I was doing a mock draft!
Not to change the subject, but several correspondents have asked if we were doing a final mock draft. And the simple answer is no. We would have done one if there had been trade or related development, but that hasn’t happened. In the end, we really feel that mocks at this time of the year are virtually useless. There are just so many of them out there that they become meaningless. Its like the man who has a watch knows what time it is, but a man with two watches will never know what time it is.And this year, in particular, there are just so many potential perms and combs once one gets past the first couple of picks nobody’s doing much more than guessing. Bottom line is that we’ll find out for real tomorrow evening.
