First overall pick Travon Walker. 6′ 5″ and 272 pounds. Boom or bust?
We’ve just finished the first two days of the 2022 NFL draft, which was held this year in Las Vegas. It’s hard to overstate how big an event this has become. Taking place over three days, the amount of media coverage and fan interest rivals that for the Super Bowl.
Why? Because unlike the Super Bowl every team’s fan base is involved, each hoping for a transformative pick or picks. Because you can lay an infinite number of bets on the various outcomes. Because with trades allowed the whole show becomes a giant poker game. And I think mainly because anyone can pose as an expert.
Teams invest an incredible amount of resources in preparing for the draft, preparing their big boards with armies of talent scouts and crunching numbers with various sorts of analytics. All of which counts for something, but given the randomness of the results, where even in the first round of the draft your hit rate on picks runs around 50%, just how much it counts for is open to debate.
This year was a more open and unpredictable draft than ever, in large part because there were few blue chip prospects and no top quarterbacks in the mix. As it turned out, only one QB was taken in the first round (Kenny Pickett, who went 20th overall to the Pittsburgh Steelers).
The low evaluation of the QBs in this draft underlines another change that’s become more pronounced around the league. Of course it’s long been recognized that the QB is the most important player on the team. No other position is even close. What’s changed is the mindset that says that you have to have an elite or franchise QB (read: top 10 or so) to even be relevant. One or two of the best QBs in this draft might turn into decent starters, but teams want a lot more from their QB prospects now. You have to have the potential to be one of the very best. In draft terms, this means the position has become totally front-loaded.
That’s a philosophy that was underwritten this off-season as well. Not only did Deshaun Watson, despite having to deal with a bunch of sexual assault allegations, receive a fully guaranteed, five-year, $230 million contract with the Cleveland Browns (which also cost the Browns three first-round picks), but otherwise serviceable-to-good QBs like Jimmy Garappolo and Baker Mayfield became toxic assets. It’s not the high price of talent that kills you, as one owner put it, but the high price of mediocrity. You can pay an elite player anything, but you can’t afford to have players who are JAGs (Just-A-Guy) on your roster.
It’s hard not to see this as yet another example of our winner-take-all economy in action, which in turn makes the draft seem like even more of a lottery. Is that another reason that it’s become so popular? It’s a sporting event for our time.
Alex Good 
Is this your first draft?
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I’m a vet. Been drafted many times over the years.
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You help small animals?
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As a matter of fact, I do. I even attended the white coat ceremony at the OVC last night. You may listen to the bagpipe playing starting at 13:33 of the evening’s video.
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Oh dear, that wasn’t a good start, I hope Dix didn’t see this his ears would drop off in shame. He got a bit better when he stopped walking.
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I know! I was trying to explain to the people I was with that bagpipes are actually really hard to play and that they sound better with a bunch of them together instead of solo, but everyone there was just sort of gritting their teeth through that. I was wondering if Dix was going to chime in with his expert opinion but he may not have had the stomach for it.
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I love hearing bagpipes when it’s done well, maybe the guy wasn’t a Scot.
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I’ll send Tom Hardy round with the pipes!
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He’s going to need a pannier with all the clobber you’re sending him with.
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I don’t understand the draft thing at all.
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It’s insane how big it’s gotten. But there are reasons for the fascination. Every fan base likes to imagine this is the year their team is going to win the lottery and make the franchise-changing picks.
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Do the teams have to bid for who they want or do they draw names out of the hat? Have the players in the draft been sacked or do they want to be re-assigned?
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There’s an order based on their record the previous year. So the worst teams get the highest picks. But they can also trade picks, moving up or down or exchanging picks for players. Plus it’s a lottery because it’s basically a coin-flip whether a player with a good college record is going to pan out in the pros.
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Sounds messy.
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Largely dominated by talented Scot Ojobo headed to the Ravens this year. We Scots are the pick of the bunch and not ‘pesky’ as someone write last week.
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The Ravens always crush the draft. Ojabo slid because of the unfortunate injury he had on his pro day. But he should be a solid pick-up for next year anyway.
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They WERE pesky in medieval times, not so much now.
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1 Any Given Sunday
2 Brian’s Song
3 Semi Tough
4. The Replacements
5. Super bowl IVX
6. The Last Boy Scout
7. Where is the quiz?
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On a hiatus I think.
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I’m taking it easy sleeping in Humphrey Bogart’s bed. So soft. Humphrey, I mean. Bed isn’t bad either.
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Wait what???
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Dix was bragging on another blog about sleeping in Bogart’s bed.
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Ah right. Well he would. What a goldilocks he is!
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