Our recent item containing an unnamed veteran scout’s rant regarding ESPN draft expert Todd McShay has prompted broader discussions with league insiders regarding the entire concept of the media draft expert.
As one source has explained the process, it’s as a practical matter impossible for a media draft expert to be a true expert in the draft. In many cases, a draft expert is a one-man scouting operation, who lacks the time or the resources to travel to college campuses, watch practices, talk to coaches, and otherwise engage in the level of detail that a multi-employee scouting department utilizes. Even the Bengals, notorious for cutting costs in the player-acquisition process, are able to do much more when it comes to creating a draft board than most if not all draft experts.
As our source pointed out the other day, NFL Network’s Mike Mayock is the best of the bunch, due in part to the access he enjoys to the tapes that are available to the 32 teams -- and in part to the fact that he knows what he’s doing. But tapes only go so far; neither Mayock nor anyone else has access to, for example, the interviews at the Scouting Combine, the pre-draft visits, or the private, non-Pro Day workouts.
Sure, some draft experts have connections to teams, and those sources may funnel the otherwise unknown information to the draft experts. But everyone has an agenda in this context, and it’s impossible to trust completely the stuff that makes its way out of team facilities.
That said, most draft experts are in far better position than anyone else who isn’t working for a team to compile information and rank players. From that perspective, then, the audience benefits.
But that brings us back to the most common concern we’ve heard over the years from NFL scouts who resent the fact that their work is criticized by people who aren’t NFL scouts. Few NFL scouts below retirement age choose to leave the industry voluntarily; typically, former NFL scouts who are available to provide draft insight and analysis have been fired (or forced to quit) and can’t get back in, no matter how hard they try. It’s a reality that makes the people still employed as NFL scouts even more frustrated when their work is second-guessed.
Again, because expertise is determined relative to the audience, a fully-qualified NFL scout isn’t necessary to fill the role of a draft expert. But if a media company wanted to cover the draft the right way, it would pay a bunch of money to a current G.M.-level scout who communicates well in the television medium, it would hire a staff of competent, otherwise gainfully-employed NFL scouts who’ll help set the table for him, and they’d prepare a draft board in the same way an NFL team does it -- with equal access to all information that teams utilize.
It wouldn’t be cheap, and the added benefit may not justify the extra cost. But that would definitely be the best way to cover the draft.
