NFL
By: Bill Carroll
The oldest, known, mock draft was published by Ray Byrne; as a kid, Byrne had gone to Forbes Field in 1924 to see Carnegie Tech battle Notre Dame’s Four Horsemen and come away with a severe case of footballitis. Or as a 1950 story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette put it, the game:
“caught his imagination and brought concentration on football records. He began buying up old Spalding guides. The hobby became a mania. He ran ads in newspapers and magazines for missing links in his series. Today his home is packed with what he believes to be the most complete collection of football records in the world. They start back in the Civil War era with an 1866 edition titled “Beadle’s Dime Novel [Book, actually] of Cricket and Football.” http://profootballdaly.com/the-first-mel-kiper/
He had started as a high schooler creating lists of college players as a hobby and by the time he was at Penn State College, now Penn State University, he had notebooks filled with names, positions, and the institutions attended by the players. This was enough to draw the attention of Steelers’ publicist Pat Livingston, who in those days helped in scouting, was meeting with Byrne when head coach and team vice president, Dr. John Bain “Jock” Sutherland, overheard them and invited Byrne to the next draft to help.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – Google News Archive Search. (n.d.). News.google.com. Retrieved January 11, 2023, from https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1129&dat=19500815&id=tRENAAAAIBAJ&sjid=PWoDAAAAIBAJ&pg=1323
For many members of the Steelers’ staff, he was known as “Heels” because he looked like Heels Beals, a character in the Dick Tracy comic strip. Byrne was the manager of his family funeral home, but he was at various points in his roughly just over seven years working with the Steelers, listed as team historian, statistician, Director of Public Relations, player personnel even acting as the “Turk” cutting players and paying them release checks.
In the 65-plus years since “Draftniks” and members of #DraftTwitter from eight to over 80 in age have put in hours of study, debate, and description of thousands of NFL draft prospects. By the time I was getting interested. A little over 40 years ago, Palmer Hughes, Jerry Jones, [of the “The Drugstore List” a Mariemont OH, pharmacist/draft writer, not the Cowboys’ owner], The Marasco Brothers, The Arkush Brothers/Sons, Joe Stein, and Joel Buchsbaum were the preeminent names in the burgeoning industry of NFL Draft prospect scouting and coverage.
All of that would change with Mel Kiper Jr. birthing Kiper Enterprises while attending Essex Community College in Baltimore in 1981. Kiper had published his first NFL draft book as a high school senior. Afterwards, he enrolled at Essex Community College, where he balanced his studies and his fledgling home-based operation that produced the following each year: a draft preview in October; newsletters in November, December, and January; a free-agency data-sheet in February; his annual draft book with scouting reports in March; a draft update in early April; and a draft review after the event itself.
“It was the only way we could manage the business,” said Kiper. He ran the operation with his father, who had a vending machine company. {from: Meet Mel Kiper: Fallible, parodied, relentless, rich, famous, successful} https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2036569-meet-mel-kiper-fallible-parodied-relentless-rich-famous-successful
At Essex, he majored in broadcasting and thought about the possibility of becoming a meteorologist or a high school athletic director, but he spent most of his time working on Mel Kiper Enterprises, Inc. The final move on the board was when he signed his first ESPN contract, signed when the network hired him to work the 1984 NFL draft, and paid him a grand total of $400. He is evasive about his current income but most estimate it to be in the low seven figures.
While I strongly feel that there were and are more accurate and thorough analysts in the industry, nobody has successfully embodied the archetype of the “know it all draft nerd” better than Kiper has. Anyone with even a passing interest in the NFL draft knows about the endlessly requoted and even immortalized in song: “Who in the hell is Mel Kiper anyway?” asked Bill Tobin, the then Colts’ GM. “Here’s a guy that criticizes everybody, whoever they take. He’s got the answers to who you should take and who you shouldn’t take. And my knowledge of him: he’s never ever put on a jockstrap, he’s never been a coach, he’s never been a scout, he’s been an administrator, and all of a sudden he’s an expert.”
Rather than discrediting Kiper, he went from among many to being seen as the top NFL draft expert. My personal favorite was Joel Buchsbaum and, in part, inspired by his work, I took a position with Consensus Draft Services, a few months prior to the 2005 NFL draft. My first pre-draft article had been written prior to the legendary 1983 NFL draft. This is a time of year that takes much of my time and attention. Despite that, I wish I had even more time and attention to devote to this.
Weekly I will do a full seven-round mock for each of the 32 teams. I will report some of the highlights here. I ran two simulations, in one the picks were made without trades. In the second there was a trade-down and a trade-up.
In doing a straight-pick version the Bears netted: Will Anderson, with Bryce Young, Jalen Carter, and CJ Stroud as the next players picked. In the trade-based scenario the Bears received selections: number four in the 1st, 35 in the 2nd, 79 in the 3rd, 105 in the 4th, a 1st in 2024, and a 3rd in 2024 in exchange for the first overall selection, and the Bears selection number 135 in the 4th. This netted: Jalen Carter, WR Rashee Rice of SMU, C Luke Wypler of Ohio State, OG Beaux Limmer of Arkansas, RB Zach Evans of Mississippi, DE/OLB , DE/OLB K.J. Henry Clemson, OT Warren McClendon of Georgia, and LB Ivan Pace Jr., of Cincinnati. So happy drafting you filthy animals and Happy Mock Draft Season, For Those Who Celebrate!
