A Pair Of Paradigm Shifts Afoot

There are two “paradigm shifts” afoot in the sports world today that I want to discuss.  The first shift is happening to and for players in the WNBA.  In a pre-season media day involving the Indiana Fever, a reporter lobbed a softball question at Aliyah Boston about her offseason workouts and where they had happened.  Boston’s reaction/reply was:

“You in my business.”

Reports during the WNBA Draft spent a lot of time and attention on the “reuniting” of Azzi Fudd and Paige Bueckers not as teammates but as “a couple”.

This is paradigm shift number one today; players in the WNBA are now going to be subjected to more scrutiny in their private lives than before and the reason is because the WNBA players fought for and won greater public recognition as entertainers.  The public cares about the players these days much more that it did 10 years ago when the WNBA would have been glad to accept the label of “afterthought”.  Here is a certainty in the US in 2026:

• Celebrity status = Diminished privacy

I am not advocating that situation to be ideal or even worthwhile, but it is the case.  And for the last year, the WNBA players wedged themselves into a higher level of celebrity demanding to be paid better and to be treated better by the league owners.  They got concessions from the owners – – and not insignificant ones – – which carries with it the consequence of greater public scrutiny.

The second “paradigm shift” is happening to NFL teams as a whole and is exemplified by the Philadelphia Eagles spending a 7^th round draft pick on Uar Bernard who is 21 years old and from Nigeria; he has all the “measurables” in terms of size and speed to be a defensive end/linebacker but here is the rub:

• Uar Bernard has never played even a single down of organized tackle football.

One reaction to this might be that Eagles’ GM, Howie Roseman, hit the jackpot several years ago drafting rugby player, Jason Mailata, and developing him into a top-shelf offensive tackle; and so, this is nothing more than him taking another shot at a big payoff.  Indeed, that may well be Howie Roseman’s mindset there, but I think there is more to that selection than that.

College football has been the “farm system” for the NFL since forever; the big difference between the NFL’s “farm system” and MLB’s ”farm system” is MLB’s system costs MLB money and the NFL’s system comes free.  This year, there were 256 players taken by NFL teams in the Draft, but the pool was not nearly as deep as has been the case in recent years.  That is not just me talking; that is what NFL scouts and “personnel people” have been saying about this draft class for at least a month.  And why might that be the case:

• NIL Money

Picture Joe Flabeetz who plays football for Whatsamatta U; Joe is three years removed from high school graduation so he can choose to declare himself ready for the NFL Draft.  But Joe is in a different position today than he would have been in years gone by; he already has an agent – – a relationship that would have rendered him ineligible for college football ten years ago.  The reason he has an agent is for the agent to negotiate his NIL money by playing off various colleges against one another in the Transfer Portal – – which did not exist ten years ago in the form it does now.

So, Joe Flabeetz has two things now that were not available in the past:

1. He is collecting NIL money which is much more than a living wage
2. He has access to someone who can sniff around and find out what NFL scouts think about him.

So, Joe Flabeetz’ agent, Sam Glotz, checks his sources at the NFL level and reports to Joe that he is unlikely to be drafted in the first three or four rounds in the upcoming draft.  That means it makes economic sense for Joe to stay in college and play another year for NIL money and potentially play his way into a higher degree of interest from NFL scouts.  And therein lies the paradigm shift.

Rounds 5-7 have always been a crapshoot for NFL teams but now the situation is made more difficult by legitimate late round picks opting to “stay in school” because it makes economic sense and football sense for them.  Hence, Howie Roseman spent an asset – – not a huge asset in a 7^th round pick – – to make sure that the Eagles would be the ones to try to develop Uar Bernard into an NFL player.

Here are Bernard’s “measurables:

• He is 21 years old.
• 6’ 4” tall and 306 lbs. with 6% body fat
• He ran a 4.63 in the 40 yard dash at the International Player Pathway Pro Day – – sort of like a “Combine” for foreign players.
• He had a 39-inch vertical jump and a 10’ 10” standing broad jump.

He was a basketball player in Nigeria starting at the age of 16 and has never played organized football, but with those measurables he compares favorably to exiting NFL players and to others in this year’s draft.  Why is he in the draft?  Because there is no NIL money in Nigeria and he did not have access to someone like Sam Glotz.

The NFL’s “farm system” has changed and GMs will need to adapt to the change.  Uar Bernard is not likely to be the last person drafted from a place totally apart from a college campus and a college football environment.

Finally, this from Norman Cousins:

“Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………