NFL Draft Reflections

I returned late on Monday from an enjoyable change of scenery to find this headline on a story in Monday’s Washington Post sports section:

• “Eagles soar, Lions stumble during chaotic draft weekend”

Obviously, this was one of six bazillion articles/columns written at the time grading each team on their selections in the NFL Draft.  And since it takes – in the real world – at least two years and more likely three years to get an in-depth assessment of the team’s selection(s), these articles are as bad if not worse than the six bazillion “Mock Drafts” that fill space and contribute to the entropy death of the universe.  Anyone who reads “Mock Drafts”, and instant draft analysis should be struck by the fact that there is an interplay at work there:

• The person writing the “instant analysis” is often/usually the same guy who published the “Mock Drafts”.  So, his yardstick for how well or how poorly a team did is his ratings of players he told you about in the “Mock Draft” pieces.
• If he rates a player as a first-round pick and a team drafts him in the third round, then that team gets lots of bonus points for finding this hidden gem.
• The only thing that is certain is that not a single player drafted has ever taken a single snap in an NFL game.  Only time and direct observation will reveal which teams acquired the most assets and which acquired the fewest assets in the 2023 NFL Draft.
• Reading about the “Draft Grades” the day after the Draft written by the same folks who have been hawking “Mock Drafts” for the last 4 months is like buying a self-eating watermelon.

And along the same lines, the folks on TV who are covering the Draft need to examine their language choices too.  Instead of saying that Joe Flabeetz has “fallen in the draft”, they might – just occasionally – – say something along the lines of:

“Wow!  Here we are in the middle of the fifth round and Joe Flabeetz is still on the board.  I had him going in the second round.  Man, did I ever get that one wrong?”

Don’t expect to hear such an exclamation from any of the TV gurus any time before Godot shows up …

Having said all that, I want to focus on one pick in this year’s Draft that looks like a “boom-or-bust” situation.  That was the overall #4 pick in the Draft:

• Anthony Richardson QB – Florida – taken by the Indy Colts.

In my Pre-Draft rant, I said he was definitely worth a high pick and that he reminded me of Randall Cunningham in terms of his athletic gifts.  My knock on him was that he was not an accurate passer – – he completed less than 55% of his throws last year at Florida – – and he would need coaching and development to improve that sort of performance significantly.

Here is the interesting – at least to me – part of this situation.  Shane Steichen is the new head coach for the Colts; his last job was as the Offensive Coordinator for the Eagles where just a couple of years ago, he had Jalen Hurts as his pupil.  Hurts is very fast and very athletic, but he too was not an accurate passer, and his pocket mechanics were politely described as “random”.  That was two years ago; last year, Jalen Hurts led the Eagles to the Super Bowl and even though the Eagles lost that game, Hurts was not overshadowed by Patrick Mahomes.

Obviously, Jalen Hurts learned a lot from Shane Steichen, and he learned it rather quickly.  In any “student/teacher situation” a critical element for success is the willingness of the student to take direction and develop the skills taught by the teacher.  In football terminology, they like to say that the player is “coachable”.

Prior to the Draft, teams and analysts try to pretend that there is some sort of science involved in creating a team’s draft board.by measuring and recording numerical data of all the players.  Fans eat that stuff up; fans will “favor” one player over another because the 40-yard time for the “better player” was 4.33 as opposed to only 4.35 for the “lesser player”.  Notwithstanding the silliness of that over-indulgence in details, there is a need for every team to have a very good idea about how “coachable” are the players they take.  And there is no reliable objective measure for that critical characteristic.

If Anthony Richardson is similarly “coachable” as was Jalen Hurts, then the Colts and Shane Steichen have star-potential in their locker room.  If Anthony Richardson is not coachable – – let’s call him possibly a “meathead” – – then the Colts wasted a significant draft opportunity.  I think we will have a very good handle on Richardson’s coachability/meat-headedness index sometime around Christmas 2026. Until then …

Finally, let me close today with a story about Bum Phillips – Wade Phillips’ father – who was the coach of the Houston Oilers around 40 years ago.  At the start of training camp, the training staff had all the players run a mile; they had set time objectives for various positions and once players met that time objective, the players were not subject to certain fitness drills.  The Oilers had a star running back, Earl Campbell, who not only did not meet the standard for running backs, he could not finish running the mile and just “dropped out”.

Someone asked Bum Phillips after the practice if he was concerned that his all-world running back could not run a mile, Phillips demonstrated the proper attitude toward Making decisions according to the numbers:

“Well, I guess whenever it is third-and-a-mile, I won’t hand him the ball.”

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