re: Should Mel Kiper Jr. make the Pro Football Hall of Fame?

quote:

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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. In my knowledge of him, he’s never, ever put on a jock strap. He’s never been a coach. He’s never been a scout. He’s never been an administrator. And all of a sudden he’s an expert. He’s in our papers two days ago telling us who we have to take. We don’t have to take anybody that Mel Kiper says we have to take. Mel Kiper has no more credentials to do what he’s doing than my neighbor, and my neighbor’s a postman and he doesn’t even have season tickets to the NFL.

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This is one of the most cringe-worthy, old man yelling at the sky, jealous of another man who’s become the most successful person ever doing what he does—in a gig he created—and made millions of dollars in doing that something that you’ve lied yourself into thinking you and your bar buddies could have done (but didn’t, why?) sentences I’ve read. He’s in your papers?

Granted, Mel benefitted by the timing of cable tv news exploding—specifically ESPN and its 24-hour programming—and, later, the internet. Or did he benefit them just as much (relative to the draft)? Was he filling a content hole that NFL fans didn’t even know they needed filling, or was he actually creating the demand for it?

I doubt he was the 1st draft analyst—I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him refer to himself as an “expert—and obviously timing had a great deal to do with his ascent into the public consciousness as he became synonymous with the NFL draft. But regardless of if you think he’s the chicken or the egg, somebody had to be there and prepared to do take advantage of the stars aligning, and there he was. Prepared.

Whether you like him or not—people NOT liking him is part of the gig, too—he unquestionably helped turn the NFL from a 5 month season into a 12-month one and created an industry that has probably spawned over a million hours of NFL draft content in the last 30 years. You could argue that after—or maybe up there with—fantasy football and online betting, the NFL draft is just as responsible for the league’s explosion in popularity as anything. Because of one word—“hope.” Every fan thinks they are just 1 Pat Mahomes or Joe Burrow from turning it all around. And they might just be right. So they hope.