Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch channeled his inner Peter King. He wrote a 4,000-plus word analysis of the networks’ coverage of the NFL draft.
Imagine if the draft was 17 rounds like it was in the good old days. He’d be the Leo Tolstoy of the NFL draft.
Deitsch started his treatise by dumping on ESPN’s Chris Berman:
The bellowing never stops. It pummels you over the head like a hard rain, and it’s forever accompanied by outdated references (“Mel Kiper, to quote Stan Laurel, ‘Here’s another mess you have gotten me into, Ollie.’ “) and long-winded intros that last nearly as long as a Presidential campaign. Mostly, there is Chris Berman simply talking and talking and talking.
It’s a shame, really, that Berman remains the ringmaster for ESPN during the first two days of the NFL Draft, because the network has terrific draft assets and a first-rate production.
Berman obviously is getting touchy by the criticism. Later, Deitsch detailed this weird exchange:
I think, during a discussion on Memphis nose tackle Dontari Poe prior to the Chiefs selecting him at No. 11 overall, this exchange happened on ESPN:
Berman: “Maybe they are reading Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories. I don’t know. There are some good ones, you know.
Gruden: He’s got a lot of Poe-tential
Berman: See, now if I had said that, I’d be ripped for about three years. You can go with it. You are a rising star.
Gruden: I learn quick from you, Chris.
Why was the exchange particularly amusing? Because last week Berman told USA Today that he doesn’t pay attention to criticism. Show me a person in sports television who doesn’t read stuff about them and I’ll show you a Kardashian who can act.
Deitsch also got into the whole impact of Twitter on the draft coverage, with picks being tipped in advance by the networks’ reports. He had this passage:
I think it’s interesting that NFL Network executive producer Eric Weinberger told La Canfora to back off tweeting picks during the draft. “Mike Lombardi and Jason could have tweeted every pick Thursday night but they didn’t,” Weinberger told SI.com in an interview Sunday. “We sort of unleashed Jason on Friday and he was doing it, he was picking off picks on Twitter. And the reason we were able to do it is the picks were coming in so fast that there were backups of three picks at some times. So there was more time to get the information out there.
“But after following him on Twitter and me watching the show, we told Jason to pull back. And I don’t think at this juncture it’s as simple as saying, ‘Don’t follow him on Twitter.’ It’s what people do. It’s hard to say turn your tablet off. Everyone is watching TV with a tablet. We have to find ways to continue to grow these sporting events and this is becoming an obvious one: The viewer wants it to be a TV show and the way they like it now is they want to see it on the podium.”