ESPN's Draft Coverage

I watched 17 straight hours of the NFL draft on Saturday and Sunday. It was punctuated at various intervals by M coming into the room and yelling at me for having a good time. Apparently, if M doesn't get her weekly dose of Neil Patrick Harris, she gets very grouchy. Luckily, I was able to trick her into watching TV in the bedroom because I ordered her a pizza and it distracted her for the next 5 hours (food is M's kryptonite). . .I think there was a Mad about You rerun on lifetime or something or other.

ESPN's coverage of the draft was to quote a friend of mine, "an unmitigated disaster". I don't understand how ESPN could turn something so fun. . . the one day of football we get to watch into spring, into an orgy of suckiness. By the end of the first day, I wanted to crawl into the screen and rip Michael Irvin's eyes out with a melon baller.

Some reasons for the aforementioned Orgy of Suckiness:

1. Chris Berman
This has already been covered on numerous blogs and websites, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't bear repeating. Chris Berman needs to stop ruining the picks before they are announced. For the love of God, this is the most suspenseful moment of the draft. Stop. Ruining. It. Now. (for the record, I am one of nine people still left in the US who still finds Chris Berman's nicknames and shtick entertaining, lest you think this is some sort of anti-Berman diatribe

2. Michael Irvin
I'm sorry, but I can't stand him. I must of heard his diatribe "Defense doesn't win championships, Offense does because it scores points" 50 times during the weekend. It didn't get any more enlightening (which is pretty amazing, considering how monumentally stupid it was in the first place) after the first time. Some producer needs to shut him up. He adds absolutely nothing of value. What does he know about evaluation talent? Absolutely nothing.

3. The Houston Texans
Everyone should be fired. Why didn't ESPN follow up on this more aggressively (besides for Michael Irvin screaming incoherent ramblings)?

4. Sean Salisbury's Roundtable
I don't give a crap how Torry Holt feels about rookies getting into camp on time or how Trent Green feels about the character issue. Their opinions are in fact no more valid than mine on these issues BECAUSE THEY HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE TEAMS DRAFTING DECISIONS.

5. Not enough Mel.
Let's stop with the pretention. The draft is Mel's day. He only gets 2 days a year in which he's the most important person in the sporting world. You can't give that to him? Why does he have to play second banana to practically everyone? Feels like that was the case this year.

6. No Trade Information
This is perhaps the most egregious failure of ESPN's coverage. The Giants traded out of the 25th pick? For what? I don't think the answer ever came. The Vikings traded their 4th round pick for the Eagles starting OG? How would we know? You would have to go on ESPN's website to find out those little nugget. Of course, ESPN did tell me 500 times that Ryan Cook was the 1st player from New Mexico taken since Brian Urlacher. This is really inexcusable. The first 5 elements might have been taste related, but this actually speaks to the information ESPN was providing. Just a piss-poor job.

This broadcast should be a no-brainer. Show the picks, show as many highlights of them as you can (Yahoo Sports has highlights on every player drafted as far as I can tell), and show the trades. Throw in some analysis by Jaws and Mel Kiper, and I'm a happy camper.

Thanks for ruining my weekend ESPN.