Draft Day Trades Drive Fan Interest

Two weeks from today Commissioner Goodell will step to the podium at Radio City Music Hall in New York City and announce that the Indianapolis Colts are on the clock. With that, the 77th NFL Draft will begin and football fans everywhere will be watching the coverage on the NFL Network and ESPN.

Last year, over seven million people watched the draft on ESPN and the NFL Network. That number was down slightly due to a few unique factors:

1. Fans were upset over the labor situation and boycotting the draft was their first chance to have their voices heard.
2. The draft went head to head with ratings juggernaut American Idol.
3. The Office aired its last episode staring Steve Carell.

This year, the league expects to get back most of the 1.4 million viewers it lost last season and even anticipates some growth. The league is projecting that nearly 10 million people will watch the draft this year.

Why do so many people huddle up on their couches and watch a draft? As a society, are we drawn to drafts?

Last year, the NBA set a record for viewership of their draft, but only 2 million people watched it. The NHL draft was up 22% but only managed to get 246,000 sets of eyeballs fixed on their draft. Interest in the MLB draft was down last season. The MLB Network has only been airing the draft for a few seasons. So I guess that proves that as a society we are not automatically drawn to drafts.

Why is the NFL draft so popular?

There are a plethora of reasons why the NFL draft dominates the other three major sports on television. The simplest reason to understand is that the NFL is KING. The NFL dominates on television regardless of the event. Gary Bettman (NHL Commissioner) David Stern (NBA Commissioner), and Bud Selig (MLB Commissioner) dream like kids before Christmas that NFL-like ratings for their league’s draft will be under their Christmas tree.

NCAA football is far more popular than NCAA hockey and baseball and even basketball pales in comparison to college football, despite owning the entire month of March. The fact that fans have knowledge of the players being drafted and can understand why the player was drafted by their team helps the event.

Let’s not overlook the fact that guys like Todd McShay, Mel Kiper Jr., and Mike Mayock spend hours studying the players in the draft and pass their knowledge on to us so that we can formulate our opinions. The newsstand at your local grocery store is filled with magazines full of information about the NFL draft. The NFL draft is big business.

Another reason that the NFL draft is so popular is the trades. The event itself is filled with drama and suspense that makes it a made-for-television extravaganza. Each time the Commissioner announces a pick, another ten minutes goes by before he announces another one. During that time, fans around the country are doing the following three things:

1. Analyzing the previous pick
2. Looking ahead to the next pick
3. Wondering if this is the point in the drat where their team aggressively trades up to pick the guy that will help them win the next four Super Bowls

Smooth trades on draft day can catapult your team into the league’s elite. Bad trades can set an organization back a decade.

This year’s draft is poised to be one of the most exciting in recent memory, Rob Rang of cbssports.com was told by one NFL executive that half of the teams in the top 10 are trying to trade out.

The St. Louis Rams have already traded the second overall pick to the Redskins for a ransom so rich the Rockefeller’s are jealous. For the right to move from the #6 pick to the 2nd, the Redskins gave the Rams the #6 pick in this year’s draft, their first round pick in 2013 and 2014, and their second round pick this year’s draft. The Redskins are expected to select Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III with the pick acquired from the Rams.

The Miami Dolphins still need a quarterback. Peter King told me on the Football Nation Presents: The Sports-Casters podcast that if the Dolphins want to draft Ryan Tannehill they might need to move up to number three to do so. The Browns need a quarterback and they could draft Tannehill at four.

The Vikings could draft OT Matt Kalil at number three and be happy, but they would be even happier to move to number nine by swapping with the Dolphins for a price only slightly cheaper than the Redskins paid to the Rams.

One league scout has said that this draft has five quarterbacks that are better than any of the quarterbacks in last year’s draft. Cam Newton and Andy Dalton were drafted last year and both appear to be franchisee QB’s. If this scout is right, picks are going to be traded by multiple teams who are trying to position themselves to draft one of the big five at the quarterback position. An old NFL cliché’ says, “No price is too steep for the right to draft a franchise quarterback.”

Mel Kiper Jr. of ESPN has ranked the quarterbacks like this:

1. Andrew Luck (Stanford)
2. Robert Griffin III (Baylor)
3. Ryan Tannehill (Texas A&M)
4. Brandon Weeden (Oklahoma St,)
5. Brock Osweller (Arizona St.)

With so much star power at the league’s most coveted position, this year’s draft could be defined by some of the most dramatic and gutsy draft day trades ever. To hold us over, here are the five biggest draft day trades of the last five years.

1. The main story heading into the 2010 NFL Draft was Tim Tebow. The football world debated and waited to see if Tim Tebow would be drafted in the first round. One of the teams that had shown interest in Tebow was the Denver Broncos. The Broncos had the 22nd pick in the first round and passed on Tebow to select WR Demaryius Thomas. But then just three picks later the Broncos traded back into the first round to draft Tebow at pick number 25. To do so, the Broncos gave Baltimore their second (43rd overall), third (70th overall), and fourth (114th overall) round picks.
2. Last year, the Atlanta Falcons made one of the boldest draft day trades ever with the Cleveland Browns. The Falcons moved from pick 27 to 6 for the right to draft Julio Jones. To make this happen, the Falcons and Browns swapped first round picks and the Falcons also sent their second and fourth round picks in the 2011 draft and their first round pick in the 2012 draft to the Browns.
3. In 2007, people all around the country cringed with each passing player drafted that wasn’t named Brady Quinn. Some mock drafts had Quinn projected as the first overall pick in the draft and the league invited Quinn to watch the draft from the green room inside of the Radio City Music Hall. The Raiders passed on Quinn at the top of the draft to instead select JaMarcus Russell and the slide began. The longest first round in NFL history had to feel like an eternity for Quinn who had to wait until pick 22 to be drafted by the Cleveland Browns. The Browns had passed on Quinn with the third pick and instead selected LT Joe Thomas. At pick 22 the Browns saw incredible value in Quinn and traded back into the first round to draft him. To do so the Browns traded with the Dallas Cowboys. The Cowboys received the Browns second round pick in 2007 and their first round pick in 2008. The Cowboys traded the Browns second round pick in 2007 to the Eagles who drafted Kevin Kolb. In 2008, the Cowboys used the Browns pick to draft Felix Jones.
4. Last season, the New Orleans Saints selected DE Cameron Jordan with the 24th pick of the draft. The team needed to improve its pass rush and Jordan was a sound selection. Looking for more, Sean Payton and Mickey Loomis worked the phones and traded back into the first round to select Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram at pick 28. To do so, the Saints sent their second round pick in the 2011 draft and their first round pick in the upcoming draft to the New England Patriots. The interesting thing about this trade is that if it never happened the Saints would have likely had to forfeit the first round pick they traded to the Patriots as punishment for the bounty scandal.
5. The 2009 draft was a very interesting one for the Cleveland Browns. Browns fans woke up on draft day wondering who the Browns would pick with the fifth overall pick. Instead of making a selection, the Browns traded that pick to the New York Jets who drafted Mark Sanchez. To do so, the Jets swapped first round picks with the Browns, included their second round pick, and DE Kenyon Coleman, QB Brett Ratliff and S Abram Elam. The Browns now owned the 17th overall pick of the draft but traded down again this time with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Bucs used the Browns pick to select Josh Freeman. To move from 17 to 19 the Browns acquired a sixth round pick. Now set to draft at 19 the Browns moved down a third time trading the 19th overall pick to the Eagles. The Eagles used the Browns pick to draft Jeremy Maclin. To move from 19 to 21 the Browns acquired another sixth round pick. Finally, with the 21t selection in the 2009 NFL Draft the Browns picked a center from Cal named Alex Mack. To recap: The Browns passed on Mark Sanchez, Josh Freeman, and Jeremy Maclin to draft Alex Mack, acquire a second and two sixth round picks, and added Kenyon Coleman, Brett Ratliff, and Abram Elam to their roster.