Draft Day Memories

[Mr. Scot]

As we're waiting for the annual event, I'm wondering who has recollections of memorable Draft day events, i.e. stuff like being excited (or pissed) about a certain pick, having a great Draft day party or even something unrelated that just happened to occur on that day.

One of mine is being invited by a friend who had this new thing called "ESPN" to watch the Draft with them and another friend. I remember thinking that if I ever got so football crazy that I would actually  sit down and watch The NFL Draft, I'd check myself into rehab.

 

 

Yeah...

[RockyTopVol]

Though I’ve watched it closely for 20 years, I’ve got to call out last year. I was there for round one. It was everything I imagined! And we took the guy I really wanted.

[Wes21]

- I was going to head down to a bar that's about a mile from my place to watch the draft this year.  They have $1 draft beers and its on the water.  Two problems.  For one, the virus has bars closed down.  But two, the dang bar caught on fire last week and is shut down!!! LOL

- My ex used to respect the draft process and knew how much it meant to me.  She would not only "leave me alone" and not nag me on draft day, a few times she dressed up in a sexy ref uniform (from her Miller Lite girl days) and would bring me beer and food.

- I remember the days of having to watch the names scroll across the bottom of the screen to see the mid to later round picks.  If you got distracted right as the name you were looking for passed by, you had to sit there and keep watching until it scrolled all the way back thru again.  

- I will never forget the chaos of the 2003 draft when the Vikings missed their pick, and teams were rushing up their cards to get their picks in before the Vikings.

- To this day, the 2004 draft has shaped my feelings about the format and which network I watch.  I watched it on ESPN, and that was the Eli Manning/Philip Rivers trade draft.  After about pick 8, ESPN basically gave up on doing much coverage of the draft and just spent the rest of the entire draft talking about the trade.  That's what it felt like anyways.  That's why I watch NFL Network now (or online sources), and that's why I like the new format of separating the 1st round from the rest of the draft.  It was 2004 when it dawned on me that after the first round, the networks didn't really allow us to enjoy much of the rest of the picks, because they spent the entire day rehashing what had happened in the 1st round and in particular the first part of the 1st round.  Now that the 2nd and 3rd rounds have their own day separate from the 1st round, I think they do a lot better job of letting us actually see those picks, get a little insight from the panel and take a moment to let it sink in...not just blow past it by naming "the last 5-10 picks" in a flash and then going back to blowing Eli Manning.

 

[Dex]

 

Such a young lad.

[Mr. Scot]

7 minutes ago, Wes21 said:

- I will never forget the chaos of the 2003 draft when the Vikings missed their pick, and teams were rushing up their cards to get their picks in before the Vikings.

The best part of that was watching the ESPN guys sitting there laughing and saying "what the hell is going on?" 

And kudos on the lady. I had a significant other who cooked up and put together a Draft Day feast for me and some friends one year.

[jfra78]

Getting Jordan Gross because the Vikings can't get their pick in on time

[Mr. Scot]

Over the past few days, ESPN has been filling their programming void with rebroadcasts of old Drafts. I watched us draft Thomas Davis and Christian McCaffrey again.

On the 2017 broadcast, right after the McCaffrey pick the Bengals took John Ross. I listened to the analysts talk him up and remembered him being a guy a lot of people thought would be great.

Heck, when you watch those first round picks, they think everybody is going to be great. It's funny to look back at them with the perspective of hindsight.

[TheMostInterestingMan]

The most excited I think I had ever been for a draft was the year we took Star. I had been wanting to draft him for over a full year and it seemed so unlikely he would fall all the way down to us. While he wasn’t the most sexy pick and ultimately his time with us was relatively short lived, I had been wanting that player for so long. I was absolutely ecstatic to actually land someone I had wanted for that long.

[LinvilleGorge]

My best draft day memory is probably watching Star fall into our laps. It's not very often you're going to have the 14th overall pick and have THE guy in that draft you want fall into your lap. Seriously, honestly if we had the #1 overall pick in that draft, I would've still wanted Star.

[45catfan]

One year I went to a Panthers draft watch party and we picking mid-round one.  I was telling some folks we might be taking this safety prospect out of UGA and everyone thought I was crazy (round 1 for a safety?).  When Thomas Davis' name was called, people were completely shocked because he was the pick, then more so because I nailed the selection.

[TheMostInterestingMan]

39 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

My best draft day memory is probably watching Star fall into our laps. It's not very often you're going to have the 14th overall pick and have THE guy in that draft you want fall into your lap. Seriously, honestly if we had the #1 overall pick in that draft, I would've still wanted Star.

Same

[bababoey]

3 hours ago, jfra78 said:

Getting Jordan Gross because the Vikings can't get their pick in on time

I was going to say the same thing.  It was Jags, then us, the Baltimore all got our picks in before the Vikings could. Leftwich, Gross and then Suggs if I remember correctly.  Still one of the crazies things I have seen on draft day.

[shaqattaq]

4 hours ago, Dex said:

 

Such a young lad.

This is when I actually started watching and even following the draft. I'm not sure if it was just the drama around #1 overall or how exciting Cam was. Likely a bit of both. Ironically, this is the first year I haven't done several mocks since that night.

[Bronn]

1998. I had a buddy of mine on the phone when we were picking. I was 17 at the time. We were both chanting "Randy Moss" over and over when the Panthers were on the clock at #14.

We took Jason Peter. Moss went 7 picks later to the Vikings.

We could have had the second greatest WR of all time.

Marty Hurney's first draft IIRC.