Is it Good or Bad That Pro Day Has Become A Big Thing...

Just wanted to get everyone's thoughts on this -- We're covering our Pro Day as if it were a regular season game w/500-word "gamer", photos, videos and stats. Since we have a guy who could go in the 3rd round and the NFL Network has it listed on its crawl and I'm expecting a huge traffice spike, we need to do it right.

Oh well, so much for tennis and softball and the other sports who are playing games that count...

 

Back in 2004-2005, I followed the NFL draft process for a year for a book that became The Draft: A Year inside the NFL's Search for Talent. A few things struck me during that process:

1. I was one of only about 8-10 reporters covering the Senior Bowl, which had virtually unlimited media access and at the time gave the media the same credentials as NFL officials.
2. Little of the combine was televised.
2. Several college SIDs were surprised that I wanted to cover pro days. Such requests were unusual. I went to Miami, Georgia, Auburn, and Florida State for pro days, which are just repeats of the combine and Senior Bowl (weigh-in portion).

Still not sure any of this is worthy of our attention, but wherever there's the potential for cheap/free television programming involving The Shield, somebody will jump on it.

 

I don't know about it's merits -- but around here, it's still pro day, not Pro Day.

 

A bad thing. A very, very bad thing.

 

I think it's one of those things where some editor says, "ESPN is covering it, therefore it is A Big Deal."

 

It's just another football practice. "Robert Griffin III can throw footballs and run fast, the Your Paper's Name Here has learned." But it does no harm. It doesn't have to be a big deal unless you work for a Waco or Washington paper.

 

I've got to admit, I'm not a fan of it.

It's just amazing that anything involving football, even the most mundane, boring stuff, is now covered like it was the Super Bowl. Pro Days. College football spring games on ESPN. It's shocking. I remember when you could go to Alabama's A-Day and it would fill up a third of the stadium, if they were lucky. Now, there's 90,000-plus fans who want to make the annual spring game the biggest in the country. It's made what used to be a laid back affair a nightmare like game days on campus.

And to think IndyCar or sportscar racing can barely get on TV. Sheesh. Don't get me wrong, I love football like anyone else, but it'd be nice to see something other than football 365 days of the year. I bet the USFL, playing in the spring, would've thrived in this environment.

But that's a debate for another day.

 

If people want to read about it, then it is worth covering. I think it ranks up there with spring scrimmage games as some of the ultimate non-events. But people will pick up the paper or go to the website to read about. Doesn't matter much what we think.

 

The USFL would have thrived in the spring in the environment back then, too, but Donald Trump got greedy (I know, go figure, right?) and wanted to battle the NFL (or force a merger) in the fall.

 

Bingo. Birmingham wouldn't still have a team, but the USFL would have been a monster success for years and years.

 

If I understand the whole concept of "pro day," they take a 40 time, run some agility drills, then do some measuring and weighing. Didn't they do that just a month ago at the combine in Indy?

 

It certainly wasn't the only factor, but part of what got the newspaper industry in trouble (from a sports perspective anyway) was failing to give readers what they wanted and were willing to pay for.

Recruiting, pro days, spring drills ... That stuff might not be fun to cover, but a significant number of people eat it up and it was a mistake to concede it to Rivals.com and their ilk.

I'm also a believer that in most markets you can't cover too much football. You're likely to have more interest in the local high school's 7-on-7 passing camp than all the other spring sports, but most papers don't cover it that way.