Stop the Draft Coverage. I Want to Get Off.

Life comes full circle as NFL Draft Szn approaches its terrifying climax.

Much study is a weariness of the flesh. — Ecclesiastes 12:12

It all started when I sat down to write a profile on Indiana quarterback Kurtis Rourke.

Do you remember Nathan Rourke, the superstar of the Jaguars’ 2023 preseason? Kurtis is Nathan’s brother. Nathan’s nickname is Kid Canada, which makes him sound like a sidekick for the Great Lakes Avengers. The Rourkes are from Ontario, and Nathan now plays for the B.C. Lions of the CFL, just as he did before going viral with some big plays two Augusts ago.

Kurtis Rourke – let’s not call him Kid Kid Canada, nor Kid Canada Dry, and Tariff War Machine is right out – spent five years at Ohio University before portalling to Indiana. He had some fine years for the Bobcats, though he suffered an ACL tear at the end of the 2022 season. He re-tore the same ligament in the summer of 2024 but played the whole season with a brace on his knee. He threw for 3,042 yards, 29 touchdowns and 5 interceptions for the Hoosiers, leading them to the playoffs: a remarkable feat under the circumstances. He underwent surgery in early January and was cleared to throw last week.

Rourke will likely be drafted. He appears on lots of sleeper lists. It pays to be thorough when prepping for quarterback prospects: who wants to miss the next Brock Purdy? So I loaded up an Indiana game, watched Rourke twirl some RPO passes from his stationary platform in the pocket, and then paused the tape …

What the hell am I doing? I am watching tape of a 24-year old day-three prospect who is currently rehabbing his second ACL tear. What brilliant observations can I really glean from this experience?

I appreciate Rourke’s near-Byron Leftwich heroics in 2024, but his right knee is obviously held together by baling wire. He’ll almost certainly need a redshirt freshman year. Watching him toss passes in an offense clearly built to protect him from his own immobility, in the hope of making insightful scouting observations, would be a waste of my time and yours.

So I took a lovely walk around the park instead of watching Rourke tape. Please forgive me.

The day before the Rourke dilemma, I hunted down some tape on Nick Nash, a quarterback-turned-receiver who spent six years at San Jose State. Nash led the nation’s wide receivers with 104 catches, 1,382 yards and 16 touchdowns in 2024. (Bowling Green tight end Harold Fannin had more catches and yards.) He’s another popular sleeper, as quarterback-turned-receivers who catch 104 passes are wont to be.

Nash went 8-91-2 against Stanford in November. He looked really good in the cutup I watched: quick at snapping off short routes, smart about getting position on his defenders. Then the announcers – I was watching television tape, not coaching film (heresy!) – pointed out that Stanford’s cornerbacks were both freshmen. I was watching Nash, at 24, toasting an 18 and a 19-year old from a big-name program on the skids.

Nash’s age does not preclude him from being a Day Three pick, a binkie/crush/sleeper, someone to root for in the draft or anything else. But I lack the acumen to evaluate a guy who is two weeks younger than Garrett Wilson based on his ability to get open against teenaged future biochemical engineers.

Roarke and Nash are just Guys. Once you get past the top 40 prospects in any given draft, you are basically dealing with Guys, though they may be Fantasy Relevant Guys or National Champion Guys or One Amazing Trait Guys. By about the 75th best prospect, the amazing traits get less amazing and the fantasy relevance gets more tenuous. What’s left are:

Storyline Guys like Rourke or Nash who changed positions, portalled all over the nation, overcame tragedy/injuries, were born and/or raised overseas, etc. There were a bunch of Storyline Guys at the end of the Too Deep 96.

Famous Guys, including:

• Quinn Ewers, Quarterback, Texas: A downright klutzy athlete with so-so measurables who led the Longhorns to lots and lots of wins. Reminds me of Charlie Frye, Brian Griese and Kyle Trask.

• Tez Johnson, Wide Receiver, Oregon: Was destined for the Too Deep 96 based on tape/stats/Senior Bowl highlights but ran a 4.51-second forty (though with a great three-cone result) at 154 pounds at the Combine. You can throw Tank Dell out as a comparison if you like, but Dell was: a) 10 pounds heavier at his Combine and ran a 4.49 forty; and b) severely injured every year.

• Dillon Gabriel, Quarterback, Oregon: So tiny that he looks like Dark Helmet. Future Edmonton Elk.

• Shilo Sanders, Safety, Colorado: Would have been sent to a monastery if this were Medieval Europe. Shilo’s instincts are iffy, his speed is adequate-at-best and his tackling technique involves leaping shoulder-first into anyone who looks like they might be carrying a football. But he showboats just like Dear Ol’ Dad, sometimes with a targeting flag at his feet.

Just Guys Guys, including powerhouse-program offensive linemen like Georgia’s Xavier Truss or LSU’s Miles Frazier. Such prospects were capable starters for outstanding college programs, but nothing about them stands out. Even if your favorite team drafts one of them on Day Two, you probably don’t want to read 1,200 words about his footwork in pass protection or quickness on the second level. You just want to know that the huge dude from Georgia or LSU isn’t currently rehabbing double ACL tears or facing criminal charges stemming from a drag race against a station wagon full of nuns.

I used to prewrite over 300 scouting reports for Bleacher Report’s real-time pick-by-pick draft grades. Over 100 of those reports per year were about Just Guys Guys. May the time spent writing them be taken off my sentence in purgatory.

At about the time last week that I was writing capsules about Storyline Guys and Famous Guys, Todd McShay (formerly of ESPN, now affiliated with The Ringer) produced a mock draft that had the Browns selecting both Travis Hunter AND Shedeur Sanders. How did the Browns pull off such an imaginative, imaginary coup, you ask? By selecting Hunter second overall, then trading a bunch of picks to the Falcons to acquire Shedeur with the 15th overall pick.

McShay released his mock on April 10, two days before news broke that Derek Carr is dealing with a shoulder injury which threatens his season/career. No worries: McShay mocked Jaxson Dart to the Saints, ahead of Sanders! McShay thinks Dart is a better fit in Kellen Moore’s system, whatever that may be. (Something something presnap motion something something.)

And what about the poor Giants? No worries: per McShay’s mock, they will trade up with the Vikings at the end of the first round to take Jalen Milroe! McShay’s reasoning here is that the NFL would not have invited Milroe to the draft if they thought he would last until Day Two.

The NFL has been inviting potential Day Two draftees to the event for many years, specifically ones with famous names, because they want some star power for Friday night’s telecast. McShay covers the draft for a living. He knows this. He wanted to give the Giants and Browns quarterbacks without placing Shedeur or Dart ludicrously high on his board.

McShay’s mock is blatant slash fanfic, custom-built to activate specific fanbases, as are most mocks. McShay is a big name and ostensibly a newsworthy source, so bloggers far and wide provided a signal boost in exchange for his idle daydreams. It’s the natural symbiosis of our industry, like little oxpeckers nibbling bugs off the back of a hippo. Draft bigwigs like McShay should be above such pandering, but no one in our industry is above anything anymore. (I’m lucky enough to be beneath such things.)

I must exercise caution these days when taking potshots at mighty-and-influential top-tier television personalities. Sometimes, against all odds, they are right. Too Deep Editor Jerry Wolper informed me last week that Pat McAfee’s tall-sounding tale about Ohio State quarterback Will Howard tossing the ol’ pigskin around the parking lots of Indianapolis has been corroborated by Howard himself.

ESPN followed Howard around the Combine for their Hey Rookie: Welcome to the NFL documentary. Howard, in footage from late February, tells his family that he almost hit the ceiling while throwing passes around inside the Omni Severin hotel, so his quarterback coach suggested that they throw some go-routes outside.

Howard, per his version of events, led his coach too far on one throw, possibly hitting someone’s car. Then someone smoking a “stogie” walked up and briefly chatted with the coach. Well, that stogie-chomper was none other than Brian Daboll, asking for the identity of the “big SOB” throwing passes!

So McAfee’s story checks out. I was just picking on him because he acts like someone who gets drunk and picks fights with strangers at custom car auctions. McAfee really is persecuted!

Or is he? In defense of my incisive criticism of McAfee from last month:

First, McAfee’s source, whether it’s Howard’s coach Jake Heaps, Daboll or some ESPN producer who saw footage of Howard’s conversation above, specified a parking lot. There’s no parking lot at the Omni Severin, and Howard says that they were “in the street.” He probably means Georgia Street, which has a wide commons and (I think) is currently closed to traffic due to construction.

More importantly, Howard begins his version of the tale throwing footballs around inside the hotel; the Omni has ballrooms and reception rooms, and performance academies sometimes rent them out and use them as ad-hoc practice/workout spaces. A security guard sees Howard hit the ceiling with a football and says “it happens all the time.” Then the coach suggests going outside.

Compare Howard’s version of events with mine:

No one with any Combine reporting experience would ever find it noteworthy to see prospects practicing in their free time.

As mentioned, the prospects inhabit the same Habitrails as everyone else. Their performance academies sometimes provide workout spaces for them, but it is by no means unusual to see future NFL players in random hallways around the convention center stretching, jogging and practicing basics. I’ve watched quarterback prospects toss the ball down hallways to loosen up. I have also seen them dining with their families and slipping out of nightclubs in their official Combine gear (it’s a likely conversation sparker with the ladies) in the wee hours.

No one with McAfee’s knowledge of the NFL should find it noteworthy that a prospect was doing something football-related in his free time during the Combine.

For Howard, a college lad attending his first and only Combine, whacking a football against a hotel ceiling and then getting spotted by an NFL coach is a fun, exciting tale to tell mom and dad. For Daboll, it was a chance to connect and network with Heaps – or, much more likely, the other way around. For the security guard, it was just late February in downtown Indianapolis.

Only for McAfee was Howard throwing footballs around outside some sort of scoop and/or exemplar of his exemplary work ethic.

Howard, in case you have not figured it out, is a Famous Guy. His representation, including agent Chase Callahan and Heaps (Russell Wilson’s personal coach during his Broncos years; at least the McAfee/Howard story proves that Heaps was not an imaginary friend or a bag of socks with some googly eyes glued on), have done an exemplary job keeping Howard relevant. Heck, Jon Gruden actually compared Howard to Josh Allen during one of those film sessions folks used to care about!

Gruden is now affiliated with Barstool Sports, a fact that folks in the industry appear to be politely not mentioning when referencing him. Gruden, McAfee, Barstool, a quarterback with a very specific demographic appeal … Howard should not be tainted by such associations, but it’s not hard to see how he is being framed by some, and in contrast to whom.

Jon Gruden can set his watch by Howard’s haircut.

At least McShay didn’t mock the Steelers taking Howard in the first round or anything. But if we had two more weeks of airtime and Substacks to fill …

McAfee’s Howard tale kicked off Draft Silly Szn. Howard telling the same story in an ESPN docudrama last week, roughly concurrent with McShay’s SEO string-cheese mock draft, neatly ended it. We’re now in Draft Sweaty Szn, the last mile before the end of the marathon.

Each year, roughly 10 days before the draft, the NFL media grows exhausted en masse. We’re fried. We’ve written 96 (or 400) scouting profiles each! A dozen mock drafts! Lots of Twitchy McEdgerusher Visited the Eagles blog postings and micro-stories! We would stop if we could, but we can’t. Our bosses order us to keep feeding the beast. That goes for me, too: my metacognitive functions keep tapping the calendar and reminding me that I should be barreling toward the finish line at 200 mph instead of acknowledging that Kurtis Rourke and Will Howard aren’t potential NFL franchise quarterbacks and that folks are sick of hearing about Shedeur and Hunter.

Way back in 2008, I live-blogged the top half of the first round for Deadspin, then attended a family party. (I was still a teacher who blogged on the side back then.) The party’s host tuned his downstairs television to the draft so I could keep track of things while monitoring my then-toddler. Other dads with similar duties wandered in and out. One older acquaintance with no parenting responsibilities dropped by and stared at the screen for 30 seconds.

“Is this the NFL draft? I can’t believe they televise that all day. It’s the most boring thing in the history of the world.”

“Yes, I’ll admit it's not for everyone,” I replied. “You can change the channel if you like.”

He watched for another 30 seconds. “Seriously. This is worse than watching paint dry. This is worse than watching grass grow.”

“There is the remote control,” I said, pointing to the arm of the sofa while coping with a tantrum or spilled sippy cup or something. “There is probably some golf or baseball on.”

He watched for another minute or two. “Blah blah blah! All they do is talk. Who cares? It’s not even football season.”

I calmly nodded. “Listen, you cantankerous killjoy: you can either pick up that remote and turn something else on, go back upstairs to the main party or sit down and shut the hell up. But if you stand here and complain about the draft for one more minute, imma stuff your head in that diaper pail.”

Perhaps I am misremembering details a bit. But I am certain that the same cuss wandered down an hour later to ask who the Eagles had selected.

That’s the draft in a nutshell. Obsessives like me build our winter and spring around it. General fans find the hoopla tedious and ridiculous. But most fans also want to know who the home team drafted and where the ten famous guys went.

On this rickety scaffolding of interest an entire industry has been erected: dedicated draft sites, mock draft simulators, television broadcast schedules, the production timelines and lifestyles of NFL writers. It’s too much attention on too uninteresting an event.

So there’s no final mock draft this week. How can I top the likes of McShay, for information or humor? And there’s no more draft profiles, except for the little ones above.

On Thursday evening, look for a chat link, and come hang out if you like.

On Friday, I’ll break down the first round.

Next Monday and Tuesday, I will assign performance assessments to all 32 teams.

But today, I’m taking another long walk in the park.

At least the draft is not in the second week of May anymore. That would REALLY break me. And many of my friends. And possibly you.