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Although the official PFT grade for all 32 teams’ drafts is incomplete, I’ve heard from a few people who had issues with the grades handed out on the draft report card offered by ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr.
Specifically, some find it strange that Kiper hands out almost no grades other than B, B-minus and C-plus — 25 of 32 NFL teams got one of those three grades. Even Kiper’s own colleague, ESPN.com’s Matt Mosley, notes that Kiper seems to grade on a curve.
Kiper gave one A, to the Chiefs, and his lowest grade was one C-minus, to the Jaguars.
My assumption is that Kiper is exhausted after the brutal work schedule he has during the draft, so he gives almost every team a grade in the middle because he doesn’t want to make a glaring mistake and look foolish for it.
Either that, or Kiper is like George Costanza, who’s impressed with grades right in that meaty part of the curve.
April 28th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
My biggest knock on Kiper’s grades… he gives Cleveland credit for trading picks for players, but doesn’t mention the Fins getting Anthony Fasano and Akin Ayodele for a 4th round pick.
That’s 2 additional starters for one pick… that should have been factored into Kiper’s grade.
Even though it really doesn’t matter what he thinks.
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Rating: 3.65 / 5 with 6 rating(s)
April 28th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
I’ve noticed for the last few years that Kiper seems to have softened his criticism of teams drafts considerably. I think he’s either mellowing out and is tired of being so confrontational or he really thinks teams are being smarter overall in their draft strategies.
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Rating: 2 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
April 28th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
I guess he got sick of people asking, “Just who in the hell is Mel Kiper, anyway?” That, and if he relies on contacts within front offices, it’s possible they would dry up if he ragged on their draft picks.
And, of course, he wants to be invited to Mike Williams’ Hall of Fame induction.
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Rating: 2.65 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
April 28th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
He needs to keep people somehow thinking he’s a genius.
The only way teams could get an A+ is if they made every pick according to his genius mock draft. And honestly why wouldn’t they, he clearly knows more than the teams’ GM’s about their needs, right?
riiiiight…
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Rating: 3.65 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
April 28th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Mel Kiper is horrible, he’s sort of like Al Davis. Speed & size make up his mind. Others like Mike Mayock (who’s out of his top 100, 90 were drafted within the top 100 picks) look at more things like their personality and play ability.
Mel Kiper needs to be removed, Todd McShay is better for ESPN while Mike Mayock is clearly the best scout in TV.
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 5 rating(s)
April 28th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
With those glasses maybe everything looks the same unless you’re a mile away from what you want to read?! Wow….I haven’t seen rims that large since Charles Nelson Riley. The glasses get a B-.
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
April 28th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
With regards to prognostication, unless Mel Kiper Jr. (or anyone else) can help get me over 60% ATS over the course of a season, I don’t give a rats ass what he has to say about anything.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
April 28th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Kiper is a joke. agree with jose on size/speed. kiper grades inversely on wonderlic scores. he also doesnt call it as it is, as stated earlier, because he wants to stay in the good graces of ballclubs. he jumped the shark years ago.
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April 28th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
How much duct tape do you think they used to keep Matt Millen in a chair before they let him pick a wideout in round 5?
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
April 28th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
I don’t know why Kiper has a job…he never provides any content nor any negativity…he’s like the Joey Sunshine of the draft.
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April 28th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Where was Mel Kiper, Jr when I was in a civil engineering 446 class?????
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April 28th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
I kind of like having Mel Kiper Jr. at the draft. It’s like having an Idiot Savant with a really bad hairdo go into detail about every single player who’s drafted. And best of all, he doesn’t realize that people are being sarcastic when they compliment him — he takes it for actual compliments. The draft would actually be kind of mundane without him there.
And to his credit, he found a niche in life by evolving himself in the NFL draft back when even NFL scouting directors didn’t put that much effort in evaluating every possible prospect. Now there’s hundred of Mel Kiper wannabes, but he is the original.
And who cares for draft grades? They’re stacked in favor of the teams with the most picks, the most needs, and the teams that draft at the beginning of each round. Really, what was the Giants draft grade the day after the draft last year?
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Rating: 3.65 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
April 28th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
You can see his favoritism, too, i.e., he gave 1 team a better grade than they deserve, even though to everyone else they seem to have “reached” twice. He had a couple of teams graded too low based on theirr not getting what they “needed,” when they took the better player available at that time. (Guess his crystal ball looks 3 months into the future.) I give HIM a grade of D. His mocks and ideas usually suck.
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April 28th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
I just wish he would have given more detail about why he graded teams the way he did. For example, he speaks well about all of the Eagles picks - “I like where the Eagles got DeSean Jackson” and “Trevor Laws had a very good 2007, and was arguably Notre Dame’s best player” - but then he only gave them a C+. If you think they only got a C+, explain yourself. Say you didn’t like that they traded out of the first round or that you didn’t think they got the type of player to fills what you see as a glaring need, but don’t compliment the picks and give them a middle of the road grade. Come on, Kiper. Stop spending your time yelling at McShay (who has become better and more informed than you) and actually provide some useful insight (which you failed to do over the course of the entire draft).
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April 28th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Your giving Parcells too much credit dolph565. We basically traded Fasano for Pacman and moved up 26 spots in the 4th round by our trade with the Dolphins . You might think Adoyele is something special, but the fact is he is an aging LB that was going to get cut. He wasn’t worth the 3 mil a year he was getting. Believe it or not Zack Thomas is an upgrade over Ayodele even at 34, if not we have two talented ILB’s waiting to take his spot. Fasano was a Parcells pick and didn’t fit what Garrett wanted in his offense. It was an excellent trade for Dallas and they saved some money on the cap by doing so. It was also good for a rebuilding team like the Dolphins who has a ton of holes to fill.
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April 28th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
At least Mel used to be entertaining (remember the famous argument with Pollian?). But then, I remember way back when I thought Bermann was funny.
Now Mel’s just like every other ESPN talking head: make an outrageous comment (very loudly) to get attention, and move on to the next stupid comment before the viewer has time to realize how stupid his opinion is.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
April 28th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Boyzfan94,
The Fins were going to have to draft a TE at somepoint. And Adoyele is an upgrade over Torbor (IMO). So the Fins get a player to fill the void at TE who is familiar with Parcells & Sparano AND Akin Adoyele.
It was a good trade for both teams.
My issue isn’t with this trade, it’s that Kiper factored in other teams’ (Cle) picks for player trades and NOT everyone else’s.
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April 28th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
“Kiper grades on crack” - there fixed the title.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
April 28th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Hey, how do you know about this passive technique!
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April 28th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Maybe I’m the only one, but I enjoy Kiper when watching the draft. For whatever reason, ESPN has added too many other losers on the TV set which takes time away from Kiper.
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Rating: 4.5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
April 28th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
The only reason Kansas City gets an “A” and all this hyped up draft press is they had 13 picks to choose with. Anyone could get 2 first rounders and look “like an A” if you totally disregard what they gave up to get there.
Looks to me KC drafted “need” positions and thats not usually the best approach. But correct me if i’m wrong, that’s what the “highest graded teams” seemed to do, and is why they got high grades.. I thought it was “best player available” for the win?
If you go by “addressing needs” angle, the Saints did that with the first two picks alone, and gave up a 5th in exchange for a 7th to do so. Other teams were mortgaging the future to fill “needs” like Carolina and Jax.
Its all a bit “dumb” to me, really.
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April 28th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Kiper only gave the Jags a low grade because he was upset that they didn’t agree with him that Derrick Harvey was 23rd. He kept saying over and over “Derrick Harvey is the 23rd ranked player on my board.” Yeah, well Reggie Bush was the 1st ranked player on your board, and where did that get us? (I’m a disgruntled Saints fan if you can’t tell) I don’t think Mayock’s fantastic either, but by the second day I couldn’t take anymore of ESPN’s coverage, even though I love Berman.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
April 28th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Kiper contradicts him self all the time and I think its really to cover himself if he is wrong. Being a Dolphin fan I will use the Dolphins as an example. Last year before it was the phins turn to pick he slammed Brady Quinn pretty much saying Quinn was all hype and than when the phins passed on him he slammed Miami for not picking him. This year he predicted a team to jump back into the 1st rd to pick up a qb and one of the qbs mentioned was Henne. Than Miami picks him up late in the 2nd rd he than slams the pick. If he thought so little of Henne why did he think there was a chance that a team would jump back into the 1st rd to get him? Than there was Brian Brohm. He again was slamming him early in the draft than came back and said he could be a great starter only after some of his colleagues pointed out the conditions that Brohm had played in he changed his tune.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
April 28th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
It’s all a crock. ESPN is east coast bias, and are full of Raider Haters. The Chiefs get rid of the best player on their team and get an “A” for doing so. The Raiders on the other hand get a pro bowl player in DeAngelo Hall for a second rd pick, and have no mention of that.
It would also be like complimenting the Raiders draft last year, where the Raiders got a whopping 4th year pick for Randy Moss..go figure…..
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Rating: 1 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
April 29th, 2008 at 2:31 am
I definitely disliked Mel’s grading.
But he’s such a good analyst and not afraid to put himself out there regarding his comments and predictions. I think he’s better at describing a player’s current state than projecting them. Then again, GMs mess up all the time. It’s an inexact science. If you can bat .333, then good, and .500 is amazing. Can’t remember which GM said something along those lines.
Saying all of that, I wish Mel had given an F or D and maybe more than just one A. I don’t really remember how he graded in the past, but is he always like this?
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