Daily Rant 4/27 & 4/28: Don't Trust McFraud

As promised, albeit it very late, here's the rant on Todd McShay.

McShay, often paired opposite the "King of the Coif" (Mel Kiper), has been covering the NFL Draft for ESPN for the past few years since becoming head of Scouts Inc. in 1998. McShay typically covers more college ball than the NFL, and he's pretty good at tht. Where he struggles and tends to get ripped on, by seemingly every draftnik and casual NFL fan is in his draft coverage.

Strengths: McShay is not very strong at creating mocks - he's not even in Kiper's neighborhood in that regard. He's also not good at prognosticating how players will do once they get into the NFL, though his claim to fame is calling Vernon Gholston a bust - and he rubs this in Mel's face every chance he gets, which isn't very often.

McShay, or McFraud, as I like to call him for various reasons which I will touch upon later, does do one thing better than Kiper in my opinion. That is to actually be somewhat in tune with what each NFL team needs, which I find odd as he typically doesn't cover the NFL all that often. I think he plays this to his advantage on the air quite a bit, often sounding arrogant when he and Kiper get into debates (I think Kiper is too into the player they're discussing and knows he's overstepped his knowledge of NFL rosters when he mixes it up with McShay). His list of team needs are usually pretty solid, and more often than not, those teams usually address his primary need, just not with the player he thinks they should.

Fake tanning. Where in the hell does this man go to tan? Seriously, he must hit some salon at least twice a day. The only person who legitmately looks more tan than McFraud is Washington Redskins Coach Mike Shanahan. I get the fact that it's impossible to compete with Kiper's hair, but seriously, fake tanning?

Weaknesses: I guess this is actually a strength, but thievery. McShay often takes other people's Big Boards, Mocks, picks, etc. and tries to spin them off as his own. For instance, Mike Mayock of NFL Network (one of the best in the draftnik kingdom) said that he liked Illinois Reshard Mendenhall better than Darren McFadden and that Mendenhall would have a better career. While that point is still debatable, McShay, a week later, said the same thing despite having McFadden at or near the top of his Big Board for most of the pre-draft process.

Secondly, I know several people who cover the East-West Shrine game, which Todd McShay calls on-air. I can't remember the exact player he was discussing in 2010, but the host of the segment asked about a particular player, and McShay went on bantering about that player and how good he'd looked in practice. Said player got injured that day and didn't participate according to the guys I know that were there. They also said McShay wasn't even in Orlando at the practice site...makes yo wonder how McShay got his information.

Lastly, he overrates just about any "inside info" (i.e. draft rumor that comes his way). He'll take it as fact, when often it's misinformation. Today, he laughed at the notion of Miami Herald writer Jeff Darlington's mock draft selection of Ryan Mallett with the 15th overall pick, saying that Mallett would be around come the 3rd round. I'd be willing to bet a pretty penny that Mallett's gone in the top 20 picks of the whole show.

If you hear him say something about your team, a particular player, where someone should go, etc. take it with a huge grain of salt and expect the opposite.

The Daily Rant 4/25: Mocking Themselves

I hope everyone had a good Easter. Chizzy will have the "Quick Hits" coming up today. I feel like there's going to be a jab in there about his Cardinals taking 2 of 3 from the Reds. Since we're both fans of Ohio State Football we'll keep you posted on the breaking news. Needless to say, it sounds like they're about to be royally screwed thanks to Jim Tressel. Let me go on record right now and say that I personally think he's the most overrated coach in college football. That's my opinion, I'll stick to it. I love Ohio State for the tradition and the game day experiences I've been to since my grandpa took me to my first game when I was 8 (a 52-0 shutout of Houston). But Tressel can't coach his way out of a wet paper bag when Ohio State's down by more than 7 points after the 1st quarter...seriously, someone show me where he's done this. Ever. But I digress. It sounds like his cover-up of Terrelle Pryor et al is going to be his undoing as it's being reported they're going to face the "strictest penalties from the NCAA". Hope that doesn't mean they get the SMU treatment...stay tuned.

Now, for the Daily Rant. You've seen them both if you've watched Sports Center any time in the last 3 months. They hate each other, and you know you hate watching them. Mel Kiper Jr, and Todd McShay. Aside from Mel Kiper's hair, he's usually pretty solid. Todd "fake tan" McShay is horrible. I figured in honor of Draft Week, let's face it, the Draft is like Christmas in April for me, I'd give you a run down of both Kiper and McShay, what I think about them, and what you should be wary of if you're just a casual "draftnik". Let's start witht he living legend himself, Mel Kiper today. I'll have Todd McShay's up sometime this week.

Mel Kiper: Mel's been doing draft coverage since 1984, which is to say since before any of us actually cared about the draft. Mel's done it on his own, and has been covering it for ESPN since I can remember. He's been fairly accurate over the years (finished 3rd in accuracy last year based on all available mocks) and historically he's in the top 10 overall. He was once fired by ESPN, but was re-hired a day later - this was before Todd McShay and long before NFL Network.

Strengths: Hair. That one's obvious. Aside from that, and not counting other "draftniks", Mel's usually pretty solid when it comes to forecasting which players will go on to have successful NFL Careers. He's also pretty good at doing player comparisons, i.e. - he called Jake Long the next Tony Boselli at left tackle, and that's proven to be true. He's also very good at making Todd McShay (who if yo haven't figured out yet, I can't stand) look bad and getting him to backtrack in their draft "arguments". Kiper also pretty much coined the term "draft value". While I think it's a bit arbitrary to call someone a good value - how can you possibly say picking Cam Newton with the first overall pick is a good value? There's certainly going to be some 4th, 5th, or 6th round pick that contributes more than Newton will this season, albeit probably at a different position. That said, Kiper's essentially made a career for himself out of covering the NFL Draft. Who else can say they did that without Mel having done it first?

Kiper, who does his own research, often knows about the "little guys". I remember him knowing everything about William Hayes (a 4th round DE from Winston-Salem State) while NFL Network was left scrambling to find out who the guy even was and if Winston-Salem State was even a real school. It is, and Hayes, as Kiper said, is a solid contributor for the Titans.

Weaknesses: Knowing the NFL. Kiper is so invested in the college prospects and doing the leg work to find out everything there is to know about the college guys, he's not really in tune with what the NFL teams actually need. He often doesn't realize who currently rostered players are used by NFL teams and doesn't seem to take into account resource allocation. For instance, I doubt the Browns are going to spend the 6th overall pick on Julio Jones based on the picks they've put into the WR position over the past few years.

Assigning value. While I give him credit for coining this term, essentially, he abuses it. How can any pick be a "good value" until you've seen the player on an NFL field. The NFL game is the elite of the elite. Only 3% of college football players make it to the NFL, in which the average career is about 3 seasons. As I said before, if you take the best value at the 1st overall pick, and it's someone like Cam Newton who probably will need time to develop, how can you say he's a better value than a 4th round G prospect who is going to start from day one?

What you should know: Kiper deserves every bit of credit he's given, even if he's arrogant. He pretty much made the Draft into a TV event. It was once a continuous event going round the clock for 48 hours. There's even a story of one team trying to draft Robert Kennedy, yes JFK's brother, because their draft personnel were so exhausted from sleep deprivation. Now, it's a 3-day event that pretty much every sports fan tunes into at least for an hour or so.

While Kiper's not the greatest mock drafter (that honor goes to the Dallas Morning News' Rick Goesslin - check his mock Tuesday or Wednesday this week) he's still one of the top 5, and he's the most recognizeable one there's every going to be. Keep in mind he's not very in-tune to current NFL rosters, but he's very good at predicting what round players will go one, who they compare to, and prognosticating how they'll do in the NFL. Don't take him at his word if you don't like the grade he assigns your team right after the draft as he's been known to re-review his grades within a month and reassign a better one after he digests how your players will fit in. Kiper's going to stand on a table for guys he likes, and he's not going to admit he's wrong, because, well frankly, he's not very wrong very often.