ESPN’s Dan Graziano Provides the Only NFL Draft Information Anyone Needs

The NFL draft begins tonight in Detroit. Good luck figuring out what any of it means.

The NFL draft has become one of the biggest events on the sporting calendar with months upon months of lead-up, thousands of projections, and honest-to-goodness intense debate over whether Player X will be a better pro than Player Y. And you know what? It's great. Football is America's obsession and anything that helps bridge the gap between the Super Bowl and the start of training camp is welcomed in production meetings and on living room couches alike.

Deep down, everyone kind of understands that all the collected hours of hoopla is a bit of a boondoggle because there is literally no way of knowing how a drafted player is going to perform in the NFL. Still, it's amazing to hear someone who participates in it just outright admit this true.

So kudos to ESPN's Dan Graziano, who said exactly that on Thursday morning's Get Up.

ESPN's Dan Graziano: "The most important thing that fans never seem to understand about the draft: literally no one knows how any of these players is going to play in the NFL." pic.twitter.com/etJVec0SMc

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) April 25, 2024

He's right. This is the most important thing to remember. There are going to be so many pieces proclaiming the five teams that won the draft and the five teams that lost it, players will be deemed a steal or an example of a historic overreach, and fans are going to bed thinking their franchise really did something important or let the precious sands of winning slip through their fingers. Metaphoric footballs will be spiked and actual remote controls will be tossed in anger. But none of this matters! Unless it does. Which it might. There's no way to tell.

It's a tremendous, if not obvious, insight from Graziano who understands the perfect time to deliver such a message is when it's draft day and the cake is already about to come out of the oven. Because doing it any earlier in the cycle would kind of be a buzzkill and tank so many future editorial plans.

A savvy move from a pro's pro.