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DVD: 2005 Draft Preview
Bringing The Draft To Life
4th & Goal Films - Approx. 80 min.
Reviewed by DJ Johnson
There's an entire geek-subculture you may not be aware of, one that shares a similar idol with the Sunday afternoon Suds-Sucking football freaks. Yes, the pigskin and the NFL Logo bring about instant genuflection from my brethren (and some scattered sistren) and me, but like a splinter sect of a well-established religion, we have a primary symbol of our own: the image of NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabu standing at the podium on draft day, reading the card that bears the name of the player selected first in the newly born draft. I got chills just writing that.
My name is DJ Johnson, and I am a Draft Geek. Hello.
If you think we're just number crunchers with no real love for the actual sport of football, get thee out and quickly. Most of us can tell you what's happening in a play before it's fully developed. We're students of the game. We can see a defensive mistake before the snap. We can tell there are too many men on the field when the camera isn't even showing all of them. Sometimes, though not always, we can guess the attendance just by watching one round of "the wave." And all of that, sadly, makes us even geekier. But no matter.
Here's the thing that really baffles civilians: we watch college football games we don't give a damn about just to watch pro prospects and take notes so we'll be able to handicap them come draft day. That's right, we're the draft patrol and we carry clipboards. The top pages list our prediction of who will be drafted by which teams, and below that we have page after page of notes on the players. It's a scale model of a tiny segment of what's going on in the NFL War Rooms on draft day. Scouts, general managers and coaches have this kind of information, as well, only they have much better information to work with, which I, frankly, find terribly unfair. C'mon, share! What could it hurt?
Apparently nothin'! After years of wondering why nobody's come up with the idea of putting out a DVD with highlight footage of draft prospects, along comes 4th & Goal Films with their debut effort, 2005 Draft Preview: Bringing The Draft To Life.
It's a dream come true. Sensing the needs of the people they're playing to, 4th & Goal went for a "no BS" format. You get a bare-bones menu with large buttons and, as far as I can tell, no frilly stuff to take up your time. The main event is "Top 32 Prospects." Once you click in you can either see everything in one long reel or you can look at the players one by one. My guess is the one by one feature will be getting the most use. Each player has a still photo screen with important information. Here you'll find position, school, year (senior? Redshirt freshman?), career stats and stats for his best season. Also included is the all-important skill rating, which takes all of the players skills in every area and boils it down to a score, with 100 being perfect (and perfectly unattainable). While that number isn't the end-all be-all, it's safe to say a player deserving of a 90 is going to be a monster athlete.
This is very good so far, but they wouldn't stop there (since you could get that much with some diligent, albeit time consuming, Google work). The best part comes when you click the video button. The highlights don't last as long as you might hope, but they give you enough to see what each player is capable of. With defensive players and offensive linemen, they've included arrows so you can follow them as the plays develop. By the end of the clip, with the additional homework you did when you read the information on the still photo page, you have a strong overview of a player's merits. Serious students of the draft will find themselves watching and re-watching these clips because you can pick up on new things each time. And... also because you've been waiting for years to "run film" on a player and you're gonna milk it for everything it's worth.
After you've checked out the top 32, there are other groupings of players to evaluate. Section two is ominously titled Promising, But.... These are players who have problems, from attitudes to injuries, but also have enough upside to make them worth risking a later round pick. You get the same stat page/still photo interface leading to the video clips in this section, of course. You find it one more time in the final browsing section, Hidden Gems. Every draft has a handful of players who don't add up to 90, or even close, who may not possess obvious physical skills or have blinding speed, yet they have some intangible something that gives them the edge and allows them to win in this league. This section of the DVD takes a look at some names that may have gone floating quietly under your radar.
The final section of the DVD offers some highlights from the Senior Bowl, not ESPN-style, but in exactly the way a GM looking for players would want to see it. They tell you who raised their stock, who stumbled and fumbled, and who surprised the scouts.
This is the first effort by 4th & Goal, and it's impressive. The greedy draft freak in me wants more for 2006, however. At 80 minutes, the DVD was far from packed. Sure, it's only 30 dollars, but I'd pay more to get more, and in this specialty market so would others. The top 32 is great, but next year how about more, please? A few top prospects who are very likely to go in round one, and a handful who may be bound for round two, aren't on this disc at all. If it's contractually possible, how about a version of the Senior Bowl with the between-plays down time removed? Let us see everyone in game situations now that we're studying them elsewhere on the DVD.
That's my wish list for 2006. Not a word of this is a complaint about 2005. As a debut effort, it's far beyond expectations. You finally have the research tool you've always wanted. This doesn't mean that you won't be madly erasing and re-ordering your list as soon as some morons - traditionally the #$@%ing Jets -- baffle everyone by selecting a high school lacross player, but you'll almost certainly have a much better handle on things than in previous years. And anyway, who cares? This is the ball game, right here. Studying the film, making the call, even if nobody is writing down your pearls of wisdom and sending the card up to Tagliabu.
My name is DJ and I'm a Draft Geek. Hello.
[This title available exclusively at 4th & Goal Films.]
© 2005 - DJ Johnson