Mel Kiper

Bruce: I defer to your judgment on all things sporting, so if I offend, my apologies. After a morning of ESPN, I posted this at my fantasy league baseball web site (with some slight modifications):

I hate this guy. I mean, I really detest him. He speaks with the presumed authority of someone who has actually accomplished something in life, rather than a guy who focused on analyzing the NFL Draft and got lucky when TV coverage of it bloomed.

What I would like to see is how this guy's pontifications have panned out. As the late LOD* used to ask: "What's your dater?" Is there a KuiperWatch website that tracks this stuff? And is he offering anything more than recycled information from real scouts, dressed up in a pompadour and a scowl?

In any case, I wanted to know when the draft started, so that I could be done with Kiper for another year. So I go to the NFL page at SportsLine, and not only do I find out that it's a week from today, I find a clock counting down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds (it starts a week from today at noon, FYI). This whole draft thing is way out of hand. The good news is that Mel's annual 15 weeks of fame will be over in 8 days.

*LOD = Largest of Doctors. Lester Williams was a brilliant, 300+ pound physician in Nashville who educated many a student and resident. He was a native of the Boston area, and his trademark question was "What's your data?" whenever a claim was made. It came out, of course, as "What's your dater?"

PS: Updated to change the spelling from (Duane) Kuiper to Mel Kiper - thanks, Bruce!

PPS: I am glad to hear that he is a decent guy, but the draft stuff is just soooo irritating, especially when he gets fired up about some guy moving up or down the draft board. Just once I would like to hear him add something useful, like how the last x number of players whose stock fell during the draft actually fared in the NFL, or if guys who move up actually pan out. Instead, it comes off as incessant hype - and, as you say, much ado about very little.