Fandom - ESPN Playbook: nfl draft
AP Photo/Craig RuttleWith Mr. Irrelevant, Paul Salata is still "doing something nice for someone for no reason."Each goes by the name Mr. Irrelevant, but no two are alike.
So when Irrelevant Week is held annually in Newport Beach, Calif., to honor the last player taken in the NFL draft, many of the activities are tailored to fit the guest of honor.
While all participate in the Arrival Party and Lowsman Banquet -- where each receives the opposite-of-the-Heisman Lowsman Trophy (depicting a player in mid-fumble) -- players can decide what else they want to do.
One asked to go clubbing in Los Angeles with Paris Hilton. Another chose to spend time with his family and sleep extra hours in his soft hotel bed. Others, who’d never been to California, wanted to go Jet Skiing or sailing, play golf on a course overlooking the Pacific or meet their sports heroes.
In 2008, David Vobora, a linebacker from Idaho chosen by the Rams, wanted to see the Playboy Mansion and meet the women from “The Girls Next Door” reality TV series. After an evening that included dinner with Hugh Hefner, hanging with “The Girls,” getting a tour of the mansion and sharing Hef’s movie night, Vobora told one reporter it was “a slice of heaven.”
And that’s pretty much been the goal of Irrelevant Week since it began in 1976: to treat the last as if he were first.
Each April, when Mr. Irrelevant is drafted in New York, Irrelevant Week CEO Melanie Salata Fitch is right there to get his requests for Irrelevant Week (usually is held in June).
“I say, ‘Hey, congratulations’ and 'What do you like?' and 'What do you eat?' and 'What have you always dreamed about?' and I start designing events,” she says.
After 37 Irrelevant Weeks, she’s confident the players have had a great time. How could they not? Her mission is to treat each “like a king.”
The 2013 NFL draft is over. But how did your team do? Did its draft performance guarantee this year’s Super Bowl title and every other one as far as the eye can see?
The only way to find out is to read the only 100 percent accurate draft grades on the whole Internet.
Kansas City Chiefs
Draft Grade: F
Flawless Analysis: The Chiefs spent the months leading up to the draft trying to convince teams that they had serious interest in Luke Joeckel and Geno Smith. Turns out all of that was lies. LIES! This draft grade isn’t about the Chiefs as a football team. It’s more than that. It’s about not being able to trust the Chiefs as men.
You may have a new left tackle, Chiefs, but you have no honor.
After months of buildup, the first round of the NFL draft is complete and it’s time to render verdicts. Here are the winners and losers:
(Note: As always, there are only winners and losers. There is no in-between. This is a pass/fail kind of deal. Also, all grades are final and eternally binding. Do not try to argue. You are dealing with a draft expert here, OK?
WINNERS
Giant humans
Giant humans usually do well at the NFL draft, but the first round was especially good for the enormous this year. Three of the first four picks were offensive tackles. The first seven picks were offensive or defensive linemen, and 18 total were taken in the round.
Hello, prospective NFL Draft pick. It's your big day! Your dream is about to come true!
In fact, you’re so confident of your draft status that you’re in New York and plan to attend the draft to be there when your name is called. According to your agent, you’re going to be one of the first few players drafted. Your wait in the green room will surely last no more than a few minutes.
Or you could be stuck there all night and get humiliated on national television. Tough to say.
In case the latter occurs, you must be prepared. Make sure you have these eight things to weather your embarrassing draft slide in style.
1. Cell phone
This is the most important. Your cell phone will give you something to look at as the minutes of waiting stretch into hours of waiting. You can pretend you are sending and receiving texts. You can play games. You can even read about all of the (many) players picked ahead of you. Just don’t use your phone to go on Twitter. Everyone will be making fun of you on there.
2. Cell phone charger
The first round of the draft is three-and-a-half hours long. Can your phone handle three-and-a-half hours of fake texting and Temple Run 2? Mine can’t. Also, make sure your green room table is close to an outlet. Your night has been humiliating enough already without having to change tables to recharge your cell phone that hasn’t rung with any calls from NFL teams.
3. Water
When not pretending to be engrossed by your cell phone, taking little sips from a water bottle helps pass the time. Be sure to have extra bottles of water at the ready for when you sip through your first one. And stick with water, even though you may be tempted to reach for a bottle of gin as the night progresses.
The 10 types of prospects at the NFL draft
April, 22, 2013
Apr 22
10:30
AM ET
By
DJ Gallo | ESPN.com
America’s pastime, the NBA playoffs and the NHL’s playoff push are all nice, but they don’t compare to a real sport that is about to happen: the NFL draft.
Hundreds of players are draft prospects, but every year there are really only 10 players who are available for teams to take in the first round.
Here are those 10 players.
The Project
He has almost no football experience. Maybe he’s from another country, maybe he picked up the sport late. But he’s only been on a football field somewhere between the past 24 hours and the past five years. What he lacks in polish or knowing which direction to run or what a football is, he more than makes up for in raw athletic ability.
Why you draft The Project: What potential! Surely some practice time with your team’s crack squad of coaches -- men who are known for their great patience! -- will teach this young man the intricacies of football and in no time he will be an unstoppable force unlike any that has ever been seen before in the NFL!
Why you don’t draft The Project: There are many football players with raw athletic ability. It’s one of the major requirements for the job. Maybe picking someone who is athletic and already knows how to put on a football helmet is the way to go. By the time The Project becomes a football expert five years from now, his athleticism will be on the decline and your project will be finding a new job.
The Baggage Guy
He’s a top-level prospect who could immediately step in and help any team. On the downside, he has a few felonies on his record and smokes weed between plays.
Why you draft The Baggage Guy: See that first sentence? About how he’s a top-level prospect who could immediately step in and help any team? Anything that comes after that sentence is irrelevant. This is a professional football team. The goal is to win the Super Bowl, not pile up NFL Man of the Year awards. Plus, with all the money on the line, there’s a 50-50 chance he cuts back on the felonies from here on out.
Why you don’t draft The Baggage Guy: You have plenty of Baggage Guys already. Or, you will, as soon as they get out of prison next year.
A brief history: Goodell's NFL draft hugfest
April, 21, 2013
Apr 21
8:10
AM ET
By
Doug Williams | ESPN.com
Each year, during the first round of the NFL draft, Roger Goodell welcomes every player in attendance with a bear hug, slaps on the back and a personal message delivered lips-to-ear from close range.
It's the one day the league's commissioner becomes the Sensitive Male (at least in public), so a simple handshake or half bro-hug won't do. This is a full-frontal hugfest, the type of display impossible to imagine from Bud Selig, David Stern, Gary Bettman or Goodell’s predecessor, Paul Tagliabue.
Yet for Goodell, who became commissioner in 2006, his annual hugathon has been semi-embraced, so to speak, as part of his persona. He might be the hard-line commish when it comes to suspensions and fines, but when this year's draft begins at 8 p.m. ET April 25 at Radio City Music Hall, he'll be Mr. Softy.
But it wasn't always this way.
The origin: When Goodell began presiding over the draft in 2007, No. 1 overall pick JaMarcus Russell got a handshake and a quick, one-armed, lean-in grab. Same with No. 2 choice Calvin Johnson.
Through the drafts of 2008 and ’09, Goodell went with the flow, offering hugs and half-hugs to some, handshakes to others. No. 1 overall pick Matthew Stafford of the Lions in 2009 got just a handshake and a pat on the shoulder.
In 2010, however, Goodell got his hug on. After Sam Bradford went No. 1 (back pat, slight hug) and Ndamukong Suh No. 2 (handshake, arm pat), the Buccaneers selected Gerald McCoy from Oklahoma.
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Alan Maglaque/USA TODAY SportsGerald McCoy: Roger Goodell said, "You're crushing me right now" when they hugged.
Alan Maglaque/USA TODAY SportsGerald McCoy: Roger Goodell said, "You're crushing me right now" when they hugged.It was a moment of joy for McCoy, and he had to show it.
“The day before, Mr. Goodell, we were sitting in his office and nobody was talking,” McCoy said of a visit with the commissioner by soon-to-be-drafted players. “We were just sitting there in silence. I’m like, ‘Well this ain’t me, so I’m going to speak up.’ So I started to talk about random stuff and I asked him if we’d get in trouble or fined if we do something crazy on stage or whatever, and he was like, ‘Obviously man, you get this one time, it’s your one day you need to show emotion and show your feelings and show how excited you are. I wouldn’t mind that at all.’
“I was like, ‘Aiight,’ just because I didn’t know what I was going to do. But once I got out there, you know, it was just my reaction. I knew the Bucs had picked me, let me play for them, but Mr. Goodell just called my name, so I guess he got to feel all the love,” he adds, laughing.
“I was just overwhelmed with emotion and it all came out in that big hug. That hug was like a thank you for allowing me to be in the league, everything. It all came out. He just happened to be the one to receive it.”
But McCoy had opened the hug gates. Trent Williams, picked by Washington at No. 4, got an enthusiastic embrace from Goodell, and the hugs kept coming through the first round -- and beyond into 2011 and 2012.
Though Goodell declined through a spokesman to talk about his draft-day hugs for this story, he told Sports Business Daily last year that McCoy was the spark.
“It’s funny. I meet with all the draft-eligible players the day before,” he said. “They always ask, What’s that moment like? These kids have been dreaming about this and working toward this. This is their moment. They’ve finally made it into the NFL.
“There was no surprise for Andrew [Luck]. He knew the Colts were taking him. But when he walked out on the stage, it was that moment of achievement and triumph. For me to be part of that is a cool thing.
“But these guys, they wrap you up. The first guy that did it to me was Gerald McCoy a few years ago. He hit me so hard I thought I was going off the stage.”
McCoy remembers.
“When I was hugging him, he said, like, ‘You’re crushing me right now’ and he kind of gasped for air like I was squeezing the life out of him, which I was,” says McCoy. “I was just excited.”
McCoy claims credit for being a trailblazer.
“Yeah, I take pride in it, as far as draft-day trends,” he says. “Why not?”
The players’ view: When South Carolina linebacker Melvin Ingram was taken by the Chargers with the 18th selection in the 2012 draft, he added a flourish to Hug Day.
Wearing a pinstripe suit and a Chargers cap, Ingram approached Goodell with a smile and a question: “You ready?”
The two then went through an elaborate handshake that was followed by a long, rocking embrace.
Ingram says he worked out the routine with Goodell before the draft.
“He was all, ‘If anybody wants to do anything,’ to let him know and all that, so I was like, ‘I want to do a handshake,’ and we did it,” says Ingram. “It really didn’t take that long. I just showed him the handshake, we practiced a couple of times, but he messed it up when we practiced. But when we did it on draft day, he did it perfect.”
So far, Ingram is the only player to up the ante on the hug with a shake, but it wasn’t the only memorable interaction with Goodell from the 2012 draft.
The photo of Goodell nose-to-nose in an embrace with 6-foot-3, 350-pound Chiefs nose tackle Dontari Poe won the Awkward Award, and Buffalo Bills draftee Stephon Gilmore had a cheek-to-cheek scene. Then there was Goodell’s nearly eight-second embrace with 6-foot-4, 298-pound defensive tackle Fletcher Cox of the Eagles.
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James Lang/USA TODAY SportsMelvin Ingram and Roger Goodell smile after successfully completing their choreographed handshake.
James Lang/USA TODAY SportsMelvin Ingram and Roger Goodell smile after successfully completing their choreographed handshake.As he waited backstage for his name to be called, Gilmore wasn’t sure what to expect.
“I knew he was going to shake my hand, but I didn’t know he was going to actually hug me that long,” he says. “It was just a great moment. Growing up, from a little kid and seeing it on TV and actually going through the situation.”
So what does Goodell say when he’s in man-hug mode?
Gilmore: “He said that I’d love Buffalo and there’s great people there, great fans and hopefully we get it turned around, and good luck with my career.”
Ingram: “He just said congratulations and good luck and if you ever need anything to let him know.”
Is the commissioner strong?
Gilmore: “Oh, naah (laughing). He’s not very strong.”
McCoy: “He had a pretty good hug himself. I’m a big guy, so of course he didn’t faze me none.”
Ingram: “Yes sir.”
And how about his aftershave? Do they remember what the most powerful man in American sports smells like?
Gilmore: “I don’t know (laughing). I didn’t hug him that hard. I don’t really know what he smells like.”
McCoy: “I don’t remember none of that, man (laughing).”
Ingram: “No, no sir.”
When Gilmore thinks back on it, the moments on stage are a bit of a blur.
“There’s so much going on in your head at the moment and you can be emotional one moment and happy and it’s a lot of things,” he said. “It’s a great experience, but it’s also overwhelming.”
Since that draft day in 2010, McCoy and Goodell have met many times -- at the Super Bowl, the rookie symposium, in the offseason and even during the lockout -- and the greetings have been the same.
“It’s an unwritten rule that we don’t shake hands,” he says. “All we do is give each other hugs. It’s like a tradition now.”
The body language: Patti Wood is a body language expert. She has done extensive research on greeting behavior and says she’s fascinated by hugging, which is a big part of her latest book, “SNAP: Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma.”
Wood has seen the video of Goodell’s draft-day hugs and says one thing is apparent: He’s enjoying himself.
“I really studied his smile at the end of the hugs, to look specifically at how relaxed his mouth is," she says. "He is. It’s sincere. It’s real and he’s enjoying it.”
What else does she see?
“He tries -- he’s not super-tall compared to the players -- he tries to get that right arm on top, around the neck of the player. And that does a couple of things. It shows his power over them. ... It also allows him to kind of control the hug and bring them in closer, so if they had any desire to kind of [reduce] the space in between the two of them, he’s saying, ‘No, this is going to be a real hug, real close, and I’m in control.’
“The other thing I think is really significant is he has a ritual of doing a double pat at the end of the hug, almost a signal that says, ‘OK, I’m done now.'"
“The rocking is a comforting cue,” she says of some of the hugs. “That to me does a couple of things. ... It comforts, but it also makes the hug OK to linger in, because now you’re saying, ‘I’m the parent and you’re the child.’”
Wood adds that Goodell’s willingness for physical closeness with the players is “what’s cool to me” because front-to-front hugging makes people feel vulnerable, yet she says both Goodell and the players indicate through the hugs that they trust one another.
The old friend: Jim Roberson was a teammate of Roger Goodell’s at Bronxville High in New York.
Goodell was a team captain in football, basketball and baseball at Bronxville and was selected the school’s athlete of the year in 1977, the same year Roberson transferred in and was his teammate.
When he sees Goodell hugging athletes on draft day, he sees the Goodell he knew back then, not the corporate NFL czar.
“He’s good people, man,” says Roberson, who has coached football and now lives in Great Britain. “So the hugging bit, I think, you know, he was always a bit of a practical joker, you see, so to me the hugging bit is the real opportunity he gets to maybe let a little bit of that out in the job because maybe he doesn’t get a chance to do too much of that.”
Roberson, who said he was the first African-American athlete at Bronxville, says he remembers Goodell as friendly and always smiling.
Though he doesn’t remember Goodell as a hugger -- “we’d be emotional, man, but we were in high school and I don’t know how much hugging we did” -- it seems in character with the guy he played with and worked with for two summers.
“What you see on draft day, I think that’s like him, man,” he says. “I think maybe that’s his couple of days to appreciate the fact that these guys are going to get an opportunity to do something fantastic with their lives. They’re going to make some money. For him to show some appreciation, and the fact he’s the commissioner of the league and they’re coming into it, he wants to welcome you.”
Roger Goodell: Commissioner, hugger ... and prankster?
“Dude left me up a ladder one time,” says Roberson, laughing. “He’s quite a practical joker. Painted my shoes blue. ... Cool people, man. But I’m his friend.”
So too are all the first-round draftees in attendance each April who get the Goodell Squeeze.
Earlier Tuesday, we posted a blank cartoon, and readers offered their captions. Our favorite was by baseballyeshockeyno. Check your ESPN.com profile message center for an email.
Thanks for participating. Check back Wednesday for another cartoon.
Kurt Snibbe's Playbook caption contest
February, 26, 2013
Feb 26
7:07
AM ET
By
Kurt Snibbe | ESPN.com
Take a shot at writing a cartoon caption. Playbook cartoonist Kurt Snibbe will offer up a blank cartoon each weekday morning, and he will fill in the blank with our favorite reader submission at the end of the business day.
So please, by all means, share your humorous stylings in the comments section.

So please, by all means, share your humorous stylings in the comments section.

Earlier today, we posted a blank cartoon, and readers offered their captions. Our favorite was by commenter In_4_Win. Check your ESPN.com profile message center for an email.
Thanks for participating. Check back Friday for another cartoon.
Mr. Irrelevant won't let spotlight define him
April, 30, 2012
4/30/12
2:15
PM ET
By Matt Lindner | Special to ESPN.com
AP Photo/The Canadian Press/Chris YoungChandler Harnish plans to stay humble despite the overwhelming fame of being Mr. Irrelevant.But even though Luck was selected No. 1 overall out of Stanford in this year's NFL draft, and Harnish, out of Northern Illinois, was identified with the 253rd and final pick, Harnish has something Luck doesn’t – an iPhone.
Luck still uses a flip phone to handle the many calls and text messages he receives every day, something Harnish says he’s determined to change.
“I think I'm definitely gonna push for him to get an iPhone,” Harnish said with a laugh. “I think it'll definitely help him to get more organized and up-to-date for sure."
Just like Luck, Harnish played quarterback in college and wore No 12.
When Luck took the stage Thursday night at Radio City Music Hall, he was handed a Colts jersey with his name and Harnish’s number on the back. On Saturday, when Harnish’s pick was announced, a Colts jersey bearing No. 253 was held aloft by the founder of Irrelevant Week, former NFL player Paul Salata.
Earlier today, we posted a blank cartoon and readers offered their captions. Our favorite was by commenter billoregano52. Please check your ESPN.com profile message center for an email.
Thanks for participating. Check back Monday for another cartoon.
James Lang/US PresswireRoger Goodell and the Browns make reviewing the first round of the NFL draft an easy exercise.Granted, it’s impossible to know how teams fared at this point. Four years from now? Maybe. So let’s promise to meet back here exactly four years from now for another write-up. Watches synchronized!
Until then, here are some completely unfair evaluations.
Winners
1. Roger Goodell – The truly great ones improve in some area every year, and Goodell clearly spent the offseason working on his bro-hugs, high-fiving and hugging it out on stage with every selection. After Thursday night’s impressive performance, there’s not a college frat in the nation that wouldn’t happily welcome The Suspension King (“The Suspension King” being his pledge name).
2. Bram Stoker’s Dracula / Princess Leia hair – Want to raise your draft stock? Grow your hair out and then wrap it around and/or stack it on the top of your head in a pretty design! It was the must-have hairdo of the top of the draft.
Take a shot at writing a cartoon caption. Playbook cartoonist Kurt Snibbe will offer up a blank cartoon each weekday morning, and he will fill in the blank with our favorite reader submission at the end of the business day.
So please, by all means, share your humorous stylings in the comments section.

So please, by all means, share your humorous stylings in the comments section.

Earlier today, we posted a blank cartoon and readers offered their captions. Our favorite was by commenter The Dutch Room. Please check your ESPN.com profile message center for an email.
Thanks for participating. Check back tomorrow for another cartoon.
AP Photo/John Marshall MantelEven if you're not happy with the team that drafts you, do your best to smile and power through it.1. Bring your phone
You don’t know how long you’ll have to wait to get picked. In 2007, Brady Quinn had to sit for hours to hear his name called, suffering in front of cameras the whole time. This was way back in America’s sad pre-app era, so Quinn was forced to pretend he was checking text messages all day. Heartbreaking. How did people live in olden times? But now your stock-plummeting time can fly by as you play games on your phone. Did you fall completely out of the first round? Big deal. Andrew Luck probably won’t set a new personal record in "Cut the Rope" tonight.
2. Go for a timeless look
Draft night is your NFL wedding night. You don’t want your kids to laugh at your NFL wedding pictures one day. While the vest, hipster glasses, mustache and bow tie might seem super-cool right now, in a few years you’ll look as dated as your uncle’s 1974 disco wedding. Plus, Nick Fairley did the glasses/bowtie thing last year. Do it now and you’re basically asking for a drug test.
3. Shake Roger Goodell’s hand
When you are drafted, go up on stage and shake the commissioner’s hand. Just don’t do it too hard. He will fine you.
4. Smile
For many fans, this is their first glimpse of you. Show that you have a warm, engaging personality -- it will help you win over your new fan base and put you on the radar of Madison Avenue. Granted, it can be difficult to smile if you are drafted by one of the NFL’s more dreadful teams. It’s easy to smile when you’re hosting parties and winning trophies, but how about when you’ve had your lot thrown in with the Washington Redskins? Tonight we’ll see how impressive Robert Griffin III really is. If he can smile tonight, there’s no limit to what he can achieve.
5. Physically threaten Jets fans
They will stop booing faster than the fastest 40. Please do this for all of us.



