A Sobering Look at Manziel Madness and the NFL Draft Rumor Mill

Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports

Let’s face it, the draft getting moved to May might have been a poor life choice for the NFL. While it has indeed created more hype for the draft, people are getting sick of talking about it. The reporters and so-called “NFL insiders” are running out of gripping leads and story lines. Any tidbit of information and out of context interview quote is automatically treated as breaking news when it shouldn’t even have reached rumor status.

When you mix this “quality reporting” with some of the best combined smokescreen performances by NFL front offices in history, we have found ourselves in the perfect rumor mill storm. This smokescreen that is not only preventing the Rams from trading our number two overall pick, it also leaves the average sports fan in the dark when it comes to even knowing who their team is targeting.

These are literally right next to each other. Smells like quality reporting eh?

The smokescreen game moved to the next level this Monday when the Rams hosted Texas A&M quarterback, Johnny Manziel, for a private workout. After the workout Jeff Fisher expressed that he “loved” Manziel. Since then the press has taken this piece of news that was most likely meant to stir up trade interest for the number two pick and ran with it. Since then “esteemed NFL insider,” Jason La Canfora (@JasonLaCanfora) reported that the Rams were having talks with the Vikings over a possible Sam Bradford trade, just to have Ian Rappaport (@RapSheet) tweet just the opposite just hours later.

It was too late though, the media had already taken this rumor and turned it into a fact. A whole new wave of mock drafts and ”expert” analysis articles on the topic hit the web over the next 24 hours. It wasn’t until Tuesday when Jeff Fisher re-re-re-re-reaffirmed the teams confidence in Bradford and said that they in no way talking about shopping him to another team. (Duh)

Sports Pickle had an interesting take on “Draft Experts” too (http://tinyurl.com/krz3xeg)

Now there is a whole new days worth of rumors and this Sam Bradford controversy has already been forgotten. What can we take away from this chaos? How about a piece of advice: assume everything that you hear two weeks before draft day is a lie. The pre-draft drama’s ups and downs are enough to frustrate Kevin Costner. The only time that people will actually know what will happen in the draft is after it’s over, fans just have to hang in there one more day.

Maybe this media floundering will at least send a message to Roger Goodell: Move the draft back to April!