The NFL draft is at, or at least near, the top of the good list.
They’ve had 78 cracks at it, so the just-completed 2013 event came after plenty of practice, but yet again, this draft was way more than a mere player-addition exercise for the competition’s 32 clubs.
As well as being that, it was prime time entertainment. Which is simply in keeping with just about every aspect of the entire NFL operation.
Could the AFL claim the same about its operations? Maybe it doesn’t yet feel the need to make entertainment the number one aim when it comes to its own draft system, but it should.
Whether the sports purists like it or not, unless competition bosses fully embrace the entertainment word, and world, they face losing mass appeal.
The AFL’s trade and draft period needs an overhaul. At the moment it is a month-long snooze-fest, a week of free agency negotiations followed by three weeks of trading.
Then, a month later, there is the national draft selection meeting.
The NFL does it so much better when it comes to the trade and draft aspects of its operations.
Its draft spans three days (day one – first round, day two – rounds two and three, day three – rounds four to seven) yet it is configured in such a way that it remains drama-packed.
Allowing and encouraging clubs to trade picks not only from the current year’s draft but also in future drafts, within the three days of the draft itself, creates entertainment.
In this week’s NFL draft, Miami gave up picks 12 and 42 in order to get number three. Cleveland traded away a couple of selections in order to get better-placed picks in the 2014 draft.
Philadelphia realised a need for a quarterback on day three, and so traded two picks in order to get one. San Diego sent two picks to Arizona so it could get access to the controversial Manti Te’o.
St Louis coughed up four picks to Buffalo Bills, and received two back, including the prized No.8 overall.
Historically, NFL clubs have been prepared to make extraordinary decisions during the draft. In 2004, San Diego used the number one overall pick to draft Eli Manning, despite knowing Manning would not play for it. Three picks later at number four in the same year, New York Giants drafted fellow quarterback Philip Rivers.
Within that draft, the two clubs swapped their just-drafted quarterbacks, with San Diego also gaining from the Giants three further draft picks, one for that year and two for the future.
There are countless more examples of how each NFL draft provides entertainment and something for the now, as well as drama and intrigue for the future.
A club’s needs can change within a draft. A player a club thought would be off-limits can suddenly loom as gettable, be it for an exchange of already-listed players or future draft picks.
Imagine it. Melbourne picking Jack Watts at number one in 2008, then offering him to Geelong or Hawthorn, that year’s Grand Finalists, for, say, Paul Chapman or Grant Birchall as well as future draft picks.
Or a club trying, in 2006, to tempt Geelong to part with its number seven selection Joel Selwood. Or Melbourne in 2012 considering off-loading its number four pick Jimmy Toumpas for, say, Leigh Montagna and a couple of lucrative future picks.
Look at what happened in last year’s trade period. St Kilda was unable to wrest Mitch Brown out of West Coast. It clearly wanted and needed a key backman. It could have used the players chosen with its first two picks (24 and 25) in the draft to entice a club to part with a key defender.
Some AFL clubs have a policy of taking the player they deem to be the best-available at the time their selection arrives. Others, like Hawthorn in the famous draft of 2004, selected, with devastating effect, on a needs basis.
The NFL system allows for both outlooks. Who's to say that the Hawks wouldn't have been tempted to immediately part with one of Jarryd Roughead or Lance Franklin in the '04 draft, if a rival with lower picks got adventurous and offered two first round picks in a future draft?
Reducing the amount of time for player trades, and encouraging player and selection trades within the draft itself, should be introduced to the AFL in time for the 2014 season.
The conservatism which dominates thinking at all levels of the AFL will probably ensure nothing changes on this front, but there’s not even one reason why a change to the NFL system wouldn’t work.
And not only would we all stay awake, we’d be entertained.
