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Last night we stayed up into the early hours to watch the 2017 NFL draft. The coverage started at 1am here in the UK and finished at 5am. It's fair to say it was a long night!
We're huge fans of the NFL here at Voltage Sport, you can read more about that here. For those not in the know, the draft is the league's most common source of player recruitment. An annual event where the future stars of the game from the national college leagues get picked by NFL teams. There are 7 rounds and 253 picks in total with the draft order being decided by the previous year's standings. The worst team being awarded the number one pick while the Super Bowl winners receive the 32nd pick.
Within the draft structure, any team has the opportunity to trade up or down, effectively exchanging their pick to acquire extra picks or a specific player that they love. These trades can be exciting and unexpected which makes the event unpredictable and fun.
We love the draft as it helps to keep the NFL competitive and generally prevents one team from dominating the league (unless you're the Patriots that is, their continued success is the anomaly of the National Football League)
The 2017 draft was held in Philadelphia with the stage being set on the steps made famous by the Rocky movies. A cool setting which added some fun to the event, especially with the one and only Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) making an appearance, much to the delight of the 75,000+ fans in attendance.
Onto the draft itself, each team is given 10 minutes to make their selection, some wait for the phone to ring for potential trade partners while some pick straight away, it all depends if the player they really covet is available when they're on the clock. This year the consensus best player available, Myles Garret, predictably went to the Cleveland Browns first overall, and then it got interesting....
The Chicago Bears pulled the trigger on a blockbuster trade with the San Francisco 49'ers to move up one position in the draft order from number 3 to number 2 to select Quarterback Mitch Trubisky, WOW! They gave up a huge haul of picks to get their man. The crowd was shocked and the Bears fans watching in Chicago looked sick. In our opinion, this was a terrible move and SF must be rubbing their hands wondering how they managed to negotiate such a good deal. We'll be watching with interest how this trade plays out when the season starts.
As some of you may know we are LA Chargers fans (still can't get used to that btw) so we were intrigued to see who The Bolts selected with the 7th pick of the draft. In the build up, we read lots of info and mock drafts by experts who tried to predict who the teams would select so we had a few names in mind, including players we personally like and would love to see play in LA. As seems to be Charger tradition, they surprised everyone by selecting Clemson Wide Reciever Mike Williams, not a popular choice but a solid pick nonetheless. We hope to see big Mike hauling in passes from PR17 (Philip Rivers) over the coming years and putting up lots of points to help the bolts compete into the postseason and beyond.
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Today rounds 2 and 3 take place so there's still lots of excitement to look forward to, we will be up late yet again to watch the drama unfold.
Will you be watching the Draft? Let us know in the comments below
