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NFL Draft Tidbits and EA Curses

April 26, 2012 by

Have you ever wondered what it is like in a team’s War Room during the NFL Draft? Well Andrew Brandt at ESPN has put together what it was like at Green Bay when he was there. There is not much that a fan does not know, or thinks that they know about how a team operates its draft.

One thing that stood out was the fact that the Packers had two rooms, one focused on players with the expected lists and depth charts. The second one was a financial room that dealt with issues such as salary cap, contract acceleration and years, agents and more.

It was not just for the Packers but also other teams as it could affect both drafted players and ones that are already on a rival’s squad that might be released due to cap space. This was an aspect I had never really given much thought to even though executives are often touted as cap experts, it has a much far reaching impact than it might seem on its face.

The Fans have spoken
At this time of the year there are a number of important issues facing NFL fans- should my team trade down in the draft? Will we be able to trade up to get that power back the team sorely missed last year? Why did we fail to get our pick in on tine?

However one of the biggest issues is “Who do we stick with the Madden Curse?” Yes the voting is in for who will grace the upcoming release of Electronic Arts’ Madden NFL 13. This year’s ‘winner’ is Calvin Johnson, Jr., the Detroit Lions wide receiver.

Johnson beat Carolina Panther’s quarterback Cam Newton by a healthy margin of 52% of the total vote. It is interesting to see how much attention this event now has. A total of 20 million votes were counted in the seven week campaign on ESPN that narrowed the field down to the final two, this was a 54% increase over last year, 19.6 million compared to 12.7 million.

The Draft
The Draft starts tonight with the selections starting at 8 p.m. ET. Tomorrow’s round starts at 7 p.m. ET and the Saturday selections start at 12:00 p.m. ET.

Filed Under: Detroit Lions, ESPN, Fantasy Sports, NFL, NFL Draft Tagged With: ,

Hints about Seahawks picks to be Twittered in Advance?

April 25, 2012 by

Seattle Seahawks’ coach Pete Carroll has developed a unique tool to convey the intentions of the team in regards to each draft choice- he tweets about it.

But rather than make reference to the position or school that the prospective choice might come from he takes a different approach.

Two years ago he tweeted songs about the picks. His first was Santana’s “Soul Sacrifice” and this was followed by a number of other song hints. No explanation was provided, and in fact he tweeted a number of cryptic responses as to what, if anything they meant.

Last year he repeated the act with song hints from everybody from MC Hammer to John Denver to Black Eyes Peas. Is this all for fun or is he providing real clues? NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has warned teams not to leak their selections, but this seems to be hazy enough not to get him in trouble if truly representing his choices.

This year he is at it again, starting Thursday night. You can follow him again, not at his usual twitter handle but at #seahawksdraftclues! To see what he posts this year. The team has the #12 pick in the first round and is reportedly looking for a speed pass rusher. If you crack the code let us know.

Filed Under: Humor, NFL, NFL Draft, Seattle Seahwaks, Twitter Tagged With: , ,

Lotsa Luck: Colts will Have Live Mobile TV Cam Following Top Draft Pick

April 25, 2012 by

In a new, mobile twist to the 24/7 NFL Draft coverage idea, the Indianapolis Colts will have a live, mobile TV camera following top draft pick Andrew Luck from the moment he’s picked Thursday throughout his Friday welcome-to-Indy activities.

Partnering with mobile camera technology supplier LiveU, whose camera modems are finding more fans in the sports world, the Colts will be breaking new ground by providing a Luck’s-eye-view to the hoopla surrounding the top draft pick. No info yet on where the feed will be posted, but you can check the Colts’ official website as well as the LiveU Facebook page, where more info is sure to be posted.

UPDATE: Here’s the link to the streaming page. Apparently not quite 24×7, but still cool.

The Colts will also host a Google+ hangout with luck, according to this release. We will also update this post with more info as we get it, so stay tuned for live, mobile coverage of Andrew Luck’s million-dollar-plus day.

The Colts are also not the only NFL team taking advantage of LiveU’s technology, which is basically a bunch of cellular modems in a backpack (or a beltclip) that allows users to broadcast live, professional video content from just about anywhere at the fraction of the cost of using a satellite truck. Though LiveU couldn’t name the teams, several more are expected to be broadcasting their own draft news and views live Thursday, so check your team’s home page to see if they have a LiveU feed running. For fans of always-on info, the revolution has now reached the broadcast TV market.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Facebook, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NFL, NFL Draft Tagged With: , , , ,

Want to Spout off About the Draft? CBSSports Wants to Hear From You!

April 25, 2012 by

Have you ever watched some talking head spout some nonsense on television, say about the qualities or lack thereof in a football player being drafted? Well CBS Sports is grabbing hold of social media and will allow you to have your say- within reason of course.

CBS Sports has set up an interactive 2012 Draft Day program, rather than fill the airwaves with two days of people explaining why Team A was wrong in selecting Player B because on this expert’s mock draft the player is not even a 3rd rounder, and so on and so forth.

While it does have the usual suspects, NFL insiders, draft experts and college football mavens, it has a number of systems in place to allow you to comment about the events as they unfold. The show will include two sets, one that is dedicated to following social media such as Twitter feeds and Facebook, and highlighting the current hot conversations. The set will also have live interaction with fans and have snap polls to get instant feedback on events.

Manning the social desk will be moderator Lindsay McCormick along with CBSSports.com’s Senior NFL Columnist Pete Prisco along with Senior NFL Blogger Will Brinson.

On the second set will be what viewers have become accustomed to over the years, where we see the draft as it unfolds, hear commentary and analysis from the experts on the picks and listen to prediction on who each team will draft to fill important voids in their lineups.

The more mainstream set will feature Jason Horowitz as master of ceremonies along with CBSSports.com College Football Insider Bruce Feldman and NFL Draft expert Rob Rang, and former St. Louis Rams General Manager Billy Devaney. If you are away from your television during the draft CBS Sports Mobile iPhone users can watch live streaming coverage of CBSSports.com Draft.

This is a great way to use social media to your advantage. The huge growth in the draft just highlights how interested fans are in their teams and the moves that they make. My allowing them to have a say simply makes them even more involved.

Filed Under: CBS Sports, Facebook, Fanatic Fans, NFL, NFL Draft, Social Media, Sports Social Media Tagged With: ,

NFL Draft 2012: Where to Watch and Where to go Online for Information

April 25, 2012 by

The phenomenon that is the NFL Draft starts this Thursday, a prime time extravaganza that makes experts out of casual fans and stars or bums out of the legions of ‘experts’ that not only predict teams picks but also how well that player will fit in and perform for his new employer.

Who will be this year’s great picks, the Peyton Manning and Wes Welker of the draft and who will be this year’s Ryan Leaf and Charles Rogers? Hard to say but just about everybody with a keyboard and an Internet connection seems to have an opinion.

It is probably impossible to list all of the options available to fans to gather information prior to the draft and then assess it after, but we here at Mobile Sports Report thought we would put out a list of some of the more popular and/or interesting places to go for your viewing and information pleasure. We will try and only mention each site or app once, since most cover the gamut of activities that will be occurring this week.

The Usual Suspects
Of course first and foremost is the NFL Network– which since the NFL owns it, will have a solid show on the draft and has been talking about the event for some time. The web site for the network features a counter until the draft starts, a Mock Draft page, Mike Mayock’s predictions, a draft tracker and a contest to predict the picks with the possibility of going to the Super Bowl, and that is just naming some of the information available.

Of course rivaling the NFL Network is ESPN, which is almost All-NFL all the time these days. Aside from broadcasting the draft as well a wide assortment of pages dedicated to the draft on its web site including Mel Kiper’s latest, Todd McShay’s latest and a number of other tidbits. It should be noted that a number of ESPN’s offerings are for subscribers to its Insider service only.

Fox, one of the NFL’s broadcasting partners does not have a national show for the draft, at least one I could find, and its web page is significantly more subdued in its coverage of the draft, although it does provide a good deal of information, just not to the level of ESPN or NFL Network.

The Focused Few
As most any but the most casual fan knows, there is an increasingly large body of sites that follow the NFL full time. The fall everywhere from sites run by major organizations such as Yahoo! to very well done amateur sites. We will cover a few in both areas.

Might as well start with Yahoo! Sports, one of the most popular sports sites on the Internet, if not the most popular. In all areas it has been poaching top talent, but has always had a solid football footing. It allows customization by users so that you can follow your team and has a section on the draft, as well as recent transactions so you can see who is retiring or traded.

Another up and comer is USA Today Sports Media Group, an amalgamation of a number of properties. The USA Today site of course has long been one of the best day after game sections for important stats, both print and online. One of its properties, The Big Lead is worthwhile both for Jason Lisk’s football coverage and analysis but also for the very spirited, and usually informed, conversations that accompany its articles.

The National Football Post strength in my opinion has been its columns, but it has strong NFL connections and follows the sport quite well. To fill out the rest of the top online players there is NBC Sports and as part of it the popular Pro Football Talk site. Other good sites include CBS Sports and SB Nation.

Alternative sources
One area that it makes sense to remember is sites that specialize in Fantasy Football. They need to know how valuable the players available for the draft are expected to be, so that they can (hopefully) make informed recommendations to users of their sites. Head over to someplace such as The Huddle where they have already broken down the draft by position

Over at Fantasy Knuckleheads the site has full mock drafts teams as well as projected round drafts. An interesting feature was a piece on breaking down ESPN’s Mel Kiper’s mock draft. I think that I may revisit it after the draft and so see how both Kiper and the author did in the draft.

How can you not want to look at a site called NFL Draft Geek? Breakdowns on the top skill positions are already up and more are slated to be posted prior to the draft. They obviously have strong opinions on issues and have Baylor’s Robert Griffin III as the #4 best player in the draft, for instance.
http://www.footballoutsiders.com/nfl-draft/2012/2006-draft-six-years-later

I enjoy a good retrospective piece on past season’s drafts. The trouble is often that they often just focus on the past year and it often takes several before you can really get a feel for how a draft works out. Over at Football Outsiders they look back six years, and as always from this site the piece are fact driven.

As a bonus you can see its breakdown on a variety of last year’s statistics and so get a solid feel for what teams need, or what appeared to be weaknesses last year. Another of the more cerebral sites is SmartFootball, and while its impact in following the draft is minimal in some senses, its focus on trends in the NFL helps put drafted players into a larger perspective.

If you end the draft just wondering what ever happened to some player that you liked in school but lost track of in the pros, head over to Pre-Football Reference site to look them up. Among its features are areas that cover teams, years and individual starts.

Filed Under: CBS Sports, ESPN, Football Outsiders, Fox Sports, NFL, NFL Draft, NFL Network, The Big Lead, USA Today, Yahoo Tagged With: ,

Denver Broncos the latest to jump onto iPad Playbook

April 24, 2012 by

The Denver Broncos have jettisoned its old time playbooks in favor of the bright new shiny iPad; 120 tablets in all which will feature Verizon Wireless 4G access and with most of the iPads top end models with 64GB, according to the Denver Post.

The team plans to load the iPads not only with the playbook but also with each weeks game plan, scouting reports on upcoming teams and video clips among other digital data. The system will be set up so that as new plays are developed they will be ‘pushed’ onto each tablet.

In the past the team had printed a 500 pound playbook each week of the season that contained much of the information, but the sheer mass made it very difficult to quickly locate different pieces of information.

The program was co designed by the Broncos and a developer named PlayerLync and among the program’s features is the ability to allow players and coaches to annotate and highlight plays as well as provide the team with playbook security by enabling it to erase the entire iPad remotely.

The team will provide the iPads to coaches, players, scouts and other team personnel. It should be noted that while the players and coaches can use the iPads for practice and training purposes the NFL does not allow electronic devices of this type to be on the field during games.

The league has relented somewhat in that in the past these notebooks and tablets had to be off in the locker room 90 minutes prior to kickoff, now that rule has been rescinded.

This is part of a growing trend in the NFL and elsewhere; teams have found that instead of cumbersome paper notebooks, sleek iPads or tablets can not only easily replace them but enhance the value of the digital playbooks by allowing for remote upgrades and player feedback.

At least nine NFL teams now use the iPad, with five, the Dallas Cowboys, St. Louis Rams, Seattle Seahawks, Indianapolis Colts, and Detroit Lions, signing on with Global Apptitude last month. MLB has also been increasingly active in this area as well.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apple, Apps, Dallas Cowboys, Denver Broncos, Detroit Lions, iPad, Live sports via mobile, NFL, PlayerLync, Tablets Tagged With: , ,
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