We feel sorry for the Big Savvy, Mark Schlereth.  Not only were his talents not used in ESPN’s coverage of the ’07 NFL Draft, but he was given the Steve Phillips treatment a few days prior.  The only role the higher-ups deemed Schlereth worthy was lead analyst for ESPN’s Mock Draft Special.  
 
In other words, his job was to analyze and break down picks that didn’t actually happen, in a method conveyed as if it was completely real.  We’re working to confirm if Schlereth actually knew the selections were fake, but we suspect it was a vicious joke played on the big man.
 
Regardless, how could ESPN think Schlereth wasn’t savvy enough to work the actual draft?  Especially with a picture like this…

That picture has so much savvy.

Crap that actually came from somebody’s mouth
”It’s like American Idol: you’re either a great singer, or you’re not a great singer.” – Steve Young on quarterbacking
 
”Jeff Garcia’s a player.” – Steve Young
 
It’s quotes like this that get a person fired; or removed from the set in favor of Ron Jaworski by the 3rd round.
____
 
”If (the Cardinals) draft Adrian Peterson, then they just don’t get it!” – Sean Salisbury 
”(The Chiefs) obviously don’t get what’s going on right now!” – Sean Salisbury
 
Good to see Salisbury didn’t calm down any during his time off the tube.
____
 
”You talk about Michael Vick off the field; has he ever been arrested?  No.  He cares!” – Sean Salisbury
 
Well, we’re relatively certain that he cares about STD treatments, his trap door water bottle and becoming the Don King of pitbull fighting, but other than that, it’s really up in the air. 
____ 
 
”Miami is waiting to get their hands on Brady Quinn… a lot of people thought they’d have to trade up to get their hands on Quinn… this is a guy they’ve wanted for a long time… Quinn likes (Cam) Cameron, Cameron likes Quinn… in a few seconds, they could get their hands on Brady Quinn.” – Rachel Nichols
 
Any time a female reporter discusses a team “getting their hands on Brady Quinn”, there’s absolutely no way you’re convincing us it wasn’t intentional.
____
 
”I think that’s a great ending to a horrible day… (Brady Quinn) became a sympathetic figure.” – Tony Kornheiser
”(Brady Quinn) was really put to the test and he handled it well.” – Ron Jaworski
 
For the love of Bob Ley, can we put to rest the notion that Brady Quinn is a victim?  Hey guys, he was still drafted in the first round and he’ll still command millions of dollars.  Poor guy.
____
 
”(Giants’ 1st round pick Aaron Ross) can play football, or else he wouldn’t have been drafted here.” – Keyshawn Johnson
 
See there?  That comment is so Charles Barkley - and that’s why Keyshawn will be a great analyst post-retirement.
____
 
“You could make the argument that any of these three teams (Jaguars, Cowboys, Chiefs) have quarterback problems.” – Trey Wingo
 
The Cowboys have quarterback problems?  Because we could swear that just 5 months ago, the media had pegged Tony Romo as the second coming of Roger Staubach. 
_____

“There’s no way St. Louis will pass on (Alan) Branch if he’s available.” – Jeffrey Chadiha, SI.com

In case you haven’t noticed, we thoroughly enjoy proving people who drop boastful comments such as these wrong.  Oh yeah, the Rams passed on Branch.
_____

“You can build a defense through free agency and trades and things like that…you cannot build a quarterback that way.  You’ve gotta draft a quarterback.” – Bill Plaschke, Around the Horn

Damn straight, Bill.  Just look at the Saints last year.  They sucked then they drafted Drew Brees…wait, he was a free agent?  Okay, well then what about the Seahawks.  Matt Hasselbeck led them to a Super Bowl two years ago and…huh, what do you mean they traded for him?  Well, just look at the king of all QB’s – Brett Favre.  If the Packers don’t draft him…no way, the Packers traded for Brett Favre?  Screw it, maybe you don’t have to draft a QB.
_____

“Personally, I’ll take Pacman’s indiscretions over those of Imus.” – Stu Scott, ESPN the Magazine, comparing Imus to Pacman Jones.

Really Stu?  You’d take assault, vandalism, spitting on women, starting fights in strip clubs that lead to people getting shot and a hefty weed habit over some ignorant comments from an old washed up, attention whoring DJ?  Because the former is the laundry list of things that Pacman has been accused of in the last two years and the latter is Don Imus’ crime.  

 
Joe Theismann Despises Your BubbleTape
Even in (temporary) unemployment, Joe Theismann still offers up stupid insight.  Joe, what say you about Brady Quinn on draft day?  (Via NFL Fanhouse) 

"The only thing I was disappointed in with the young man, and I hold his agents responsible for this, was to me, when you walk out on stage in front of millions and millions of people, that's a job interview. You don't go to a job interview chewing gum. And I felt like he could have presented himself in a much more professional manner. It looked like his tie was the first time he ever tried to tie one. It looked like his hair, he had just walked out of a shower, and he stands there, relieved as all get-out, chewing gum. And to me, that's not a professional image. And maybe I'm reading into it, but when it comes to drafts, when it comes to analyzing players, I think you have to look at everything."

To paraphrase, “I was disappointed in his unprofessional appearance.  He shouldn’t have been chewing gum and his tie should have been tighter.  To me, I absolutely love talking and absolutely love giving you MY OPINIONS, so I’m going to continue rambling without really saying anything.  To me, that’s what I do best, give opinions.  To me…what were we talking about again?”

Ladies and Gentlemen, with that we may have an early possible nomination for “2007 Stupidest Media Quote of the Year”. 

Media Rant – Scouting Todd McShay
We all know that mock drafts are ridiculous.  After the first few picks, literally anything can happen, and most of the time when it does, the mock drafts that took hours, days and weeks to produce get trashed in a matter of minutes.  

But just how futile are they?  

For no particular reason, we’ve decided to use ESPN and Scouts, Inc draft guru Todd McShay as our guinea pig this year to determine just how effective the mock drafts are these days.  In an era where people like Joe Lunardi make a good living obsessing over one event (in his case the NCAA Tournament bracket), we wanted to test the accuracy of one of the most prominent figures.  

On 4/24 McShay published a mock draft of the first seven rounds, which is basically the equivalent of you trying to guess the next 50 words we’re going to write in order. 

Frogs. (see you lost already, no way you guessed “frogs”)

Let’s see how McShay fared through the first three rounds, when all the dust settled:

Picks 1-6: 5 out of 6 (83%)

Analysis: Nailed the Calvin Johnson to Detroit pick which many people assumed wouldn’t happen just because of the Matt Millen factor.  Not too bad for the kid, maybe he’s the real deal.  How can we hire this guy to pick lotto numbers for us?

Picks 7-99: 4 out of 93 (4.3%)

Analysis: Uh, kind of took a slip there, Todd. Eight of 33 in the first round isn’t that impressive for an “expert” and he nailed a grand total of one pick in the second and third rounds.  But you gotta admit, he straight called that Jacoby Jones to the Texans pick at #73.  

Okay, so we’ve seen that outside of the first few picks, McShay doesn’t offer much to the fan who was trying to see who his team would grab.  But we need a basis of comparison – who better to use than Mr. NFL Draft himself, Mel Kiper Jr.  

On the eve of the draft, Kiper ran a mock of the first round only.  A week prior to that he did a four round mock that we’ll use for rounds two and three.  So how did he compare?

Picks 1-6: 6 out of 6 (100%)

Analysis: Look at the old dog strutting his stuff.  McShay had the Cardinals taking Adrian Peterson in the five hole instead of Levi Brown.  Dumbass rookie.  

Picks 7-99: 4 out of 89 (4.5%)

Analysis: Well, maybe Kipes shouldn’t be strutting just yet.  We even pulled four picks out of the list because he had bumped those players up to the first round in his updated projections and the man who makes his living on this day still couldn’t even scrape his way to 5%.  The last pick he got right was #29, Ben Grubbs to Baltimore, leaving him with a whopping 0.0 in the second and third rounds.  That means we could have done a JSF mock draft and just listed 68 species of monkeys for picks 33-99 and done no worse.   

Overall

McShay: 9.1%

Kiper: 10.5% 

In the end, the incumbent managed to outperform the newcomer in their version of Pro Day and both of them helped to further convince us that mock drafts are a complete and utter waste of time.  

Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re headed to the TV as Cold Pizza is about to break down the 2008 draft.   
 
Salisbury No Longer a Future Star
According to the folks at Chicago Sports, ESPN 1000 is axing its morning show with Steve Rosenbloom and Sean Salisbury.  And now Senor Angry will be playing a role in “Bears pregame coverage”, while his one-time partner moves to the night slot.  

It was just one year ago that we documented the director of operations at 1000, Jeff Schwarz, and his rather inaccurate Salisbury assessment,

'When you can get somebody of the caliber of Sean Salisbury, you do it. I think he's the next sports radio superstar.'” According to Schwarz, Senor Angry has “credibility in sports.” (We’re guessing Schwarz has never read this column).”

The phrase “you get what you pay for” comes to mind, but we’re guessing ESPN 1000 paid Sean a decent sum of cash, so we’ll just go the Salisbury route by saying, “IF YOU’VE GOT A PROBLEM WITH SALISBURY’S DISMISSAL, GET OVER IT!

Bob Carpenter Memorial Snappy Line
Having a few weeks off to do some spring cleaning at the Carpenter Castle was just what the doctor ordered for the current TV play-by-play man of the Washington Nationals.  After being rejuvenated during his time away, Bobby returned to review a new member to the snappy family, Cardinals radio announcer John Rooney, with his take on Cubs reliever Will Ohman: 
 
”After(giving up) that double to Miles, Ohman is saying ‘Oh man!’”  
 
Nothing can halt Bobby’s online shopping at Bed Bath and Beyond faster than a solid snappy one liner.  Two thumbs up from Robert C.  
 

The Media Circus is written by Josh Bacott and Pat Imig.  They swear this stuff is real.  Email them at info@joesportsfan.com