Y'all know that I do follow football particularly closely. Just like in a lot of drafts, there was a lot of talk this year about some racism in the NFL in not only seeing three white QBs rated higher in people's mock drafts; but, seeing Justin Fields (and Trey Lance), who started the off season at number two behind Trevor Lawrence, drop down to a low first or high second round pick.
Dan Orlovsky - probably rightly - got some flack for reporting some anonymous evaluations of Fields which brought his work ethic into question. I think that people shouting "racist" at him was a little overblown. He was reporting what he heard in response to a question about Fields's spot dropping. Orlovsky lost points with me there because he played QB in the NFL and he should know more than an average reporter; but, he was also speaking off the top of his head.
We've gotta understand that when these evaluations are happening, most of what people read or hear doesn't come from people who know what the hell they're talking about inside out and we almost never hear directly from team's front offices because they don't want the whole world to know what their plan is.
The media anointed Trevor Lawrence years before the draft. Big schools like Clemson, LSU, Alabama, and Ohio State, and Penn State on a good year, get a lot of attention from even casual fans. The same goes for USC, UCLA, Oregon, so-on.
How many people watch the pro-day or the combines? How many people know how to break down and evaluate what they're seeing? Most of those people who know what to look at are people who spend more time watching game film and evaluating player mechanics than it takes reporters to write their first five mocks. Chris Simms can talk more about Justin Fields's arm motion than most of these writers could tell you about the first thirty-two guys on their list.
Eventually, the people who know what they're talking about start talking and the click-bait people start changing their tunes.
I still can't explain why Lamar Jackson fell to 32. I can explain why Josh Rosen fell to 10 - a lot of people just thought he was a dick. But, why did Aaron Rodgers fall to 24? Why did the Packers trade up to get Jordan Love at 26? Why did Trubisky get taken ahead of Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes? Why did JaMarcus Russell get picked number 1 overall in 2007? Why did Tom Brady fall to a sixth round pick?
During the season, yes, NFL teams have a lot of scouts who are out there evaluating kids at a lot of levels all year long. Still, the coaching staffs are focused on their next game. Things change when coaches start making their own evaluations. They interview players. They pay a lot of attention to intangibles. They look into the minor details of a players game that worked in college and evaluate how they'll translate to the pro game.
No, I don't think that Justin Fields fell in the draft until the Bears traded a ton to get him out of racism. I also don't think that Trey Lance rose to number 3 with race in mind. I think professional sports tends to be the arena in which most people just don't care about your skin color all that much.