What Went Wrong With Draft Day?

Kevin Costner was not Draft Day's Problem

Draft Day has been out over two weeks now and is just getting close to finally making up its budget. The general rule in Hollywood is that a film must make double its reported budget to be successful. It seems unlikely that Draft Day will ever make it there. How does a film that was seemingly a propaganda film for a 9 billion dollar industry fail?

Well it was not the reviews by critics or the fans of the movie that tanked it with critics being 62% positive and the fans at 72%. The downfall of the movie was the unrealistic script that left most football fans uninterested in the movie. Below are the top 3 mistakes I believe the movie made (Warning there are SPOILERS of the movie):


1) Sonny Weaver Jr. (Kevin Costner) would never trade for the first pick without consulting anyone first. He woke up on the day of the draft, wrote down that he was talking Vontae Mack over anyone and then traded up to number 1 immediately without consulting a single member of his staff even though Vontae Mack would have been there at #7 pick. He even walked into the office after trading up to the #1 pick and had to ask whether or not the Browns had the cap space to make the trade.

This is beyond absurd.

No NFL GM would trade 3 first round picks without consulting a single member of the organization. Even after Sonny made the trade, he called no one in the organization to tell them. He walked into the office and everyone only knew about the trade because Seattle the team he traded with had leaked it.  I know the movie was trying to create Weaver’s character as a maverick, but a simple conversation between Kevin Costner and Jennifer Garners’ characters would have sufficed about whether the Browns should make the trade or if they had the cap space.

2) Weaver had never scouted the consensus #1 pick in the draft, Bo Callahan. This year Jadeveon Clowney, the likely #1 pick, has visited nearly every team in the top 10. Even the teams that have not had him visit have at least spent time to scout him. The Browns’ front office seems to know almost nothing about Bo Callahan, the consensus #1 pick in the movie, when the trade is made. The team has never done a background check on Bo Callahan, brought him in for a visit, or even looked at his medicals.

This is the stuff I would expect from a team that had made the playoffs, but not the team at #7 who has even the thought to go to #1. This problem in the movie is only made worse when Bo Callahan begins to slip in the draft and no one else has scouted him to say their is a mistake with him or understand why it is happening. Even when Reggie Bush was considered a consensus #1 pick in 2006 and the Texans took Mario Williams above him, Bush fell to #2 and did not free fall in the draft.

3) The Browns traded the #6 pick for #7 for more than it took them to go from #1 to #7. In the 2004, NFL Draft the Browns actually traded up from #7 from #6 to draft Kellen Winslow Jr. and it cost them a second rounder. The movie had the Seattle Seahawks give up 3 first round picks and return specialist. Seattle was completely prepared to not draft Bo Callahan at the beginning movie when they traded the number #1 pick to Cleveland, yet at the end of the movie was prepared to trade away more than they got in the morning for the same quarterback just to save some money. 

 Seattle originally traded away the pick because they had more needs than just a QB and wanted extra picks, yet just 12 hours later they have completely changed their mind. No matter how much Seattle valued Bo Callahan, why would they have ever trade away more to move up 1 spot than it took them to go down 6 spots that same morning.

The plot of Draft Day doomed the movie. I left the theater not discussing how entertained I was for the movie, but rather whether or not it was possible for any of them to have actually occurred. After a long discussion about how it was not, I realized that was what frustrated me most about the movie. It was unrealistic.  The movie seemed better made as a documentary about the behind the scenes of the draft rather than a major motion picture with fictionalized players amongst other things. Draft Day was entertaining movie, but it definitely did not feel like an accurate portrayal of what life is like in the NFL Draft day for any team.