When I first heard the idea of the concept of “Dumb Drafts,” I thought it was brilliant.

A mock fantasy draft of five rounds on random topics by five Crossing Broad staffers done both as a podcast and on video so everyone could hear the ridiculous arguments and all the trash talking, and then having an independent arbiter select a winner at the end of the episode and give the audience a chance to also vote and weigh in, is a guaranteed slam dunk.

As such, I sorta volunteered to be the impartial observer of each draft. To act as a liaison of sorts to the general public, if necessary, and to offer an unbiased and objective critique of the draft itself, the process, and the determination of the winner.

The first episode of Dumb Drafts featured the following five draft participants:

  • Kyle Scott (Maestro)
  • Kevin Kinkead (The Machine)
  • Robert Linnehan (Coggin Toboggan)
  • Tim Reilly (The Professor)
  • Russ Joy (not deserving of a nickname)

It also featured CB’s video guru Craig Dudek as the judge of who won and who lost the draft.

The first draft was selecting all-time teams of local Philadelphia news personalities. The rules were that you had to draft at least one person from each of the big four local networks (ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX) before drafting your “wild card” person from any local news network. If a personality worked at multiple networks, you can choose which network he or she would represent.

In addition, your team needed to consist of one sports person, one weather person, and three “news” people, which could include anchors, reporters, or non sports/weather specialists.

The draft would be a snake draft, with the winner of the first pick going last in even numbered rounds.

This was going to be fun.

Except, the group put Russ in charge, and as someone who works intimately with him on the Snow the Goalie podcast and the live Press Row Show from Flyers games, I know Russ doesn’t try out technology in advance. He always does good research on products, but doesn’t test their application to see if there are any kinks that need to be worked out.

As such, rather than using an online randomizer that exists for these things, Russ got a digital spinner and put each person’s name on the spinner to determine the draft order.

This was fine for the first two spins, as Robert won the first pick and Tim won the second pick, but then the spinner kept falling on the same names.

At one point it was about to stop on Kevin for the third pick, but Russ spun it again, creating a mild controversy. However, Kevin was good with Russ going third (knowing the 30-year-old from Schuylkill County would likely suck at this draft), and settled for picking fourth with Kyle going fifth.

Ombudsman recommendation: Use the randomizer next time to save time, or have the order selected off air to save the listening audience from having to go through the hassle of listening to Russ struggle with technology bugs and everyone yelling at him.

THE DRAFT

Robert started draft in the way it only could – selecting Action News legend Jim Gardner first overall. The man is an institution in this area. It was a slam dunk first pick.

Tim brilliantly went back in time to take the next biggest name in local news, Larry Kane. I could see that Craig had no idea who this was, and I was immediately concerned that the outcome of this draft would need an asterisk because the judge had no idea who Larry Kane was. Doh!

Then we had our first Howie Roseman moment. Russ not only went  with a reach, he selected someone who shouldn’t have even been drafted at all with Glenn “Hurricane” Schwartz going third overall. Mr. Bowtie is fine and all, and he’s well known, but there are at least six, maybe seven weather people I’d take all-time over Schwartz, so this just showed how ill prepared Russ was for the draft.

Kevin followed with an excellent pick in Pat Ciarrocchi, who was an institution herself in this market before her retirement. Kyle followed with a sports news legend in Gary Papa, making Russ’ pick all the more sad and pathetic.

In round two, Kyle went controversial with Larry Mendte before Kevin hit another home run taking Cecily Tynan, who had to nearly spit out her water in the green room when Schwartz was selected before her four picks earlier.

To his credit, Russ rebounded nicely by taking Ukee Washington in the second round and Tim answered by selecting Dawn Stensland, preventing any consternation in the Mendte household as they both were selected in the same round. Robert finished off the round by taking Mr. Airport, John Clark, a solid pick for the Millennial generation, as he is one of the best sports TV news guys out there today.

Round three was a head scratcher.

Robert took Kathy Orr next, and although she’s very good, how she came in ahead of legendary Dave Roberts, who Tim selected next, was a miss for Robert and a boon for Tim. Russ went back to the well of choosing people too soon and nabbed Mike Jerrick in this round. With the Fox options limited, he probably had to be drafted, but Russ could have waited a round as he missed on Vai Sikahema, who Kevin nabbed with his third consecutive superb selection. Kyle went a little outside the box with his third round pick, but it was a smart one, grabbing Sheinelle Jones with the last pick of the round.

Kyle kicked off round four by taking John Bolaris as his weather person, a strong pick so late, and definitely stronger than Schwartz. Kevin took a fun pick in the fourth round with Bob Kelly, who is easily the best traffic guy out there on broadcast TV before Russ hit another snag taking Jeff Skversky. Jeff’s a good guy and does a good job today, but he pales in comparison to some sports legends who were still out there, and Russ completely missed the boat. Tim, who had a strong draft to this point, misfired with his Jillian Mele selection, because there were so many more hall-of-fame caliber names that could have filled her spot, likewise Robert going with Janelle Burrell, a talented morning news anchor on CBS who just doesn’t yet have the cache that so many others do in this town.

The final round saw a gem of a pick by Robert going old school and selecting Mort Crim, Tim going with his second Fox personality, which was bold, taking Bill Vargus, Russ going off the board to take Telemundo reporter Iris Delgado was simply institutional arrogance.

Kevin locked up, in my mind the victory in this draft by taking Vernon Odom with the penultimate selection and Kyle’s Mr. irrelevant selection of Rick Williams was solid and steady.

OMBUDSMAN GRADES

Robert – B (Couldn’t miss with Gardner, Orr over Roberts is a miss, Burrell was a reach, but Clark and Crim were strong).

Tim – B+ (Kane was excellent. Roberts was great value. The rest of the picks were uninspiring, but solid).

Russ – D- (Only because of Ukee. The rest were either bad choices or, in Jerrick’s case, too soon).

Kevin – A+ (I’d actually seek out a news broadcast featuring Ciarrocchi as an anchor, Sikahema doing sports, Odom in the field, Tynan doing weather and Kelly providing the traffic. It’s pretty perfect).

Kyle – B+ (The first four picks were strong, could have gotten an A with others over Rick Williams.)

JUDGING THE JUDGING

I knew this episode was in trouble when Russ couldn’t pronounce Sikahema, and was asking in the chat where Dave Roberts worked. Couple that with the looks on Craig’s face when so many of these people were selected, and the outcome was doomed from the jump.

Craig knew maybe 25% of the broadcasters, and yet he was the judge. Sigh.

He pitted Robert against Kyle in the final, completely missing that Kevin’s team was head and shoulders above everyone else.

I like the 30-second debate between the final two. I think that’s fun, and Kyle made a better argument for his squad than Robert did and yet… Robert was the inaugural winner because of Jim Gardner and Craig liked the history lesson of Mort Crim.

Ombudsman recommendation: Fire Craig. As a judge. He’s an awesome video guy. Keep him there. He’s a rock star. As a judge? Yikes!

Come back for episode 2. I promise it’ll be better. (He says, nervously).

BEST OF THE REST

If I had to pick a team from those not selected, I’m not sure I could match Kevin, but I’d bet it’d be a 7-game series with Kyle.

  • Al Meltzer (NBC Sports) – I truly can’t believe that the denizens of a Philadelphia sports blog didn’t select Big Al. Not only was he a sports anchor for more than two decades, he called games for the 76ers, Eagles, Phillies and Big 5 basketball. He also was part of the humble beginnings of Comcast Sports Network in Philadelphia. Big swing and a miss by the drafters here.
  • Herb Clarke (CBS Weather) – I could have gone sentimental here and selected Jim O’Brien from ABC, but he died in that tragic parachuting accident before most of our readers were even born. I was nine when Jim O’Brien died, and he was beloved, for sure. But, he was only at Action News for a decade. Herb Clarke was the at WCAU for 39 years. He was the first person to bring radar to Philadelphia (1982) and lasted until 1997, so these guys should have remembered him.
  • Joyce Evans (FOX News) – As I pointed out above, the FOX bench isn’t very deep, and everyone had to select one member of the FOX team. Evans is a very good anchor and has been a staple at FOX-29 for 25 years now. The only other people I thought about to represent FOX were Howard Eskin, although I don’t think of him as good on TV as Big Al, and Don Tollefson, but he was too controversial and not as beloved as Meltzer either.
  • Don Polec (ABC News) – This is kind of a quirky one, but if you watched Action News anytime in the 80s, 90s or 2000s, there’s a good chance you got a chuckle out of “Don Polec’s World” that ended the 11PM newscast. It was always something goofy, funny, weird or flat out odd that was taking place in the Delaware Valley, and Don brought it to us. He was at Action News for 27 years. That’s a heck of a run for a reporter who reported on nothing.
  • Herb Denenberg (CBS/NBC News) – Herb was a consumer affairs investigative reporter in Philadelphia for 24 years. If there was another like him on the other stations, I don’t remember them, because there’s no way they could match up. “Denenberg’s Dump” was must see TV as he pointed out products that were unsafe or businesses that were unsanitary. And he was in your face about it. Just awesome.

Others I considered: John Facenda (the OG of Philadelphia news, just way before all our time in that realm). Diane Allen (She had three different stints in Philly news totaling 14 years, but she had two lives, the second was more prominent: as a New Jersey State Representative for 20 years, which is why I left her off). Jessica Savitch (again, too long ago and such a tragic end to her life. She was going to be great). Marc Howard (He was Robin to Jim Gardner’s Batman). Dann Cuellar, Nora Muchanic, Cathy Gandolfo, John Rawlings (All four were in the realm of Vernon Odom. Just great reporters for Action News for a long, long time). Joe Carcione (The Green Grocer. I used to love his produce tips. However, it wasn’t until I wrote this post that I found out he wasn’t in Philly. He was based in San Francisco and syndicated to 60 networks across the country. Who knew? As such, he was taken out of consideration.)

TWENTY OTHERS THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER THAN AT LEAST ONE OF THE DRAFT PICKS

  • Sheena Parveen
  • Monica Malpass
  • Lisa Thomas-Laury
  • Renee Chenault-Fattah
  • Walt Hunter
  • Rob Jennings
  • Scott Palmer
  • Bill Baldini
  • Siani Lee
  • Jamie Apody
  • Joe Pellegrino
  • Beasley Reece
  • Dave Frankel
  • Sally Ann Mosey
  • Karen Rogers
  • Adam Joseph
  • Vince Leonard
  • Lesley Van Arsdall
  • Tug McGraw
  • Irving Fryar

DO YOU WANT TO WEIGH IN ON DUMB DRAFTS?

Got a message for the guys? Do you agree with the winners? Was there someone we all missed? Tag me or Shoot me a DM on Twitter @AntSanPhilly and I will include the best ones in the next Ombudsman’s report.