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Mel-low out, dude
If you threw an on-air fit like Mel Kiper Jr. did on Saturday, you'd probably be embarrassed. That's only because you possess some degree of self-awareness, though.
Danny ONeil
April 28, 2025
Having a multi-person debate/discussion live on the air is somewhat like pro wrestling.
You want some friction, some fireworks.
However …
There needs to be an underlying level of cooperation between the participants.
When someone stops cooperating and begins behaving erratically, it puts the other people on the panel in a difficult position. I have a fair amount of first-hand experience with this, which is probably why I had a fairly visceral reaction to Mel Kiper Jr.’s behavior following the Browns selection of Shedeur Sanders in the fifth round of this year’s draft.
Warning: I’m going to get into the weeds on this one. If you’d prefer to just watch it, I’ve included a link below. The segment is going fine until it hits the 15-minute mark when things become erratic.
Here’s a transcript of the portion of the exchange that annoyed me, starting with Louis Riddick’s assessment that Sanders slide into the fifth round wasn’t about his physical abilities or quarterbacking skills. My comments appear in the yellow quote boxes.
Riddick: ”This isn’t a talent issue. This isn’t a can-do issue. This transcended that. That’s why, I think of anybody on this list that you have on fifth-round guys, none of them have the skill set that this young man has. This is not about, ‘Can you play the position?’ This is about, ‘Do we want you to play the position for us?’ That’s why this came about.”
Kiper: Why wouldn’t they Lou?
This is a fair question from Kiper. However, it puts Riddick in a tricky spot. He wasn’t responsible on passing on Sanders for four rounds nor does he necessarily believe that teams are justified in doing so.
What Kiper is doing is essentially asking Riddick to serve as his straw man so he can repeat (for the third consecutive day) all the reasons he thinks teams were wrong to pass on Sanders.
Riddick resists the bait, however.
Riddick: Well, look. That’s a whole ‘nother discussion that we’ve had in many different ways for weeks and months now.
Kiper: Is he not one of the toughest you’ve ever seen?
Kiper is getting hopped up now, and Rece Davis — who’s hosting the segment — interjects.
Rece Davis: It’s personality, Mel, it had to be.
Riddick: Mel, Mel, Mel. This isn’t about quarterback traits and characteristics. This is personal.
Kiper: Has he had an off-the-field issue? No he has not.
Riddick: Mel, you don’t have to sell it to me.
At this point, Kiper is unable or unwilling to recognize what his co-workers are telling him: Sanders’s slide to the fifth round says something very specific about how leery every team in the league was of chosing and developing Sanders as a quarterback.
Kiper obviously disagrees with these teams, which is fine.
Interrogating his co-workers as if they’re responsible for passing on Sanders, however, puts them in a very difficult position, and Kiper is either ignoring or unable to recognize fairly direct statements from those co-workers that they’re not going to answer or justify decisions they did not make.
Kiper: Well, I don’t know what we’re talking about here.
Riddick: Mel, the draft has spoken.
Davis: That’s right. That’s the key, Mel. It’s not putting a value judgment on whether those teams are right or wrong. They did. So now, whether you’re in circumstances in life – whether you like them whether you don’t like them, whether they’re fair or whether they’re unfair—you have to deal with them.
Riddick: That’s right.
Davis: And now Shedeur Sanders has to deal with them. And for whatever reason – whether he played a minute, microscopic percentage, zero percentage—or it’s a legitimate criticism of the way he conducted himself during in the draft process, this was the result. Now he has an opportunity to answer it.
I think yelling at the NFL about it is not relevant.
This line from Davis is so funny. Just hilarious.
Kiper, however, is undeterred, which is always a risk when you lose your capability for shame.
Kiper: Boomer Esiason was not happy when he was a second-round pick. Tom Brady was not happy. They dropped. How’d they turn out? Pretty darn good.
Davis: Nobody’s arguing that. That can happen.
It is at this point that Kiper has utterly and completely lost it. He’s gone from trying to prod his co-workers to declare that Sanders should have been a first-round pick to declaring that draft position is not an accurate indicator of future success.
Kiper: My point, Rece, is the NFL has been clueless for 50 years when it comes to evaluating quarterbacks. Clueless. No idea what they’re doing … there’s proof. There’s proof of that. When they say, ‘We know exactly what we’re talking about with quarterbacks,” they don’t.
What happens next shows why Davis is such a pro. Someone more petty or more impulsive … someone like myself perhaps … might ask, “Do you think you’re any better?” This would be an exceptionally unkind thing to do to a co-worker, though, forcing that person to opt to either puff out their chest or practice self-deprecation, both of which could wind up costing credibility. Instead, Rece makes that point in a way that does not shame Kiper in any way.
Davis: Nobody’s batted 1,000 here, though.
Kiper: That’s correct.
Riddick: All that matters now is what happens going forward. We talk about it all the time. There is the evaluation and selection phase, which we’re in right now, and then there’s the development and implementation phase. That’s where we headed to right now. That’s all that matters for him. Kevin Stefanski, Andrew Berry, have at it.
And thus concludes my micro-management of Kiper’s on-air tantrum.
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