It is finally the week of the NFL Draft. By Saturday night, all 32 teams will have completed the first step in shaping their youthful futures. For all NFL Draft heads however, it is also a week where we revisit one of the most iconic sports movies this century.
That’s right, this is an article about Ivan Reitman’s 2014 sports drama Draft Day. The story of an NFL GM’s whirlwind 12 hours on the day of the NFL Draft was a box office flop, but it slowly has evolved into a cult classic. Why do we revisit this flawed but fun film annually ahead of the symbolic start of the new NFL season? These are a few reasons why Draft Day has become a modern sports classic.
The Ticking Clock Nature
In the history of film, many great films have a time sensitive nature that is portrayed throughout. It can be found in many Christopher Nolan’s films, for example in Dunkirk’s score and the plot of Inception. Aside from Nolan, films like Speed, Back to The Future, Escape from New York and the classic western High Noon. The whole trick of this film is that it occurs over the twelve hours leading up to the draft and the draft itself. Every conversation, every trade, every meeting and every revelation send the audience careening closer and closer to the first pick. Through everything, unlike many sports films, we have no clue what is going to happen till it actually happens. In a way similar to the draft itself, Draft Day keeps us guessing till the end.
The Costner Effect
Many of the classic sports films have great names at the center of them. Draft Day follows suit and enlists the help of Kevin Costner to play Sonny Weaver Jr., the Browns GM. To the audience he is Crash Davis, Roy McAvoy, Ray Kinsella, Billy Chapel and Jim Wright. His history helps the audience buy into the film, with a performance to match. It is a compelling late period turn by Costner that has shades of his younger days, but with the gruff many of his characters now feature. However, when he turns it up at the end, it is one of those magic Costner moments.
The Deep Cast
Alongside Costner is an ensemble of picture perfect castings. Denis Leary plays the punch-able new head coach who, of course, once coached the Cowboys. Iconic “that guy” Patrick St. Esprit plays the Seahawks GM. Sam Elliot plays perfectly to pitch as a college coach, even if he is more of a BIG 12 guy. Frank Langella strikes a cord as the somewhat intimidating, but fatherly Browns owner. The real winners of the supporting parts however are Sean “Diddy” Combs and the late Chadwick Boseman. Combs’ Chris Crawford is a unholy combination of Scott Boras and Drew Rosenhaus, making him the most hateable agent possible. Running counter to that is Chadwick Boseman’s Vontae Mack. The fun but firm linebacker serves as the secondary emotional through line of the film, thus showcasing Boseman’s potential early in his career. All the while this film has Terry Crews, Jennifer Garner, Ellen Burstyn, Arian Foster and a slew of cameos rounding out this film’s ludicrous bullpen of relievers to steal scenes.
The Horrible Draft Pick Calculus
Despite all the love this movie is given, the draft pick calculus is truly horrific. Sure the opening trade of the draft is, in essence, the RGIII or Jared Goff trade. Those trades never truly paid off for either team though. Then, after trading up to the first pick only to select *redacted player*, Weaver Jr. trades his next three years of second round picks to get the sixth pick. That trade would never happen even in Madden. The coup de grace of this insanity is the ensuing game of chicken with the Seahawks, who own the Browns original pick at seven. Costner ends up mind gaming the Seahawks so hard that he gets all of the draft picks that he traded to them for the first pick back. That would never happen in real life. Yet, it is so ridiculous that we love it.
The Memes
Draft Day is a sports movie that gained so much from modern culture. The flaming draft analysis thrown into the trash by Denis Leary’s Coach Penn, “I want my picks back”, Costner on the phone and of course David “Goddamn” Putney. GIFs and memes of Costner fly around the internet during the start of every fantasy draft season. All of these reasons and more are why, as a culture, we continually revisit this film. Is it perfect, no. But it is a harmless, somewhat non-serious, film about one of the seminal events in American professional sports. Not many of those exist nowadays.
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