The longtime face of NFL Draft season is a big fan of the traveling roadshow approach used nowadays for the marquee offseason event.
“I can’t wait to be up in Pittsburgh,” said ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr., the most famous of the NFL draftniks.
For about a decade now, the draft has moved from city to city and will arrive in Pittsburgh late next month, bringing hundreds of thousands of football fans along with it.
The draft is April 23-25.
The event was held in New York City for 50 years until 2015, when the draft moved to Chicago for two. A different city has served as host each year since, except for when the draft was held virtually in 2020.
Green Bay was host last year.
“Getting it out of New York to these cities, to these teams, particularly teams that can’t get a Super Bowl necessarily played in their area, like Pittsburgh, is great,” Kiper said Thursday on a conference call previewing the draft.
As a Baltimore native, Kiper said he can appreciate the convenience of a draft in Pittsburgh. Eight cities with an NFL franchise are within a six-hour drive.
“I can’t wait to have a nice drive up there,” he said. “Only about a four-and-a-half-hour drive for me.”
The 65-year-old Kiper is one of the original NFL Draft gurus and the person who took draft analysis mainstream. He joined ESPN in 1984, helping to popularize the mock draft.
His latest mock had the Pittsburgh Steelers choosing Penn State guard Olaivavega Ioane in the first round at pick No. 21. His previous version had the Steelers selecting Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson, but this time Simpson was projected to go five picks earlier to the New York Jets.
“My attitude with quarterbacks is, if you like them, you got to get them,” Kiper said.
Kiper’s presence on ESPN for more than four decades helped to make the NFL Draft must-see TV for football fans. Now, as the draft travels around the country, the event has quickly become the place to be for many.
Last year’s draft drew more than 600,000 fans.
“Moving around the country, out of New York to all these places, has allowed fans of those teams to just come out in the hundreds of thousands,” Kiper said. “Almost a million have come to these events in various places. Nashville was amazing when we were down there. Green Bay last year was phenomenal. I could go on and on.
“We were in Dallas, we were in Kansas City, Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago twice. Las Vegas. Everywhere this draft has gone — Kansas City — has been phenomenal.”
However, Kiper shared how he holds a special appreciation for Pittsburgh and particularly the Steelers because the franchise welcomed him early on.
“One of the first camps I was invited to back in the day, like early ’80s, was the Pittsburgh Steelers camp in Latrobe,” Kiper said. “Art Rooney Jr. invited us up. We spent time with the Steelers that whole day, up there at Steeler camp in August. So, I have great respect.”
Kiper showed his old-school ways with a complaint about the Steelers ruining too many seasons for the Baltimore Colts when Bert Jones was quarterback in the 1970s. But otherwise, he had nothing but kind words for them.
“Everything about them is what the NFL is all about,” Kiper added. “The continuity, the stability, the Rooney family, the coaches that they bring in. They’re not impatient. They stick with these coaches for the long haul.”
Kiper also noted that his daughter married into a Steelers family, so there’s that dynamic, too.
“My son-in-law and his family are great Steeler fans,” he said. “So, we’ve got that rivalry going with the Baltimore Ravens and the Steelers right here in my own home.”