Todd McShay has become a constant presence on ESPN when it comes to their NFL Draft coverage. That used to solely be Mel Kiper Jr.’s territory, but ESPN has had McShay working alongside Kiper for several years. The network just added Matt Miller to their draft coverage as well.
As ESPN closed out their coverage Saturday of the 2023 NFL Draft, which was Kiper’s 40th year covering the draft for ESPN, the analysts all paid tribute to Kiper.
McShay shared some cool nuggets about Kiper’s character that most people wouldn’t know. He said that Kiper could have very easily been threatened by McShay encroaching on his turf at ESPN, but wasn’t.
“The person who promoted my career more than anyone in this company — more than anyone in my life — was Mel Kiper Jr. … pushing ESPN executives to promote me,” McShay said of Kiper.
“I poke and prod at this guy — and he’s the best at going back and forth. And we will legitimately get upset sometimes. But people don’t seem to know that he is one of the all-time great human beings. And he is so humble and so confident in what he does that he’s happy to further anyone else’s career along the way.”
McShay said that not only did Kiper welcome him to ESPN, but Kiper also called McShay to ask McShay’s thoughts on ESPN adding Miller to their draft coverage. McShay recalled how welcoming Kiper was towards him, so McShay took the same approach when it came to welcoming Miller.
The NFL Draft is now an event that moves from city to city, attracting a party and tons of fans along the way. Kiper was on TV at the beginning of when the NFL Draft went from being hardly noticed by the public to becoming a major event for the NFL, attracting millions of viewers. And he’s consumed a heck of a lot of pumpkin pie in that span.
