Mike Greenberg is making final preparations to host ESPN’s NFL Draft coverage for the third time, and he can’t wait for the event to finally kickoff.
“It’s my favorite assignment of the year, by far,” Greenberg told ESPN 1000’s Waddle & Silvy. “I love having a daily TV show, I love having a daily radio show, I adore hosting NBA Countdown with these legends that I work with, and doing the Finals last year, and actually saying ‘Welcome to ABC’s coverage of game one of the Finals’ was genuinely one of the great thrills of my life.
“I’ve said many times one of my true regrets is my dad didn’t live to hear that, because it was one of the proudest moments I’ve ever had. But for fun? This is, by far, the most fun event. It’s so unpredictable. I just love it. I love the energy. We’re supposed to have 300,000 people out here tomorrow…I absolutely love everything about this event.”
Greenberg then shared he has been waiting on the opportunity to return because “I did not think I did my best last year”. He said in 2021, each team in the first round took their full 10 allotted minutes, so he was used to that cadence. But that was not the case in 2022.
“The picks came so fast. The pick has been made, Mel is the first 15 seconds of his reaction, and I get in my ear from the producer ‘The envelope is in, 60 seconds until the commissioner’. And I’m like ‘What are you talking about? I’m not ready in 60 seconds. I’ve got eight million other things I plan to do.’ And it kept going like that, and it took me eight picks or so to get comfortable in that rhythm.
“And, obviously, the first eight picks are the most important ones,” the ESPN host continued. “The very beginning is the most important part, and I felt like I kinda blew the first hour. Or at least I didn’t do as well as I wanted to do. I watched it back, and it’s never as bad as you think it was, but I want to be my best in this event because it’s the biggest event I do.”
