Mike Greenberg has just about done it all during his run at ESPN.
The veteran sportscaster, affectionately known as “Greeny” has anchored SportsCenter, co-hosted the highly successful Mike and Mike morning radio show with Mike Golic for many years, and even called play-by-play for Monday Night Football and the Arena Football League. Greenberg currently hosts Get Up every morning, his new solo ESPN Radio show every weekday and NBA Countdown for ABC/ESPN.
But last year, Greenberg also added an iconic role to his resume when he was named the new host for ESPN’s NFL Draft coverage and he is ready for year two this week in Las Vegas.
“I couldn’t be more excited,” said Greenberg. “The most fun I have had covering sports in 2021 were the two nights I spent in Cleveland doing the draft. It’s such a fabulous event and the atmosphere is so great.”
Anchoring the NFL Draft coverage is an assignment made for Greenberg because of his ability as a talk show host and collaborating with the people he has working with him. That is no different with the NFL Draft as he will have Louis Riddick and Booger McFarland at the broadcast table with him and Mel Kiper Jr. working remotely from home.
And of course, one of the great things about hosting a sports talk show is the reaction to big news and that obviously comes quite often at the NFL Draft.
“Hosting the draft is like hosting a really good talk show with really excellent panelists and having enormous breaking news every ten minutes,” said Greenberg. “Imagine how good your show would be every single day if I told you that you’re going to have huge news like ‘genuinely changes everything’ kind of news every ten minutes. It’s like a dream for a talk show host.”
The NFL Draft became a mega television spectacular when ESPN began airing the event in 1980. Over the course of the last 42 years, the NFL Draft turned into an enormously popular event and television show. A big reason why was host Chris Berman and his enthusiastic delivery. Trey Wingo succeeded Berman in 2017 and Greenberg took over the hosting duties last year. During his long run, Berman became must-see television hosting the draft as well as his long run hosting Sunday NFL Countdown, Monday Night Countdown and NFL Primetime.
But Greenberg isn’t about to replicate the iconic host.
“No one could do what Chris Berman did,” said Greenberg. “I wouldn’t even consider trying.
“He’s one of those few people that are so inimitable that to try to do anything like him is a mistake. There are certain people who are just so unique and so special that to try to be like Boomer, in my opinion, would just be a tremendous mistake. I thought Trey Wingo, who actually directly preceded me with the draft, also did an excellent job.”
If there’s one common denominator to the various on-air roles in sports broadcasting, it’s preparation. If you’re doing play-by-play for a football game, you put together boards with information on the players and you watch film of the teams playing so that you know everything you can possibly know about the players and coaches. If you’re doing a sports talk show, you have to be up to date on the latest news from around the sports world.
For the NFL Draft, Greenberg has put in hours and hours of preparation going back to January following the College Football Playoff championship game between Alabama and Georgia. As of my phone conversation with him this past Wednesday, Greenberg had done prep work on 119 draft-eligible players and planned on collecting background on another ten or so by the time opening night rolls around on Thursday night.
Greenberg will host rounds one through three of the draft and last year that equated, with compensatory picks, to about 102 selections.
So Greeny, how does one possibly prepare for the NFL Draft?
“For each player that is likely to be drafted, I go through their notes, I go through their bios, and I watch a little bit of them on YouTube,” said Greenberg.
“There are YouTube videos of literally every one of these players. The prep is easy to do if you know what it is. It is time-consuming. I started in January right after the College Football Playoff Championship Game. The week after Alabama and Georgia played for the championship, I started. I would do two, three or four players a day. I dedicate 45 minutes to an hour almost every day to it over the course of about three months so yes, it’s a lot of work but it’s so worth it.”
And for Greenberg, the fun starts when he arrives at the broadcast table because the hard part is over. After the hours and hours of preparation and getting to know all of the players who will have their names called, it’s all systems go when NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell steps to the podium to announce the first-round selections and also when the picks are made in rounds two and three.
“I’m totally comfortable whatever name Roger reads,” said Greenberg. “I’m very comfortable that I will be able to give you a little bit of interesting insight about them and then I turn it over to the guys you really want to hear from, which are Mel, Louis and Booger.”
Not even Greenberg’s family cares what he thinks about who the Jacksonville Jaguars are taking with the first pick.
“They want to see who is picked and they want to hear what Mel, Louis and Booger think of it. That is why people are turning on the draft. I’m very aware of that and very comfortable with it. So my job is to facilitate all of that as seamlessly as possible and then to get out of the way.”
After the Jaguars, Lions and Texans make their picks and assuming there are no trades, the New York Jets will have the fourth pick in the draft and as of now they also have the tenth selection. You won’t be able to see it or hear it on the NFL Draft coverage, but when the Jets are on the clock Greenberg’s heart is going to be racing.
If you’ve listened or watched Greenberg on his daily shows over the years, you know that he’s a die-hard Jets fan, but this is not one of his daily shows.
You will see and hear Mike Greenberg the host, not the fan.
“That is the one event where my fandom is not relevant,” said Greenberg. “On my talk shows, people are tuning in and they want to hear what I think. I’m a Jets fan and that’s part of the presentation. With the draft, no one cares that I’m a Jets fan.”
But I’m a Jets fan too and selfishly, I wanted to know what Greenberg thought about what Gang Green might be up to!
“They have an extraordinary opportunity to really reshape the franchise in a variety of ways,” said Greenberg. “It will be fascinating to me to see what direction they choose to go. They have a significant need at wide receiver. They have significant need for an edge pass rusher and I’m not sure that the best player in this entire draft isn’t an offensive tackle or a cornerback.”
Mike Greenberg has a resume of success during his time at ESPN and the NFL Draft duties that he assumed last year, along with his new NBA duties, are the latest examples of how good and how versatile of a broadcaster he is. He is the perfect quarterback and point guard for a show that has a lot of moving parts with analysts and reporters and he’s as prepared as anyone could be in terms of insight and knowledge of the players.
