The Sandusky Tribune

THE DRAFT ROOM — Draft week produced 120 picks, three rule changes, and one constitutional crisis, and the crisis is the best-sourced of the three.

The allegation came in writing from Caden Didericksen of the Chubby Chasers, who told this paper he fears Jordan Israelsen "has already wormed his way into the commissioner's ear." Mr. Didericksen cites a pre-draft power struggle and the number of proposals Mr. Israelsen subsequently saw ratified. "I think we all saw who won that power struggle," the statement concludes, "and is now running our league."

The legislative record does not help the commissioner. Three rule changes passed at the pre-draft session — a longer pick clock for every owner except the commissioner, who was denied the extra time on the grounds that he would use it; a bench spot converted to a flex next season; and a new keeper deadline — and the Tribune could not locate anyone willing to say any of them had been the commissioner's idea.

Asked about the state of his administration, Commissioner Drake Oldham provided the following: "I feel like it's fate that I'm contending for the ship this year as the new commissioner. Some will call it vainglory, I call it knowing who you are." The statement did not address the allegation, the legislative record, or any question that had been asked.

Mr. Israelsen was offered the opportunity to deny the allegation. His exit interview, printed below, covers his draft, his roster, and his position on electoral reform, and does not mention the commissioner once — which is either innocence or exactly what a man running the league would submit.

THE DRAFT ROOM — With the first pick bearing down, the league confronted the question it had put off all week: whether there would be anywhere to sit.

The concern was Ian Clark's. Mr. Clark, who has attended nine drafts and sat down at all of them, grew worried on the eve of the tenth that the host might not have enough tables, and let it be known — in the manner of a man who wants city hall to hear about a pothole without being the one who called it in.

A count was taken. Seven owners attending in person; three to four tables required, so folks could have some room. The host, Mitch Coombs, floated a bring-your-own-table policy, which was adopted, misread, and explained. Mr. Clark pledged that he would be arriving with his own table regardless. By Saturday afternoon Mr. Coombs had located three tables without assistance, and all pledged furniture became ceremonial. The eighth owner attended from inside the television and did not require a chair.

Tables received more discussion during draft week than any running back, and every one of them arrived on time.

The Emporium opened Christian McCaffrey, De'Von Achane, Ashton Jeanty — three running backs before drawing a breath, a formation Drake Oldham has fielded once before, in 2019, when he opened Le'Veon Bell, James Conner, and Nick Chubb and went 6-7.

The Emporium is also, by long consensus, the slowest desk in the room. The league lengthened the pick clock to four minutes this year for every owner except the commissioner, who was held at two on the grounds that he would use whatever he was given. He used all of it, every round, and by the double-digit rounds was visibly flustered — the sound of the draft by then was six men eating and one man exhaling at a laptop. Owners who have drafted beside him for a decade describe the Emporium's process as thorough, in the way a man is thorough when he has lost his keys.

This is the context for pick 77. Brandon Aubrey — Round 10, the earliest a kicker has gone in this league in six years — arrived while Sam LaPorta and George Kittle sat on the board unclaimed, and is best understood not as strategy but as a man who badly needed one pick he did not have to think about. The Texans defense followed at 84, presumably for the same reason.

Then came Round 14, the traditional specialist round, in which seven of eight selections league-wide were kickers and defenses. The exception — the only franchise to draft an actual football player that round — was the Emporium, which took Chuba Hubbard at a 28-pick discount, precisely because it had done its kicker shopping a month early, like a man smug at a Christmas party because he wrapped everything in October.

Then pick 116. Tyreek Hill: released by Miami, unsigned by anyone, eleven months and two surgeries removed from a dislocated knee that took the ACL, MCL, PCL, and patella with it. In late July Mr. Hill reported, in his own words, "no power in my left leg." He was drafted anyway, ahead of several men with power in both legs. The Emporium's medical staff could not be reached, does not exist, and would not have been consulted.