In 2014, a film titled Draft Day was released. It starred Kevin Costner and Jennifer Garner and revolved around the Cleveland Browns and their first overall selection in the NFL Draft. NFL insider Ian Rapoport, who “stars” in the film, gave his honest review of the film.
Before that, Rapoport clarified that he is, in fact, in the film. “If you squint and look up at the top left of the screen, at least seven times, you can see me and the back of my head a lot, but a couple of times the side,” he pointed out. “Me and Daniel Jeremiah, at that point, we were sitting on the little desk at Radio City and they were filming at Radio City, so we are solidly in the background at least seven times.”
“I think it gets a lot of criticism… I kind of liked it,” Rapoport told ClutchPoints during our extensive interview. “Everybody makes fun of me, but I kind of liked it.”
That said, Rapoport knows better than anybody that Draft Day is not a documentary or a fully-accurate depiction of the NFL Draft. “You know, there's plenty of things that aren't exactly the way it goes, like they [the Browns] have a chance at this player and they start researching them on the clock, and I'm like, ‘All right, if you're a team, that's three months of research,' you would have done that beforehand,” he said.
He continued by praising the film, “But the GMs do talk about trades like they did during the movie — like, they do. There's a lot of people joking about like, “Oh, someone didn't go to the quarterback's birthday party, so therefore he's not a leader.” Those are actually real conversations that people have.”
“I kind of liked it, [and I'm] not just saying that cause I'm obviously one of the co-stars,” Rapoport said with a tongue-in-cheek smile. “It's Hollywood, so Hollywood does its thing, you know?”
Ian Rapoport is a little disappointed that his starring role in Draft Day hasn't landed him any other offers to go from the NFL to Hollywood.
“I haven't gotten any other movie offers besides that,” Rapoport confessed. “I was surprised, I thought we did a great job, but maybe eventually.”
NFL Draft: The Pick is In is streaming on The Roku Channel now.
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