The first round of the NFL Draft on Thursday evening from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, produced its share of winners and losers.
Judging by reactions from fans and others, the ESPN broadcast of the event fell squarely into the latter category.
Throughout the night, viewers took to the social media platform X to complain about what one NFL analyst called an “absolutely embarrassing display” from theNFLand one of its major broadcast partners.
X users cited as troublesome the NFL’s decision to shorten the time between picks from 10 minutes to eight minutes. On the face of it, of course, the decision made sense, for it prioritized viewers’ experience. Selections happened more quickly and with less dead time in between them.
ESPN, however, littered viewers’ screens with the usual amount of fluff interviews and especially commercials. As a result, the broadcast fell behind in reporting player selections, in some cases ridiculously so.
“ESPN is so far behind on picks,” former NFL offensive tackle Mitchell Schwartz wrote on X. “They’re going to have to figure this 8 min thing out because they can’t be 10+ min behind real time. The whole tipping picks thing is irrelevant when you feel like you can’t be on social media because the TV is that delayed.”
ESPN is so far behind on picks. They’re going to have to figure this 8 min thing out because they can’t be 10+ min behind real time. The whole tipping picks thing is irrelevant when you feel like you can’t be on social media because the TV is that delayed.
— Mitchell Schwartz (@MitchSchwartz71)April 24, 2026
In other words, fans who followed the event on social media knew the selections long before the ESPN audience did.
Likewise, NFL analyst Warren Sharp suggested that perhaps ESPN’s producers “slept thru the meeting where the NFL changed the time between picks to 8 minutes,” calling it an “absolutely embarrassing display.”
Source: VidNews » Feed
