Earlier this week, someone took to Reddit and claimed that University of Kentucky quarterback Will Levis “told friends and family that Carolina is actually taking him Thursday.”
You might not think that an anonymous poster (SaleAgreeable2834) in a random thread would be noticed, let alone taken seriously, but this is the NFL draft where anything and everything goes.
Therefore, the fact that someone was claiming inside information that Levis would become the #1 draft pick in 2023 didn’t just become “news.” It has actually impacted the betting markets (yes, you can bet on this thing).
The odds that Levis would finish first overall after Carolina quickly dropped from 40-to-1 to just 4-to-1 as sportsbooks tried to hedge against it.
Levis actually became the betting favorite, finishing second overall against the Houston Texans.
It wasn’t just the weather, however. Mock drafts were also adjusted accordingly when Levis was not put at the head of the draft, cementing him in the first two selections. Websites, radio, TV reviews and more breathlessly debated Levis as a possible #1 and sensible #2.
Well, if you needed a reminder of the predictive value of betting markets or mock drafts, let alone Reddit posts, it was evident Thursday during ESPN’s seemingly endless cuts to Levis, who was lounging on a couch in a fast-emptying NFL draft green Room sat and tried looking natural as he talked to his family and waited for someone to pick him up.
Carolina didn’t actually pick him for the first overall pick (the Panthers went with Alabama QB Bryce Young). Levis didn’t go for #2 either – Houston took CJ Stroud. He also didn’t make the top 5 or 10 or 20.
Will Levis, once a 4-1 bet on the outright, wasn’t called in at all on Thursday. He’ll have to wait for round 2 or (gulp) later when the draft resumes on Friday.
Meanwhile, SaleAgreeable2834 deleted her Reddit account.
Levis is drafted and should consider that a tremendous achievement. The greatest QB of all time was 199, after all. And really, all Levis did was add his name to a long list of guys who “slipped” into the draft and endured being the embarrassing center of the first round . This includes Hall of Famers (Warren Sapp), future Hall of Famers (Aaron Rodgers) and of course complete busts (Johnny Manziel).
You never know.
Levi’s is a unique circus in its own right. He didn’t fall from his designated spot because of character doubts or health issues. That’s one thing.
Levi’s biggest “red flag” is his tendency to make funny videos, including the time he ate a peeled banana or the time he put mayonnaise in his coffee.
In truth, it seems like he was never viewed as an elite draft prospect by the people who actually make draft picks. It turns out nobody wanted him. At least not in the first round.
He was perhaps a figment of the NFL draft machine fantasy, a name so hyped and hyped and hyped that people actually threw real gambling dollars at him for being the No. 1 overall pick.
Maybe everyone should have seen this coming. He was good in Kentucky but hardly a top pick. He began his career at Penn State, was beaten for the starting job, and then moved to Lexington, where he completed 65.7 percent of his passes and threw 43 touchdowns against 23 interceptions in two seasons.
And yet he was there, at the forefront and in the middle of the NFL’s peculiar draft hype machine. Will Levis. Will Levis. Will Levis. day after day after day.
Eventually he became a credible top 5 pick because people said he was a top 5 pick.
Was any of this true?
The NFL Draft remains one of the most bizarre events in sports. Reporting on this is mostly based on “sources” who admit they lie about everything because there is no reason to tell the truth. Honesty is a disadvantage, an indication of a team’s thinking and strategy towards its rivals.
Yet entire news cycles are built around the idea that someone will “climb” or “slip” into the draft when the draft is weeks or months away and nothing has actually happened.
In the vacuum of interest comes the absurd. mock drafts. Anonymous Reports. fringe media characters. All sorts of chaos.
At one point, a draft analyst reported that Levis was “morbidly afraid of milk” and that teams were concerned “how he would fit into an NFL program.”
afraid of milk?
Even cursory research revealed that Levis only did the mayonnaise thing once for fun, and he usually drinks his coffee with almond milk and stevia, so “scared to death” is out of the question.
Not that the story didn’t bounce around the draft coverage for a cycle or two.
“Don’t believe everything you read on the internet,” Levis said Wednesday when asked about the Reddit post.
When it comes to the NFL draft, it’s probably best not to believe anything at all.
#NFL #Draft #Levis #latest #victim #leagues #hype #machine #suffers #outrage #embarrassing #green #room #footage
