I thought the movie overall was very good. It showed a side of the draft that most fans don't understand is there, the wheeling and dealing or attempts at it that are there but go unseen. There was something I think they should of included for "accuracy" purposes instead of just here's some picks for your pick. In the NFL there's a point system, where the 1st pick overall is worth so many points, and each subsequent pick (Click here for the points chart). Based on the points system Kevin Costner's character probably would have been fired (10,500 points given up to gain 3000, a difference of 7500 points). That being said, the wheeling and dealing in this was similar to "Moneyball's" trading players scene.
There was a romance angle in the movie, of course or our wives wouldn't watch it with us. Jennifer Garner plays the salary cap expert for the Browns and the general conflict resolver to all of Kevin Costner's chaos. It's an interesting angle as the two have kept their affair a secret that almost everyone knows about and adds to the drama building up to the draft.
As a Dallas Cowboys fan there were several things I took as inferences about my team. The most notable was the mockery of Denis Leary's portrayal as the new coach. The back-story on his character is that he was in Dallas and won a Super Bowl as the head coach, but everyone knows it wasn't his coaching but the team he inherited from the previous coach who also won the Super Bowl (see Barry Switzer and Jimmy Johnson). Reaching a bit on this next one, but once the assumed first overall pick was passed on for another player, that guy that was supposed to go first overall then starts to fall and other teams become afraid to draft him not knowing what the Browns found on him to not take him first overall. I've seen this happen in the real draft with several big name prospects and I'm sure there's even more that I don't know about. Some players I've seen this happen to are Brady Quinn, Tim Tebow, Geno Smith, Aaron Rodgers and even Randy Moss (which Dallas passed on for Greg Ellis (a legitimate Pro-Bowler, but come on, Moss deserves to be in the HoF one day)). Another similarity was the conception that the GM and the coach were not on the same page, see Jerry Jones and Jason Garrett. Garrett can give input, and I've heard how Jerry takes that input into huge consideration, but at the end of the day Garrett has no say what happens on Draft day or when it comes to trading players etc.
Last but not least there are some things that I found weird in the movie. They reference Peyton Manning in one segment (also referencing Joe Montana, Dan Marino, Andrew Luck, Geno Smith, and John Elway to name a few QB's referenced), but then when it's Denver's pick, they made up a fictional name for their QB, like the NFL or NFLPA didn't approve of the movie using current rosters. In one scene, it shows the fictional QB for the Browns at his locker, and the lockers around his are real Browns players, Alex Mack to his left, etc., but then at the end of the movie when it has the Browns take the field for the 1st game of the next season, every player has a fictional name and none of them match up with those lockers. Little things I know, but to me it kind of diminished some of the movie.
Overall though, a great movie, worth the time to see, I wouldn't put it in the Mt. Rushmore of football movies (Varsity Blues, Remember the Titans, The Longest Yard, and Necessary Roughness - my Mt. Rushmore of FB Movies), but overall it was a very entertaining movie with a bunch of draft day plot twists. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did.
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