Attending the 2024 NFL Draft Experience reaction

Pride of Detroit attended the NFL Draft Experience in downtown Detroit. Here’s what we liked and what we didn’t.

Watching the NFL Draft as a kid, I thought attending in person would have been a fun experience. Seeing the fans cheering on the picks and excited for their future seemed like something I wanted to do with my friends. In my high school speech class, we needed to make a bucket list and on that list was to attend the NFL Draft. In 2016, the NFL decided to take the big April event on the road after being in New York for 50 years.

With that, my hopes of attending increased as it would be easier if the draft was closer to me than traveling to New York. I had plans to attend the 2021 NFL Draft in Cleveland, but with COVID still being at high levels, I held off and hoped it would be closer afterward. Then just next year, it was announced that the draft would be coming to Detroit in 2024. It was my mission to attend it and a childhood dream came true this week.

What was even better for me was that I didn’t just attend the NFL Draft as a fan, but as a writer covering my favorite football team. One thing I wanted to do while I was there was not just enjoy the experience, but jot down some notes and give you, the reader, some information on what it was like to attend the NFL Draft. That way, if it ever comes back to Detroit, or if you want to travel to one, you know what to expect and can decide if it’s something you’d like to do, or if you don’t think it’s your cup of tea.

Note: I only attended Thursday and Friday for the Draft Experience, so I can’t attest to the events on Saturday.

Positives

General notes

There are a lot of great things about the NFL Draft Experience. To start, let me knock out some general things. I was never bored, never hungry or thirsty, and never lost. There were maps located throughout the experience showing you where you were and where you could go with things to do. There were also maps handed out at entry for you to hold onto if you wanted. If you somehow were lost, the people working the entire event were very friendly and helpful and answered your questions with ease. And as for the scene, the whole place was decked out in draft attire from buildings to monuments in Detroit. It truly felt like you were part of a big party where great attention was paid to every corner of every block, reminding you the draft was here in Detroit.

While not everyone there was a Lions fan, the majority of people were friendly with each other as fans of all 32 teams were walking around. It was cool to see all of the different jerseys and teams get represented. Also, there were multiple places to use the bathroom, so you never had to go far or wait in line.

Things to do

Now, I didn’t do every single thing at the Draft Experience, but I was able to see and understand everything and I can fill you in on what they had to offer.

If you wanted to pretend you were at the NFL Scouting Combine, you could do a few drills to test that out. There was a broad jump, a 40-yard dash, and multiple spots for a vertical jump test. And while these aren’t necessarily drills at the combine, there were a few spots to throw the football, whether it was in a net covered by a cut out of your favorite Detroit Lion defenders, or throwing it at pizza targets in the Little Caesars area, you had two options to do that. There was also a kicking drill for all you special team lovers.

Next, there were the historic items you could see. The Lombardi Trophy and the Super Bowl rings were the most popular, and those lines were usually the longest and slowest moving. The gallery was the quickest and best thing to look at in my opinion. You were able to see what a locker would look like for all 32 teams with their uniform, cleats, and all that jazz. Then you got to see the Walter Payton Man of the Year trophy, along with some of the “My Cause My Cleats” that were worn by players. Then, you were able to view a few NFL Hall of Fame busts and the legendary Heisman trophy.

If history or competing in drills aren’t your thing, you could do shopping at the various NFL shops and get some draft apparel. There were also a few auction shops where you could auction and win some signed memorabilia if you’re into that. There was also a Hugo Boss station if you liked that brand of clothing.

Some other fun things you could do was get your own NFL card created by Panini—they took your picture and it was emailed to you to print and use how you want. You could also pretend to get drafted as you go up to the podium and get announced as the first overall pick and walk out with a jersey to get your picture taken. You could even get CPR certified if you ever wanted to help someone out who might need it.

Player appearances

There were a lot of chances to meet your favorite Detroit Lions players, and a few others. While it wasn’t perfect, as a few players canceled or had to reschedule their appearance, if you wanted to meet and get your picture taken, or get an autograph from them, there were multiple players available to talk to and wait in line for. I tried to do a few, but the lines were at max capacity by the time I wanted to jump in, which was an hour before the event started. Here is the final list of players you could meet.

• Rome Odunze
• Drake Maye
• Tommy DeVito
• Stephen Tulloch
• Frank Ragnow
• Sam LaPorta
• Ifeatu Melifonwu
• Kerby Joseph
• Donovan Peoples-Jones
• Amon-Ra St. Brown
• Jahmyr Gibbs
• Aidan Hutchinson
• Barry Sanders
• Calvin Johnson
• Brian Branch
• Craig Reynolds
• Alim McNeill
• Derrick Barnes

Draft Theater

The main reason why you go to the NFL Draft isn’t to do all the fun and games, it’s the ability to see those players walk across the stage and get drafted. You get to see your team take their top guy and begin their career in the NFL. The theater wasn’t perfect (more on that soon), but overall it was a good experience to watch the players get picked. It was easy to avoid social media and not get spoiled on the picks, and they had entertainment with music and trivia in between picks to keep you engaged and entertained.

Brandon Knapp

Negatives

But it wasn’t a perfect NFL Draft experience, as there were some things that missed the mark according to not just me, but the people I went with thought as well.

Draft Theater

While it was very cool to see everything live and see the players, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, and get your chance to boo him, it could have been better. There were five screens and the majority of them showed the same thing, which was a quick highlight package for each team when they had their first pick of the night, and on one screen it would rotate in between the order of the draft, and who was taken.

Rarely would those screens show what the team needs were, who they added in the offseason, who they lost, and what they were ranked in offense, defense, etc. There was never any live feed of the TV draft coverage, which would have been fine if it was muted at least, because we never knew what the other 31 teams’ needs were, or who were the best prospects still available.

It was like a game of trivia to ask my friends and me “what does this team need?“ and then to think of who could be a fit for them at that position. They would show something like that once in a while, but it was not consistent, and it led me to look online and try and find information on it. If I had to look something up that the league could easily supply by just updating the feed to a live NFL broadcast, you’re doing something wrong.

Security

I will start by saying the entire time I was walking around the draft experience, I never felt threatened or that there was danger—there were a lot of police and security around and nobody caused any issues, until Friday night. While we were standing and waiting for the draft to start at the theater, a fight broke out next to us and security just stood and watched until five minutes of pushing, shoving, and punching happened. Even when security stepped in, they took too long to defuse the situation, and the worst part is, that two of the three guys involved in the fight were let back in!

From when the draft started on Friday until the end of the second round, four—yes, four— more fights broke out: one behind us, two on the other side of the stage, and one while we were walking out after the second round. Security STILL took forever to do anything and didn’t react fast enough. Now, I understand some security people are underpaid and some don’t honestly want to get involved, but after the first, replace them with police officers or something. It was just unacceptable that people were able to just push, punch, and shove people with no real consequences.

Conclusion

Overall, I would give the NFL Draft Experience a 9/10. It wasn’t perfect, but overall, my friends and I had a great time visiting Thursday and Friday night. We all made some great memories and agreed that this is something you do once in your life, but once you do it, you don’t need to do it again. If you are a die-hard draft person, maybe you want to travel and go to them every year wherever they are, but once you experience it once, there isn’t going to be much different the next time it comes to town.

I was glad my friends and I were able to able to do something like that together and make it a full two-day experience. I will say if you want to try and do everything and get close to the stage for the draft, you will have to go at least two out of the three days. The most amount of people that were there was on Thursday, with Friday having a little bit of a smaller crowd. The lines were too long to try and knock everything out in one day, even if you entered right when the gates opened. I would highly suggest any NFL fan go at least one day. You won’t regret it and you will make memories that last a lifetime.