Joel Buchsbaum might have been the least likely person to be considered an authority on football, if not a genius.
He didn’t see games in person and never took a stopwatch or tape measure to a player. He rarely left his modest apartment in Brooklyn.
Buchsbaum never played or coached. Allergies to a number of foods left him decidedly frail. He carried no more than 110 pounds on his 5-foot-8-inch frame.
He had a halting, almost squeaky voice, cloaked in a decidedly nasal Brooklyn accent. It hardly conveyed football toughness.
Yet Buchsbaum had the confidence of countless NFL general managers and scouts. And he achieved icon status for countless fans who couldn’t wait for his latest report.
Buchsbaum died Dec. 29 at 48. Without him, April’s NFL draft won’t be the same.
Buchsbaum was Pro Football Weekly’s draft expert since 1978, filing annual scouting reports on the top 600 to 800 players coming out of college. But his work went beyond the pages of the Chicago area-based publication.
Buchsbaum was considered such an expert that he was quoted extensively in newspapers throughout the country. He was a regular on KMOX in St. Louis and KTRH in Houston, generating a cultlike following.
Among many “draftniks,” he was considered the best in the business.
“Mel Kiper Jr. couldn’t hold his jock strap,” said Dan Arkush, PFW’s executive editor. “Nobody attacked this genre the way he did.”
Pure and simple, football and the draft was Buchsbaum’s life. According to Arkush, Buchsbaum didn’t eat and he didn’t sleep, calling at all hours of the night. While his death, ruled to be from natural causes, came as a shock, it wasn’t a complete surprise given his condition.
“He was consumed by what he did,” Arkush said.
Self-conscious about his looks, Buchsbaum immersed himself in a closeted world of football. Arkush said his apartment was jammed with tapes and press guides.
Buchsbaum studied those players religiously, and no facet of their games ever left his encyclopedic brain. Arkush said Buchsbaum had “almost a `Rain Man’ quality to him” with his ability to retrieve seemingly trivial facts. PFW publisher Hub Arkush, Dan’s brother, wrote that if you asked Buchsbaum about the Atlanta Falcons’ fourth pick in 1987, “I’d bet my life that he would have told you everything there was to know about him.”
Buchsbaum’s depth of knowledge impressed NFL executives. He had numerous contacts throughout the league and at many colleges. The level of respect was such that New England coach Bill Belichick and New York Giants owner Wellington Mara attended his funeral. Dan Arkush said San Diego general manager John Butler broke down talking about Buchsbaum for a memorial piece in this week’s PFW.
Buchsbaum always said, “I don’t evaluate players; I listen to the right people.”
Whatever the formula, it worked. Tribune pro football reporter Don Pierson said if you reviewed his annual ratings, Buchsbaum got it right more often than not.
Arkush said Buchsbaum was PFW’s “most valuable asset.” He called him a brother. The weekly’s Web site has been filled with e-mails from fans offering tributes to Buchsbaum.
One of them even suggested he be honored by the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which annually gives the Dick McCann Award to recognize distinguished reporting. Buchsbaum certainly would be one of the most unlikely characters ever to be honored in Canton, Ohio.
Ratings report: Even though both of Saturday’s NFL playoff games were blowouts, they still were winners for ABC. The two wild-card games did the highest ratings on the network in four years.
The Indianapolis-New York Jets game did a 15.1 rating, while the Atlanta-Green Bay game pulled in an 18.4 rating; one ratings point is worth just over 1 million households.
ABC also was a ratings winner with the Fiesta Bowl. The game did an 18.6 rating, up 30 percent from last year’s championship game.
However, the night wasn’t a complete success. Several e-mailers took exception to my Friday column in which I wrote Keith Jackson still is on top of his game. Regrettably, I have to agree they were right.
Jackson did not have a good Fiesta Bowl. He misidentified players and even some plays. It was disappointing to hear a legend like Jackson not measure up. You have to wonder if that was his last “big game.”
Home report: In addition to Sunday night’s Hawks-Detroit game, local fans will get to see three more home games, two on ESPN. On Jan. 15, another Hawks-Detroit game will be carried on Fox Sports Net. ESPN will carry the St. Louis game Jan. 23 and the Boston game March 9.
