A missed opportunity - Draft Day will only (superficially) entertain those who are already devotees of its subject matter

Rating: 7/10 (17 November 2017)

This film was well-acted and competently shot, but it definitely can't be called a great sports film. Great sports films transcend the sport they portray. At many points, Draft Day finds itself challenged to even transcend the annual event of the NFL draft.
Indeed, at times the film felt like a mere vehicle for promoting the TV extravaganza that the NFL has made of its annual rookie selection process.
I was certainly entertained by the concept and plot, as I'm a fairly engaged NFL fan and an avid follower of the off-season moves that NFL personnel offices make in order to improve their teams. However, I think that this film is entertaining to people like me and no one else, which is unfortunate. There was real human drama and consequence that could have been added to the film if a few of the other characters were better developed. While Costner's character was fairly well fleshed out, Chadwick Boseman's, Dennis Leary's, and most importantly Jennifer Garner's were not, and instead felt like mere placeholders (and at times even sports movie clichés).
In my estimation, the director and writers missed a prime opportunity to show the personal stress and grueling work hours that can accompany the high-profile positions these characters each hold in a multi-billion-dollar industry. A few scenes of how the demands of professional football impact their family relationships and how their lives are seasonally consumed with the work of running the organization (and in the case of Boseman's character, of trying to break into an industry that will batter his body but allow him to acquire wealth and security for his family). The scenes in Draft Day that attempt to touch on these issues are superficial at best, and didn't effectively convey the struggles these people face, even while they are scrutinized and shamed by the general public, and hounded by the media. POSSIBLE SPOILER: the scene that did partially touch on the fan reaction side was so detached as to be comical, with fans protesting outside the stadium of a GM who made a decision they didn't like.
In all, I would call Draft Day a missed opportunity - The script was good, the cast was excellent, and there is a hint of the high stakes that the NFL Draft can encompass, but the movie fails to do anything to get the attention of those who aren't already at least casual fans of the NFL and it's Draft event. And in that, I would say that it even fails in its attempt (and I would argue that this is the real goal of the film in the first place) to attract an expanded viewership to the NFL's Draft Day event. For my part, even as a staunch fan of NFL football and professional sports personnel machinations, I was mostly bored while watching Draft Day.