My 100 favorite collectibles ... No. 97: Joel Buchsbaum PFW draft guides
- Mark Potash
- 2 hours ago
- 2 min read
NFL draft savant Joel Buchsbaum was the nerd's nerd. He looked the part, sounded the part and played the part. He was as reclusive as he was brilliant, with an encyclopedic recall of NFL draft prospects — the only thing I ever heard him talk about. His cramped apartment in Brooklyn was part of his legend. When he first started writing for Pro Football Weekly, they say he submitted his copy in longhand — he did not have a computer — and I believe it.
I first heard Buchsbaum on his weekly appearances on KMOX radio in St. Louis around 1980 — they called him "Joel Bush-baum" and he never corrected them — he was that kind of guy. And brilliant Buchsbaum was, with an amazing ability to provide immediate detailed run-downs of any prospect in the draft. He was Mel Kiper before Mel Kiper, only better. He was Google before Google, only faster.
Pro Football Weekly started publishing Buchsbaum's scouting reports on NFL draft prospects as the "Scout's Notebook" in 1979 and he continued to write that draft guide annually until his untimely death from natural causes at 48 in 2002. His last PFW draft guide was published in 2003. PFW's Nolan Nawrocki ably filled Buchsbaum's role in writing the draft guide through 2017. It was still high quality and reliable. But there was only one Joel Buchsbaum.
Those draft guides are a great resource of information on NFL prospects, like Joe Montana ("Extremely tough and shows excellent leadership qualities") and Tom Brady ("Very poised and composed. Smart and alert. Can read coverages. Good accuracy and touch. Produces in big spots and in big games.").
I'm pretty sure this is the entire run of PFW draft guides and I'm told there are only three people who have the entire set. of Buchsbaum guides — Bill Belichick (a big Buchsbaum fan who reportedly tried to hire Joel on several occasions), Pro Football Weekly publisher Hub Arkush, and me. That's probably not true, so if you have a full set, let me know.
