He wanted to be Mel Kiper. Now, MO man will share ESPN NFL Draft stage with him in KC

When Matt Miller’s sophomore-year English Composition teacher asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, the Liberal, Missouri native gave the only honest answer he knew.

“I want to be Mel Kiper,” Miller said.

“I don’t know what that is,” his teacher replied.

Miller, 39, laughs about that 23-year-old exchange now. Growing up in a town of about 700 people in southwest Missouri, he could understand if not everyone knew about ESPN’s longtime NFL Draft analyst Kiper — especially because the draft didn’t have the hoopla it does today.

That specific memory has also been on Miller’s mind lately as he prepares for the most significant moment of his professional life.

Miller — a Joplin resident and longtime NFL Draft scout — will be an ESPN on-air draft day analyst for the first time this year, the network announced Monday. That means he’ll share a stage at Union Station in Kansas City for rounds 4-7 Saturday with ESPN’s Rece Davis, Todd McShay and Louis Riddick.

And also Kiper as well.

“To me, it’s like it would be getting pulled on stage to play rhythm guitar with your heroes playing right beside you,” Miller said. “Growing up, being obsessed with everything Mel Kiper had to say, and now sitting beside him is surreal.”

Miller’s most significant professional achievement arrived only after dedicating himself — for years — to this niche part of the NFL season.

When he was growing up, the only time Miller missed Sunday church services was draft weekend; he used all of his family’s printer paper to make up his own mock drafts while following along with ESPN’s coverage at home.

When his dream of becoming a professional football player faded — he struggled to secure playing time at his small Missouri high school — Miller soon became obsessed with thinking more like a coach. He read mock drafts and joined message boards, starting to write for the website NFL Draft Blitz as a high school senior.

At first, it was just a hobby. Miller went to school to become an emergency medical technician and later held a marketing job, with both careers allowing him the time to write (for free) about the NFL Draft on the side.

It eventually led Miller to Bleacher Report in November 2010. The site advertised a writing gig on journalismjobs.com, not promising a paycheck but instead saying it could provide a vast audience. It also only required its authors to have experience instead of a journalism degree — and Miller qualified given his frequent posts and the fact he’d earned brief previous gigs as a minor-league football scout and assistant coach.

“We found each other,” Miller said of Bleacher Report, “at the perfect time.”

A few months after — in May 2011 — Miller took the full-time plunge while getting his biggest professional break.

He’d grown tired of his marketing job, so he walked into his boss’ office to give his two-week notice to pursue draft writing fully. After returning to his desk, he shared the news on Twitter with his friends and followers.

Dylan MacNamara, who initially hired Miller at Bleacher Report, called him that day. Did you really quit your job? Let me call you back.

Shortly after, MacNamara and Bleacher Report offered Miller $10,000 more than he made at his marketing job to become an NFL Draft analyst.

“I was freaking out, like, ‘What just happened to me?’” Miller said. “’How did I just quit a job I don’t like and get a raise at the same time?’”

The partnership lasted a decade. Miller remained with Bleacher Report — he has so much respect for the company that he often still uses the term “we” while referencing it — before he decided not to renew his contract in 2020.

At that point, he shared some messages with ESPN’s Seth Markman, telling him he didn’t need a full-time job but just wanted an opportunity to prove he could be an NFL Draft analyst on television.

“I think he probably thought I was insane when I said that,” Miller said, “but it worked.”

Markman brought Miller on as an ESPN draft contributor in 2021. The following year, Miller was hired by the company as a “multi-platform contributor for its year-round draft coverage.”

The NFL Draft in KC will be Miller’s first time doing live on-air coverage directly from the draft’s location.

And it also will come just 150 miles north of Miller’s home in Joplin.

“It’s wild,” Miller said. “Even though I didn’t grow up in Kansas City, every sports memory I have is in Kansas City.”

The first MLB game he attended, for instance, was at Kauffman Stadium. His first NFL game was at Arrowhead, too, when the Chiefs faced the Jets a few years back.

Miller said he’s excited now for the rest of the country to see how great KC is as a sports town.

And as for his own ambitions in his live ESPN NFL Draft debut? Miller jokes that one of his primary goals is to avoid messing up, especially given how long he’s dreamed of this opportunity.

He’ll be plenty prepared, though. Miller says the research can often be “never-ending” with draft coverage, as he initially started evaluating 700 players in this 2023 draft class.

His final ranked list at ESPN includes 368 prospects, and he admits this time of year often requires 16-hour work days.

“I think my hope is that the information I bring, people will enjoy my spin on it,” Miller said. “And hopefully, it becomes something bigger.”

As for the hometown team ... Miller said he believes the Chiefs could look to either offensive line or receiver with their first-round pick at 31.

A few years ago, Miller remembers being told that there were two things Chiefs general manager Brett Veach would never let happen: He’d never let quarterback Patrick Mahomes go unprotected, and he’d never let Mahomes be short on offensive weapons.

“So I tend to look at ... the offensive line’s pretty dang good, left tackle to right guard. So I wouldn’t be shocked if there’s a right tackle there,” Miller said. “But I also think wide receiver, it makes a ton of sense. There’s not gonna be a lot drafted early in the first round. They’re gonna probably be in the late teens to 20s. So if one of those receivers were to slip, especially if somebody with a little more size than what they have right now, like Quentin Johnston from TCU is the one I keep thinking of, I think that’d be awesome.

“But Veach drafted a running back the (previous) time they won a Super Bowl, so you can’t pin him down as to what they’re going to do.”