Kiper said that he approached
Ernie Accorsi, then-assistant general manager of the
Baltimore Colts, with draft reports while still a student in high school. Accorsi told him that there was a market for draft information and suggested that Kiper convert his analysis into a business. The original contract he signed with ESPN in 1984 was for $400. Kiper and fellow draft analyst
Todd McShay were often featured together and compared their mock drafts on ESPN programs. Kiper compiles a "big board", on which he ranks his top 25 players every week. One of the best known moments of Kiper's career was during the
1994 NFL draft, when he butted heads with
Indianapolis Colts general manager Bill Tobin. Kiper, then relatively unknown as an analyst, derided the Colts for passing on
Trent Dilfer after trading up to the fifth pick. Tobin retorted in an interview, "Who the hell is Mel Kiper?" and noted that Kiper has "never put on a
jockstrap." Kiper also remarked at the draft that the Colts were "the laughingstock of the league year in and year out," which a bemused
Chris Berman noted as marking "
a day which will live in infamy." When Tobin died in 2024, Kiper offered condolences on social media.
Accuracy Kiper has received sustained criticism for the low accuracy of his predictions. According to
Cold Hard Football Facts, Kiper's accuracy for the first round of the 2005–2008 NFL drafts was 32 of 127 total picks (25.2%), which included players that had already signed or were in the process of signing with a team before the draft. According to
The Huddle Report in 2014, based on Kiper's final mock drafts, he had accurately predicted 23% of the first round picks in the previous five years. In 2023, Kiper correctly predicted only one of the 31 draftees in the first round despite updating his analysis on the morning of the NFL draft after gathering additional information. ==In other media==