NEW YORK—Football personnel analyst and perennial NFL Draft fixture Mel Kiper Jr. woke from a sound sleep Wednesday night with a start and a muted shriek that startled his wife, Kim, whom he told he had dreamt about missing the entire 2008 draft. "I woke up, you know, and looked at the calendar, and it was Monday? And the whole draft was over? And I'd slept through it because I figured it started at 3 p.m. this year instead of noon, so I didn't set an alarm?" Kiper said through chattering teeth while his wife tried to calm him by attempting to stroke his meticulously gelled hair. "But I had worked so hard putting together Mel Kiper's Draft Preview and I was sleepy, you know? So I slept so hard I slept through it and—and—and they had it without me. Without me!" Mrs. Kiper was eventually able to soothe her distraught husband, and the couple passed the rest of the night without incident on the makeshift bed on the steps of Radio City Music Hall, where they spend the time from the end of college football season until Draft Day.