Although I continue not to understand the attraction, the National Football League’s annual draft of players over this past weekend garnered record television ratings.

Meanwhile, Kevin Whited notes that the Houston Chronicle continues to bleed badly in terms of circulation. The local daily posted a staggering 13.77% decline in daily circulation, and a 9.76% decline in Sunday circulation in the latest numbers.

Frankly, the Chronicle’s coverage of the NFL draft is a good case study on why it is losing readers rapidly.

Despite the growing popularity of the draft, the Chronicle’s main sportswriters — John McClain and Richard Justice — serve up cheerleading glop about the Texans’ draft each year even though the local club has been arguably the least successful expansion franchise in NFL history. But for Chron bloggers such as Steph Stradley and Lance Zierlein, there really wouldn’t be anything of substance about the draft to read in the Chronicle. Heck, this breathless Justice column from the other day piece is practically the same as his equally fatuous article about the Texans’ 2007 draft at the time.

As the always-insightful Alan Burge points out, it is silly to evaluate an NFL team’s draft until at least three seasons later because of the nebulous nature of selecting prospects who will turn out to be productive NFL players. And as I noted at the time — the Texans’ 2007 draft was not as impressive as Justice’s flowery evaluation at the time. While Burge is charitable in giving the Texans’ effort a C-minus grade, Justice has yet to realize that his glowing report of Texans management’s performance in the 2007 draft was flat wrong.

Thus, while the Chron continues to run the mailed-in work on popular events, bloggers such as Burge are filling the void with substantive analysis. Consumers eventually notice and gravitate toward the substance and away from the blather.

I wonder whether Chronicle management will notice before it’s too late?