CHICAGO, IL – That’s it. I’m done. What the NFL Draft has become is no different than the hype leading up to the championship game played on the first Sunday in February – with the name trademarked to the point where it cannot be uttered without infringement. The crescendo of talking heads, former players and management personnel, along with the glut of player highlight reels and critique by draftniks, makes for unwatchable television. I’m sick of the ever changing mock drafts which begin at the conclusion of college bowl games in January and are influenced with another business endeavor, the NFL Scouting Combine.
Thursday programming on the NFL Network had a five hour “2015 NFL Draft Kickoff” show leading into a ninety-minute live telecast of what was called “NFL Draft Gold Carpet” and a rip-off of the red carpet pomp and circumstance synonymous with the Academy Awards. NFL marketing is nauseating to the point of boredom. I don’t watch Sunday pre-game shows, halftime shows, post game highlights, press conferences and the like. If not for the gambling aspect of professional football, I wouldn’t give the sport a second look and even still I don’t watch games as intently as I once did.
Among the many cameras they are placed in war rooms, in the green room behind the stage curtain where first-round prospects hide out until their names are called, and at team headquarters. The hugs and emotions between player and family is the human side of this whole process but is quickly erased by the bro-hugs conducted by Commissioner Roger Goodell and incoming league freshmen whom he will be suspending in an erroneous manner in the near future.
The site of this year’s selection process ended yesterday; the third day of the event in Chicago, where the damn thing lasts longer than some Las Vegas Wedding Chapel marriages. This year’s Draft marks the first one away from New York and will rotate locales from this point forward the same way the Super Bowl changes venues. It is believed that 100,000 people will have attended this year’s draft. I liked the NFL better when it wasn’t the multi-billion dollar business it is now. There was a time when the draft was twelve rounds and was held in a badly paneled hotel conference room and completed in one day even with five extra rounds than today’s version. In my mind and heart the NFL is “on the clock” and time is running out on the sport.
–Rangers fans can exhale [a little] now that the series is tied but Washington and Ovechkin are playing tough.
-The Mets are now 4-6 in their last 10 and can’t score.
-The Yankees and A-Roid are 8-2 in their last 10 and Roidriguez tied Willie Mays in homers.
Oh, and then there was this:
Come back tomorrow for a man that must be on PEDs because he’s so good, West Coast Craig.
