Idiots Write About Sports

Everything we need to say about the NFL draft, we said two years ago at another Web site:

In theory, the NFL draft should be eye-glazing, well-nigh unwatchable television — hour after hour of slightly overweight middle-managers and pencil-pushers barking orders into helmet-shaped phones while a parade of increasingly obscure college seniors is trotted up to the podium and handed a baseball cap decorated with the logo of their new employer. Occasionally, we’re treated to an interview with the head coach, who heaps general platitudes upon the young man who he’s just going to wind up cutting after the first week of training camp in August. But mostly, the NFL draft is a mind-numbing string of especially meaningless statistics — 40-yard-dash times mixed with endless reports on intangibles and high ceilings and other draftnik jargon. It’s five minutes worth of action crammed into 17 hours of coverage spread out across two days. Counter-program the draft against the sight of paint drying, and you’d be hard pressed to say which event would make for more compelling television.

I know all this about the NFL draft — the monotony, the tedium, the unending and ultimately fruitless discussions about the merits of selecting a punter from Georgia Tech over a interior lineman from Texas A&M — and yet I cannot turn away. Every now and again on Saturday, I flicked on the TV, flipped over to ESPN just to see if I could get a score or something, and noticed the draft coverage. I’d sit down just to watch a few minutes, and the next thing I knew, a baker’s dozen of picks would fly by, Chris Mortensen and Mel Kiper would be arguing about the wisdom of the Patriots drafting another cornerback, and I’d hear myself saying things like, “What about his 40-yard-dash time? Dear God, how are we supposed to process this information without his 40-yard dash time?”

Post a comment