The Draft

Let's be honest. You only care about the draft because the sports media tells you to.

For owners, GMs, and coaches, the draft is a HUGE deal that takes an insane amount of preparation, meetings, holding workouts, watching film, and much much more. It's extremely important that scouts and big-wigs for every team are being tremendously diligent in draft preparation.

But for fans? I can't figure out why we have any reason to care as much as we apparently do. I'm supposed to get all hyped-up about who the Cowboys are going to take with their #27 pick. Yes, it matters, but no one will have any idea how good of a pick it was for at least 2-3 years. Maybe longer.

Will Tebow go in the first round? It matters to him, because it will affect the amount of money he gets paid. It matters to me if the Cowboys pick him (they won't), because then he's on my team and I'll be cheering for him for at least the next few years. What round he's taken in makes ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE to me.

Whether or not the Redskins draft a tackle or a quarterback makes ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE to me at this point.

I haven't looked up stats on this, but there's gotta be something close to a 50% bust rate for 1st-rounders. Top-picked quarterbacks are awful or at least non-factors as often as not. Same with receivers and running backs. Maybe offensive tackles have a higher success rate, and that's definitely one of the most important positions on the field, do you really get amped up about which tackle your team might take? One of the best quarterbacks in the history of the game (Tom Brady) was chosen 199th, and wasn't listed on anyone's "mock" drafts.

I dunno. These are merely annoyed ramblings with (obviously) no real cohesive rhetorical strategy. And I'll probably watch at least a few minutes of the draft tonight and tomorrow. But I'm not going to jump up and down no matter who takes whom or when. I remember watching Cardinals fans at Radio City Music Hall going hogwild when Matt Leinart was chosen a few years ago. And what's he accomplished on the field so far? Very little. In fact, it was a guy nobody was too excited about (Kurt Warner) who led that team to a Super Bowl while Leinart sat on the bench. Eh.