Drafting

Two posts in one day! You're welcome.

Today is the beginning of the 2012 NFL draft. The draft seems to get bigger and more popular every year, but I grow less and less interested every year. Here are the simple reasons why: None of us will know how well our teams did for three years. What's the biggest deal this season? Andrew Luck, who's sure to be a first-year starter and a very good long-term quarterback. The next biggest deal? Robert Griffin III, who's expected to be almost as good (if not better) than Luck. But where's the drama? We already know when and by whom those two guys will be taken. So, should I really be on the edge of my seat tonight? It's almost like a presidential inauguration without the speech. The guy's already been elected, this just makes it official.

Everyone and their brother now does a mock draft every year. What's funny to me is that no one's ever completely right. Ever. Even guys like Mel Kiper and Todd McShay who make millions are basically (as I've said before) glorified weathermen. In fact, they're worse than weathermen, because whether they're right or wrong doesn't actually matter in the slightest. I remember a couple of years ago when the official draft edition of Sports Illustrated came out. Between the time their official mock draft was written and the time the magazine showed up in mailboxes, the team with the #1 pick had agreed to a deal with the guy they were going to choose... and it wasn't who SI thought they were going to choose! They got the #1 pick wrong! And once that happens, the wheels come off the wagon, because it changes absolutely everything about what teams 2-32 do with their 1st round picks.

So, I just don't get into it. I don't watch a lot of college football. I don't care who Kiper thinks the 2nd and 3rd best offensive tackles in the draft are, and whether my team goes with a lineman or a safety, I'm not going to care until they show me they can play well in the NFL. I don't have cable and will not be watching the draft. My football curiosity might cause me to look up the names of the guys taken in the first round tonight, but other than Luck & Griffin, I won't have really heard of very many of them, and I definitely won't care which team chose whom.