Overhyped, useless or greatest day ever: NFL Draft Day

This yrs #1 pick Andrew Luck

Read the headline again.

Think about it.

And read what I'm about to say before you pass judgement.

The NFL Draft is the 2nd most overhyped, over-produced event in all of football.

Number 1: College Signing Day.

Yeah, sure, my NFL crazed friends are already saying: "You are out of your mind". "Draft day should be a holiday". "It's the best 'non-NFL' gameday of the year".

And to that I say this: Prove it.

Between the 812,972 different people doing their "Mock Drafts" and the 712 incarnations of Mel Kiper Jr. (who pretty much shouldn't exist if this event wasn't made to be so big); the event (draft day) has become a parody of itself.

And yes, despite the railing about NFL Owner Welfare (stadium building), the railing about the inanity of this event, I enjoy my NFL Football (and no it isn't because my Dolphins wouldn't know a good draft pick if it fell on top of Jeff Ireland's head).

Really, it isn't even about the "Restocking" of your favorite team. Because that restocking needs to be done. But rather my aggravation and lack of interest in feeding the machine.

That machine gets cranked up immediately after the Super Bowl. Our friends at the 4-letter word (ESPN), are the biggest offenders, feeding us a daily dose of Kiper and Todd McShay arguing and debating over the upside and measureables of 22-year old men.

It gets worse when the NFL Network gives us non-stop, breathless coverage of the combine. That same combine where NFL Scouts drool over the same 22-year olds in their underwear, not looking for the best football player, but rather the biggest and best looking player who can excel in the tests.

What the slobbering scouts and the fans without lives always seem to forget is that the draft is an incredibly inexact science. You can make a guess how a 22-year old will adjust to the NFL, but you never know for sure. For every Peyton Manning and Calvin\ Johnson, there is a Ryan Leaf or Akili Smith or Mike Mamula.

You just don't know.

But that isn't going to stop the masses from watching, from slobbering and from criticizing their teams. And really, it shouldn't.

But don't judge what they do. Don't judge the players before they play. You can't. Because until they lineup on the field and square off against the 32-year old, 10-year vet who is just as big, fast and strong as they are, you don't know how well they will perform.

And neither do they.

I cannot think of a more appropriate video accompaniment on multiple levels.