Last time out, we were feeling the love for my youngest daughter's Facebook gripe over Jake Delhomme's new contract. Now it's my oldest daughter's turn. Spawn 1, a 2007 South Carolina graduate, was volunteering at a face painting booth during the recent annual spring festival here when a local sprout stepped up and asked for a Clemson Tiger paw. Sorry, she said ... Hold on, I have to collect myself here ... Sorry, little man, she said, this brush only paints Gamecocks. Attagirl.
Well, the annual NFL Meat Market is over and every single team is furiously patting themselves on the back for their A++ draft hauls. Happens every year ... Oh, we got just the guy we wanted. We were surprised he fell this far. Our scouts had him rated much higher than where we picked him. We just wanted the best player available and that's what we got, a football player. This guy loves the game of football. We feel very lucky to have him. No question we're a better team now.
And now for the translation ... Sigh, what we really wanted was the guy taken two spots before us. The reason he fell this far is he can't bench press a flower box. The only tape our scouts had on him was the Duke game and hell, everybody looks great against them. Yeah, he loves football but his agent promised he'll start hating it real soon unless our offer improves. We're very lucky his probation officer is a season ticket holder. And our team better be better or next year we'll all be gone.
My late father was the first man I knew who devoted his entire day to tracking the NFL Draft. This was back in the early 80's when ESPN was still young and desperate. Mr Work Ethic himself actually called in sick just so he could watch every pick in every round. Have to admit, I didn't get it. I honestly thought the man had burned a few heat shields during re-entry. As it turns out, he was years ahead of his time ...
And so on Saturday at 4:00pm when the Commish took his first trip to the podium, in honor of my dad's remarkable foresight, I had the following tools lit up and running ... On the tube: ESPN, the Mother Ship. On the laptop: ESPN.com's Draft Tracker, ProFootballTalk's Live Blog and PFT's Twitter Feed. And finally on the cell phone: NFL Mobile Live. And no, I still can't figure out why the Raiders took Darrius Heyward-Bey with the No. 7 overall pick.
See ya next time.
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Glad to have you back. You almost make me wanna be a sports fan.
ReplyDeleteDas Redneck Genius