What We Learned From Attending the NFL Draft
What did I learn at the NFL draft? So much, really, that it’s hard to encapsulate in one post--because really, I learned what you usually learn from life, which is a whole metric ton of nothing.↵↵I did notice a few things though:↵
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↵↵1. Northeastern Sports Fans Can Turn Anything into a Five Clap Cheer. The five clap cheer ("DE-rek JE-ter, CLAP CLAP CLAP-CLAP-CLAP) may be done with any name ever. The Jets and Giants fans at the draft were turning Wisconsin DB Jack Ikegownu's name into a five-clap refrain. I wanted to make up long, strange Thai names and put them on the screen just to give them a real challenge for once.↵
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↵↵2. I was wrong: something does happen at the draft. People suddenly get more money in their hands than they've ever really thought about having in their lives. On the first day there's a universal look of stupefaction on each draft pick's faces: Oh god I need a banker and my uncle's gonna want some money and what are my taxes gonna be like and that big plasma screen mother at Best Buy is MINE. Their bodies are men's, but a quick look in the eyes reveal a college kid who's just psyched to get the coin to spring for a PS3 now.↵
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↵↵3. The NFL Is Your Freetime Overlord. People drove cross-country for this. Mel Kiper makes a handsome living off this. And in the end, it's little more than the reading of names spliced together with video footage of college football from last season. Yet the beast feeds on it like it's beer-flavored steak nuggets--that's just how hooked the NFL has the nation on pro football. They could schedule a game between the Detroit Lions and the Arizona Cardinals opposite game 7 of the World Series and pull a ratings blowout on baseball. It's not even approximately close. ↵
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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.
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