You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Taping the NFL draft.
“Nobody tell me anything, I’m taping it.”
People look at me in the newsroom like I’m crazy or stupid or both.
“I don’t wanna know how it ends!” I scream sticking my fingers in my ears.
“AAAARRRGGGHHHH!”
I hear a groan go up from the producer station.
“I can’t believe they picked that guy!” an editor howls taking off his ball cap scratching his head.
I want to scream what happened? What just happened. Who took who?
It’s like a train crash I could watch, I want to watch, but I choose to turn away.
“Don’t tell me anything. I’m taping the draft.”
This is so hard. I wanted to call in sick, and watch. I wanted to cozy up to my couch with a beer and absorb the fireworks of talk and pontificating.
But instead? I’m at work, the night shift.
I’m missing the talk the discussion the names that practically make no sense.
Why do I care? Why does anyone care?
Why is Radio City Music Hall full of people wearing uniforms from all over the country.
Clowney. Clowney. Clowney.
The NFL draft to me is alluring. It’s crack. It’s an Asian call girl on the Pacific Rim.
The draft is johnny football and Radio City Music Hall and Mel’s Best picks.
The NFL draft is being on the clock and trading up and trading down.
I’m taping it. Don’t tell me who got picked.
“The Cowboys just took….”
“Arrgghhh!” I stick my fingers in my ears.
“I’m taping the draft! Don’t tell me anything.”
I walk away.
For me the NFL draft is the Oscars. It’s the red carpet, it’s Angelina Jolie standing there, flash bulbs popping, red lips swelling with Hollywood swagger. She is wearing a red dress with a slit in her skirt that goes all the way up.
VA VA VA BOOM!
AND THE PICK IS IN.
I walk away from the monitors, trying to show restraint.
I’m in a TV newsroom. There are TV monitors everywhere. Thank God I have the visual salvation of Wife Swap and Hanibal to watch.
I avert my gaze from ESPN.
“Don’t tell me anything. I’m taping the draft.”
The editors are laughing at me. The draft is on 5 monitors. They are not working like Bourbon Street Hobos. They should be cutting video. They are yelling and pointing and scratching their heads.
Just calm down, I think to myself. Don’t sweat it. You’ll watch it later on DVR.
I am pacing like an expectant father without cigars or sweat stains under my arms.
I love the draft. As I wear a hole in the carpet, I wonder, what is it about the NFL draft.
With the 1st pick in the 2014 NFL draft, the Houston Texans pick, Jadeveon Clowney, DE, South Carolina.
I don’t know why I love the draft.
It’s stats and forty times and reps on the bench press.
Why does anyone watch? Why am I considering faking my own death to go home and watch.
Can I just fall down on the floor and fake a seizure? If I gurgle alka seltzer from my mouth like I have some kind of monkey virus will they send me to the hospital?
I’ll go if the E.R. is on ESPN.
Why do we watch?
I can’t be alone, am I?
The NFL isn’t stupid. They put the draft on prime time and they talk about it hour after hour like it’s the 2nd coming.
I had a friend say; “I don’t get the draft. Is it for every player? Will all the Titans be drafted?”
That’s when I understood that it’s complicated, and not for everyone.
The discussion at the afternoon news meeting turned to the Titans and the draft. The men started arguing about moving down and moving up and needs on defense.
The girls started talking about bridal showers and hand towels that bring out a floral pattern in a powder room.
Bam.
It was like the Mason Dixon line. Men. Football. Draft.
Women? Draft? Who Cares?
But I am a man and I love the NFL and I am jittery.
“Don’t tell me who drafted whom,” I scream walking through the newsroom.
The draft should be a ratings corpse where HUT levels go to die.
Instead, it’s a celebration of all things grid iron.
It’s visually exhilarating and mentally compelling.
ESPN does the draft like NASCAR does Talladega.
It’s cameras and angles and stats and up closes and personal interviews and all in your face all access all the time.
Nothing exceeds like NFL excess.
Is Johnny football tall enough? Can he learn to stay in the pocket and throw through lanes in his offensive line? Can he be taught proper mechanics?
There is a shriek in the newsroom right before air time.
“What? did a plane crash?,” I ask.
“Manziel to Cleveland,” the editor shouts. “His career is over.”
“AAARRRGGGHHHH. I’m taping the draft, don’t tell me anything.”
Cleveland I think? Will he go to Northern Ohio to die a horrible death. Will he scramble into the waiting arms of a menaical linebacker only to fumble in the snow? Will he be brained with a frozen dog bone to the head and run out of the city on a Johnny football rail?
Manziel-speak is intoxicating to me. It’s like Channel No. 5 on a Victoria Secret model.
Soccer may be the perfect game around the globe, but here in the USA, NFL is king.
The Superbowl ended 3 months ago, and for the next 2 days, what a couple of 20-year-old kids do with the next part of their lives will take center stage.
The basketball playoffs are in full swing. It’s the 2nd round. Superstars like Lebron and KG are on display.
After their games. The press asks them not about the playoff game they just played, they ask about the NFL draft.
Other sports? Nobody cares.
I love Boomer and Ray Ray and Chuckie and Mel Kiper.
These prognosticators of impact and full motion Grid Iron insanity sit there with phone book sized stacks of stuff in front of them and theorize who will go where and who will rise and who will fall.
Is he lazy? Does he get off the ball? Can you play the nickle?
Whew! Pass the mouthwash. Guzzle. Rinse. Spit.
They make it all sound so complicated like some kind of grid iron nuclear physics.
I love this pick. I hate this pick.
Adam Schefter what do we know?
NFL Draft. An American TV event.
Why? I don’t know.
“Don’t tell me anything. I’m taping it.”
Life’s Crazy™