Primetime NFL Draft

3 days of huge men, sitting on couches, holding cell phones and sweating unnecassirlly. 3 days of mastadons of girth surrounded by family and sycophants staring at themselves on tv as we stare at them watching themsleves stare at themselves on tv. HUH?

Yes people, whether you like it or not, hang on to your ass everyone, because Commissioner Goodell, the God of all things NFL has said it is so.

According to published reports; The NFL is making its already popular draft even more television-friendly, moving the first round to Thursday night, into prime time.

Now behemoths who have no degree and very little handle on the art of articulation, will be head to head with Dancing with the stars and you Think you can Dance and Celebrity Dance Party.

Good thing you have Prime Time himself, Deion Sanders to cabbage patch our way through important story lines like 40-times and ability to read defenses.

The 2nd and 3rd rounds will air Friday night, again in prime time. Watch out CSI NY, could be a beat down.

Rounds 4 thru 7 will continue on Saturday afternoon. No primetime for these jock strap toting wanna bees. They’re going up against the Cartoon Network and reruns of Scooby Doo. Rounds 4 through 7 might as well apply for a dishwashing job at the local Bistro.

Rounds 4 through 7; these guys will be lucky to get paid with bologna sandwiches made with Wonder Bread.

So let me break out my abacus. That’s 3 days of non stop predicting, speculating, assessing needs, and quantifying talent. As if two 10-hour-days wasn’t enough? Now we can watch around the clock as ESPN draft guru, Mel Kiper will get more air time than Wolf Blitzer during a Middle Eastern Insurrection. Tom Jackson will pontificate as if he is Nelson Mandella coming out of prison. Chris Berman will bellow like a sweaty furnace with a parsley sprout of hair for 3 more days. He will sweat and his jowels will shake as he pauses only long enough to inhale a room full of oxygen, so that he can bombastically and stridently elocute about 185 defensive backs coming off ACL surgery. JOY!

I love the NFL. I love the draft too. But after the first round, who really gives a crap? Who is the 187th guy drafted from Jerk Off State?

To give the NFL credit; If you have never seen the NFL draft, it is a spectacle. It is held in Radio City Music Hall in NYC. It’s broadcast on ESPN like a presidential inauguration. Football fans pack the rafters dressed in their favorite NFL regalia. They chant and chide and cheer.
They are usually inebriated and stinking of the previous day. Some of these yahoos drag their children to the event, like its a belligerent parenting seminar. You’d find more decorum at an English Soccer match.

Back to the actual draft itself. I watch a lot of college football. I watch sportscenter as if it is sex for the mind. But come on people, after the first ten picks, who the hell are these guys?

Certainly by pick 15 you need a program and a Ouija board to follow the action. You might as well be drafting Russian Ballerinas.

Can you imagine that? Drafting Russina Ballerinas? Sadly I can!

Some over-the-hill, Ukrainian, former Prima Ballerina moves to the podium with a card in her hand. She was once svelte and a modern day MIF. Now she’s flabby and weighing in at a German Beer wench-like 185 pounds.

In a gravely voice she begins to talk. The beer hall goes silent.

“With the 27th pick in the 2010 Bolshoi Ballet draft, The Leningrad Dance Company chooses Marie Camargo.”

The raucous crowd begins to lustily boo. Some throw bottles of Russian vodka at the announcers as the orchestra pit rumbles a funky version of Tchaikovsky.

“That is a reach, Sergei,” one of the announcers says slamming a shot of old school.

“She dances like a cow and farts when she pirouettes,” Prime Time Oventsky laments. “I spit on this choice.”

“Hold on. I like this pick,” The third announcer says, his face dripping with sweat. “She is the great great great great grand daughter of a young ballerina who performed the first entrechat quatre in history. She was an innovator, a magnificent dancer . She performed it during her debut at the Paris Opera with the ballet Les Caracteres de la Danse in 1726. It brought Marie Camargo fame and fortune. As they say in horse racing and cock fighting, it’s all about the lineage.”

“I still don’t like this pick,” the other announcer says, thrusting his sausage sized finger into his hair filled nostril.

Can you imagine Monday Night Ballet? Man would that suck.

So why is the draft moving to primetime?

One word home slice: MONEY!

The NFL draft is more popular than play off hockey. It combines the hopes and dreams for your favorite NFL team with the palpable energy of a newly finished NCAA season.

You wouldn’t think that something so tedious, would be so well received, but ratings are off the hook.

Last year, a total of 39 million viewers watched the draft.

If you had naked Sports Illustrated models baking bread in a kitchen made of latex, you wouldn’t get 39 million viewers.

No!

But somehow, the NFL marketing machine has convinced us that we must watch this retooling. The juggernaut of Madison Avenue says the draft is so freaking special we’ll now air it over 2 prime time nights and a 3rd afternoon.

They may call the NFL the No Fun Leeg, but you know what, they are very very smart.

Too bad Roger Goodell isn’t running GM.