As a general rule, I'm all for drafts. Fantasy football drafts with my friends mark some of the best times of the year, drafts allow me to proofread my papers, and I even enjoy the occasional draft of wind on a hot summer day. If I were old enough to drink, I'm sure draft beer would be delicious. Logic would follow, then, that the NFL Draft, beginning this Thursday, will be an absolute delight for me.
Not quite.
Starting later this week, ESPN and the NFL Network will trot out three consecutive days of draft coverage with 38 hours of mind−numbing boringness with the occasional college football player trotting on stage to put a hat on. Maybe Tim Tebow will walk on water, maybe Ndamukong Suh will punch a bear, and maybe Myron Rolle will cure cancer. Other than that, though, I'm not totally invested in this.
Ever since I was younger, I've tuned into the draft every single year. It was a great excuse to put homework aside for a few hours, eat a couple bags of Tostitos and watch the future stars of the NFL — and potential picks on my fantasy team, because that's all the NFL is really good for anyway — go to their new teams.
On paper, it's exciting. Put the greatest college football players on the planet in one room with the flashbulbs popping, angry fans cheering and Chris Berman yelling, and determine their future for them. But the draft just makes me want to fall asleep.
I know what you're going to say. I'm just complaining too much and I just shouldn't tune in. It's a broken concept in my mind, though, and it should be fixed to make it more appealing to viewers. After all, isn't that the whole point of televising the selection process?
At least they are trying. With the first round in primetime on Thursday, both networks will have red−carpet shows for celebrities entering Radio City Music Hall in an attempt to turn it into the sports version of the Oscars. Oh wait, aren't those the ESPYs?
ESPN producer Jay Rothman was quoted as saying that there was a strong effort by the league to add "more glam" to the broadcast. Whether or not that's an abbreviation for glamorous remains to be seen, but at least they have the right intentions. But is the solution to make the draft more exciting — sorry, to give it more "glam" — really to double the draft coverage to 38 hours and extend it over three days?
I love the idea of having cameras in teams' war rooms, and extending the coverage to include the homes of at least 25 potential draftees will give the evenings a Selection Sunday−type feel. But why move it to Thursday? If any round will be thrilling — and believe me, I'm using that in an incredibly relative sense of the word — it will be the first round. In 2007, the first 32 picks took over six hours. And they expect people who have work the next day to stay up until 3 a.m. until the New Orleans Saints finally pick to close out the round? Please.
What was so wrong with the original format of the first three rounds on Saturday and then the final four on Sunday? Even if a casual fan wants to tune into the first two rounds to see the top talent crawl off the board, he or she has to split that over two days.
Picture this: There's a big lecture class on campus of 200 kids, of which about half fall asleep on a regular basis. So the teacher comes up with a solution to make the class more exciting: He'll make it an hour longer, but in exchange, he'll play one YouTube.com video and wear a fancy suit. Does the extra glamour and glitter make up for the added length? Probably not. So why do it with the NFL?
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Alex Prewitt is a sophomore majoring in English and religion. He can be reached at Alexander.Prewitt@tufts.edu.
