We are less than 1 week removed from the 2008 draft and already, some major sports websites are projecting the first round of the 2009 draft, positions selected and players named. Consensus projects that the Super Bowl next year will be Dallas and New England in Tampa. I better go bet the homestead in Vegas . Shit, I had an ARM and I'm about to be foreclosed on. No, not really, I'll continue living in my home after the 09 season as long as I don't assume room temperature along the way, but I wanted to highlight the lunacy which has become the NFL draft.
I've been a football fan as long as I can remember. As any Pre-Madden, Pre-video game world child, I'd just sprint home after the bus dropped me off and my friends and I would play football until the mosquito's and noseeums would eat us alive when the sun set. Those days, (pre-cellphone, pre internet) the 1980's, some now consider retro. RETRO? While in junior high I remember getting my only draft information was selecting a copy of Street and Smith's latest magazine if I went to the grocery store with my mother. Back in the dark ages of the 80's, a copy was 2.95. Ouch.
But now, everything is all about right NOW. Newspapers and magazines are suffering from decreased circulations. By the time the New York Times is printed, their readers can log online and see the updates to the stories which were written hours ago. Now, cell phones (and I thought phone meant it was supposed to be A PHONE) get videos, music downloads, whatever.
So thirty or so years ago, as a football fan, every springtime, I'd look forward to the new draft magazines. I'd read each issue cover to cover and it would introduce me with players from all over the country I've never heard of or seen play. Cable TV in 1978 was not what it is today.
But as cable TV and the Internet expanded exponentially, the need to find more and more "news" expanded. Car chases were the first to become high profile, then any person having a court case which had any celebrity auroa. The OJ case broke reality tv wide open in my opinion.
But, currently, everyone is so amped up about everything. I need information, and I need it right this second. This year during the draft for the Bucs, within seconds of the Bucs making a pick, there was a link to YouTube of the selection doing one thing or another. The video was reviewed and several messages posted already proclaiming the particular pick to be going to the Hall of Fame or being a bust, all of this before the player had ever stepped foot on an NFL playing field.
2008 draft grade are already being handed out by those in the know. On a major media football website, the Bucs are already forecast to be selecting 21st in next years draft, selecting a Left OT, a position of particular concern to the informed writer. It's nice of the writer to concede the NFC South to the Saints after the past draft. But, ah, maybe we can let the regular season play out and worry about next years draft after the Super Bowl? Perhaps the Bucs could be picking #32 next year and all my prognostications will come true and I could become a football pundit too.
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