The Arbitrary ChuckJerry

The answer, of course, is the NFL draft. I mean, outside of the executives and so forth, and people involved with the league, there really isn't anyone who should care so much about this draft in any year. The only reason people are even remotely interested in it is because ESPN et. al. hype this thing like it was the April version of the Super Bowl. The draft hype is really inescapable for even a casual sports fan. It's not possible to watch PTI or SportsCenter (or any of those other similar shows) in the month before the draft without having to listen to this stuff. The SportsCenter thing where they spend at least 5 minutes per team putting each team "on the clock" has been going on for at least 16 days given the 32 teams and two teams a day. It's just asinine in my opinion.

It's not possible for any football fan to know about all the draft picks beyond the 5 or 6 best guys. Of course you're interested in who your team drafted, but shit, read about it in the paper the next day. Wait for SportsCenter to come on. Is anyone watching the NFL draft from 12 noon until 10pm, because that's how long it's on television today? There's also coverage tomorrow on some ESPN iteration of the later rounds. This is just more self important than anything I can think of.

On a related note, I was really hoping that the Jets would pick Matt Leinart. The guy they picked, D'Brickashaw Ferguson, aside from having one of the best names ever, apostrophe and all, is by all accounts going to be a great tackle and will protect whatever QB the Jets have back there for a while to come. Really, though, to pass on Matt Leinart when he falls into your lap is unreal to me. You're always taking a chance on a QB, but this guy is as close as you can get to a sure thing since Peyton Manning (and Ryan Leaf?).

This really speaks to my point, however. Obviously the guys who are in charge of the Jets know a lot more about football than I do, and they think that D'Brickashaw was the way to go. Has anyone outside of a real tight football circle even heard of D'Brickashaw Ferguson before a week ago? The only three guys I could name with certainty in the draft this year were Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, and Vince Young. The first overall pick, Mario Williams, I had never heard of before maybe 3 or 4 days ago. This guy is the best availbable guy, and I've never heard of him because he's not a QB, RB, or WR.

My opinion aside, if I was Matt Leinart I would be ecstatic today after being given the chance to throw to Anquan Boldin, Larry Fitzgerald, and Edgerrin James, and stay relatively close to LA in Phoenix. The Cardinals now have all the flashy guys in place to make some noise in the league and are just an offensive line and a defense away from contending. Yes, I realize that's the understatement of the century.