Sunday, February 8, 2009

Romanticism in the NFL


TRUE fans don't sleep the night before the NFL draft. They clutch their pillows, turn on the night light and cry like babies in the fear that their favorite NFL team will not choose the right college superstar. They live in fear of the "Ki-Jana Carter" pick of 1995. They dream of the "Payton Manning" pick of 1998. They anxiously await for Tim Tebow to graduate in 2010. TRUE fans know who to take in the first, second, and last round of the draft. Even if they end up Ryan Leaf (never heard of him? Exactly.)
Come on sports fans! If anything, NFL history has taught us that your ranking in the draft means nothing. Ray Lewis got drafted as the 26th pick in the first round. I can think of plenty of teams that need him right now (like the Detroit LetDowns, I mean, Lions). The hype of the NFL draft is simply too much. People live and die on these choices, yet they rarely make much of a difference. ESPN dedicates it's entire day of programming to the NFL draft. Granted, Payton and Eli Manning did go as first-round picks, but do you know who else did? Akili Smith and Mike Junkin (irony included in their names). The draft gets so romanticised that people hang on every moment it and go to bed feeling like their sky has fallen. We, as human beings, need to step back and realize that the draft is simply an event. The only thing that matters is the score of the game. All TRUE fans know that.

(The picture is of the all-time bust of a draft pick, Ki-Jana Carter
)

1 comment:

Jonny S said...

It's interesting how people get so intense about this draft.I guess the reasoning behind their romanticism is that they've romanticized the sport itself. Yeah football is da bomb! But people become SO passionate about it and devote their life to the sport. Romanticism can often be about taking something good like football, and completely losing yourself in it.