After the most recent Super Bowl – the one in which Patrick Mahomes found a referee who didn’t genuflect in front of him – I enrolled in “Draftnick U.”
I read all the magazines, visited all the websites, watched “Path to the Draft,” tuned in to the NFL Network’s many shows that feature pre-draft “workouts,” pro days and showcases.
And what did I learn? Nothing that I didn’t already know. It was a complete waste of time. And so is all this hullabaloo about who goes where, what round, at what point is it a snub when someone projected to go higher doesn’t, and so forth.
Every time I hear such rhetoric, which is too often, it makes me wonder what the line of demarcation is between bidding for football players and bidding for other human beings, in another era. I guess the only difference, to me, is that the players at least get paid to sacrifice their bodies to America’s need for legalized mayhem on Sunday afternoons.
The thing about the draft is some of these so-called “can’t-miss” kids miss badly. Back in the 1980s, the Patriots drafted a kid out of Texas, Kenneth Sims, who was considered the best defensive lineman on Earth. He was a two-time consensus All-America.
Sims was a bust. First, he was terrible in practice, and his explanation was that he’d show up on game day. That led to a great nickname: “Game Day” Sims.
However, game day arrived and Game Day was just as bad as he was on practice days.
This happens a lot, and not just with the Patriots. These busts crop up all over the league, and a good lot of them are quarterbacks (hello, Heath Schuler). All you have to do is look at Mac Jones.
Then there are the teams themselves – the ones who skew all the mock drafts you see everywhere by making a monumentally stupid, bonehead pick. The Patriots have done that a few times too.
I don’t necessarily blame the teams, or even the kids. The biggest difference between amateur sports and leagues like the NFL is the pressure players face once they’re cashing checks. It’s a different world, with ramped up pressure and almost zero tolerance for mistakes.
I suppose it’s just like playing for the Red Sox, in a baseball-crazy market. Some people are equipped to handle it and some aren’t. And no matter how many psychologists examine a player, there’s no sure way to unlock the mental mysteries of a guy like Irving Fryar, the former Patriot wide receiver who was a one-man disaster before seeing the light and becoming a minister.
So, to all you people who spent their winters hanging on to every syllable the draftnicks uttered (and I lied; I wasn’t one of them), find something else to do next year – perhaps anything up to and including sorting your socks or watching the snow melt.
When you come right down to it, there isn’t much to really know. I can tell you just as well as any “expert” can. The Patriots paved the way to land the best left tackle in the draft when they signed Stefon Diggs over the winter. While they still need people who can catch the football – and another edge rusher wouldn’t hurt – they badly need a left tackle who can plow the field as well as protect quarterback Drake Maye.
See? That wasn’t so tough. I don’t know why it seems so difficult to find one of these guys!
But it goes to show you. You may think you’ve selected the perfect tackle, only to find out that he wilts when he’s put across the line from a fearsome defensive behemoth. He may be able to push guys around on some of these cupcake teams he’s playing in college, but put him up against a real pro and forget it.
And that’s why this is a big waste of time. Let the general managers draft whomever they deem worthy, and let them take the hits when it doesn’t work out. There’s no use for you and me killing our entire winters worrying about it.
This way, we can get a leg up on important college basketball matters, such as “Where is Wofford?”
Let the auction begin.
