The NFL Draft is this weekend, and ESPN is entering their 57th day of intense, round-the-clock coverage of the draft. I have one simple thing to say to them: Stop. You're hurting America.
This isn't even a real sports story-- this is a fantasy sports story. This is like college basketball recruiting, only even less interesting-- half of the guys who go in the first round won't pan out, and half of the superstars of tomorrow will be little-regarded sixth-round picks who go on to win multiple Super Bowl MVP awards. The draft is meaningful only in the spherical, frictionless, eleven-dimensional reality in which all of these players play exactly as well in the pros as they did in college. People who live in the real world know that meaningful football doesn't happen before September.
The extended wall-to-wall NFL draft coverage is stupid, and annoying. Every time I see Mel Kiper and his magnificent plastic pompadour (which I'm sure snaps onto his head in a single piece, like a Lego guy), I come a little bit closer to wishing for death. (Whose death, it's hard to say...)
Please stop. Just say no to this fantasy football nonsense. Cover some actual sports for once (and no, paintball doesn't count). There's methadone basketball being played, and hockey, and baseball, and the World Cup is coming up in soccer, and I'm sure they're playing rugby somewhere. Hell if you started to cover cricket, that would be an improvement over further speculation about what the Baltimore Ravens are going to do with the thirteenth pick in the first round.
Just stop.
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I'm working part-time while recovering from surgery, and am therefore watching a fair bit of TV while lying on my back. And after sitting through about 45 minutes of that crap, I've made the amazing discovery that there are other channels on my cable box than ESPN!
They may not be hurting America, but I can't imagine they're not hurting their ratings. I expected a significant portion of my TV-watching time to be spent on their station ...
They've certainly lost a lot of rating share from me. I still watch PTI, just because I find Kornheiser and Wilbon entertaining, but I've stopped using SportsCenter as random background noise, because whenever I notice what's on, it's NFL draft crap.
Really, the space alien shows on the History Channel are much more entertaining.
You're just saying that because the Giants aren't picking until 25.
I'm surprise by the disparity in coverage between the NHL playoffs and the NFL draft. Not only are there actual hockey games to report on, they are meaningful playoff games. Yet SportsCenter spends more time covering the draft than the NHL.
One upside (every player has some upside, right?): Mike and Mike will be doing the draft coverage on ESPN radio on Saturday, so that could be fun to listen to. I switched my weekday morning background noise from SportsCenter to Mike and Mike (previously on ESPNEWS, now simulcast on ESPN2) a long time ago.
Chad - You need to check out the draft coverage on thebrushback.com.... A great perspective on the NFL draft.
You're just saying that because the Giants aren't picking until 25.
That, and because they're going to draft a running back, because that's what they do every year.
It was draft commentary on Mike and Mike that prompted this post, actually, on the radio as I was headed in to work. Even their generally pretty good shtick can't get me past the fact that the whole draft-day thing is just statistical masturbation. If I wanted statistical masturbation, I'd be a baseball fan.
Chad - I apologize for thebrushback.com reference - There is NO NFL DRAFT ISSUE! I don't know what the heck I was thinking - Don't ever get old, becasue I swera I saw this! Oh well... Sorry man
The draft is serious sports the way American Idol is serious music. It's serious because they get ratings :-) .