Graduation

I did it; I watched the NFL Draft.

I know I said I wouldn’t, but I did.Why should I be surprised? I mean I knew I would. I watch it every year despite how boring it is. And for the second time in modern history I did not even have the excuse that my team was only just a few picks away.

What? You say the draft has not occurred yet? So what? Really, come on. I know I’m going to watch it; I know I’m going to give it my full intention; I know I’m going to hit myself on the head Monday morning asking why I wasted my entire weekend watching it.

But no matter what I say or think or plan to do now, there is no hope. If there is a family emergency I’ll fly jetBlue. If the ESPN signal gets blocked out I’ll turn on the Sirius Radio. If the apocalypse comes I’ll make sure I get in the back of the line to get into heaven so that I can at least watch the TV.

That is how you know you are a diehard football fan. I know it is sad, but it is true.

Only a diehard football fan would sit down at his computer three days before the draft and complain that he would watch the draft. Don’t argue. The wife of a diehard calls her friends to complain but does not use the internet.

And worst of all, the NFL has turned the most boring trap of the year into another moneymaking megablock.

Because of rifts with Cablevision (for those who don’t live in New York this is as common as a Republican carrying Utah) the NFL has pulled the draft out of MSG and now will sell it annually around the country to the site with the highest bidder.

Just what the NFL needs, more money.

But it really does not matter where the draft is held; I will still watch it. I don’t care that the Falcons don’t have a pick until 29, or in layman’s terms fourteen shifts and a baby’s nap. Or that is what it will feel like watching Arizona and Cincinnati and Minnesota and Kansas City draft. I won’t care at all but I will care. It is what the NFL makes each of its diehards do.

Let me take that back.

I am NOT an NFL diehard but rather I am a football diehard. I guess I’m just a college football diehard. So I guess that is why I like the draft in this weird and demented way.

No, scratch that again.

That is why I watch the NFL draft. I guess I just want to see the players I have watched for four (or three and soon or two or one or zero) years for one more time before they go off into the oblivion known as the NFL. The NFL is boring and so is the draft, but it is the college football that makes it worthwhile.

I would not watch the NFL on Sundays if it were not for the office pool and watching Shane Matthews come out of nowhere and return to his old Florida days in leading the Bears to a stunning comeback. Nothing beats watching Emmitt Smith run over defenses. I guess it is nostalgia.

But either way, the NFL Draft for college diehards like myself is like a graduation that is not your own. It is boring since you are not participating, but everyone who goes by you feel like you know. You are going to miss him as he graduates to Sundays, but your life will go on. It is only the NFL player draft. You don’t want to see it, but you are obliged.

So there is no point in waiting until Monday to write this article. I had the time now and why waste it then? I’ll have better things to write about on Monday.

But today the NFL Draft sticks in my mind and my responsibility to watch it.

Maybe I won’t watch it this year….

Nah.