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April 25, 2005
Now for some peace and quiet
Mercifully, the NFL Draft is finally over. If you'll allow me a bit of sportsradio bluster, it is the most overrated weekend in all of sports. The way people carry on, you'd think they were planning the invasion of Iran or something.
Now, I'm not denying that the draft is important for NFL teams, because the right choice can send you to victory, while choosing poorly (as the knight in The Last Crusade would say) can be costly. But do we need the 24/7 media blitz that accompanies the three months between the Super Bowl and the draft? Is it really that interesting?
The end came for me when I was driving this weekend and listening to ESPN on my sexy XM satellite radio, expecting to hear "Pardon the Interruption." But, I was to be sorely disappointed - for instead of PTI, ESPN was having a mock draft with sportswriters who cover the first ten teams picking in the draft. What lunacy! Mock drafts are about the lamest thing this side of the Yazoo River.
Then there's Mel Kiper. This man has made a fortune because he is willing to compile a detailed scouting report on a guy from Altoona College who might make a good 25th round pick. How on earth did he get a job where his sole function is to wonder about the NFL Draft.
Now, I'm usually fine with the draft so long as it doesn't interfere with what I want to do. But that all came crashing down at about 10 pm on Saturday night. I had just gotten home after driving around Lancaster with my mom and little brother looking for ice cream - none was to be found, because Lancaster shuts down at 9 - and I fully expected to be watching the big Chivas vs. LA Galaxy derby.
A derby is a special thing in soccer. In most countries, there's a lot of teams that have their stadiums less than a mile apart. And they've been in that exact same spot for more than a hundred years. Needless to say, when those two teams play each other, things can jump up a few notches. Those games are called derbies, and it's usually the highlight of the year for fans of those teams.
So now, we have one of those in the USA with Chivas and the Galaxy, who share the same stadium out in La-la land. Furthermore, Chivas are an extension of a popular Mexican team, and this American version of the club is targeted purely towards the Mexicans in the LA area. The people running Chivas also think American soccer teams are pure junk, and have stocked the team with almost all players of Hispanice descent. They started the season with tons of confidence that they would run rampant over the Galaxy and all other comers. As you might guess, this game is seen as a microcosm of the whole US/Mexico rivalry.
As I was saying, I tuned onto ESPN at 10 o'clock thinking this game would be on TV. Instead, I was greeted with Mel Kiper's enormous hair. He was discoursing about the guy who had just been the 101st pick, which is to say, not very good. But Mel pressed on, all the way to 11 o'clock. The first three rounds of the draft took 11 hours, and it led to the preemption of an actual sporting event, as opposed to the draft. And then when the draft was done for the day, they took another fifteen minutes to talk about it. The funniest moment was when the last pick of the day, a certain Maurice Clarett, was announced, the affable Chris Berman bleated "this made sitting here until the very end worth it!" No Chris, it didn't. Not one bit. They finally got to the soccer game at 11:15, when it was more than half over. They tape delayed it, so I could see the whole thing. Chivas were ground into a fine powder and lost 3-1, which made me feel pretty good. It was not a good feeling, however, to have to sit through an hour of third round draft coverage instead of what I actually wanted to watch. Gazounds!
Posted by oz115 at April 25, 2005 09:05 AM