The Omnibus

Issue date: 4/22/04 Section: Sports

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What more could a person want in a weekend than the experience of scrolling names on the bottom line, big boards, lists of players from colleges no one has ever heard of before, the Mike Williams and Maurice Clarett drama, the Minnesota Vikings being late on their pick and listening to Chris Berman come up with new cheesy nicknames for every player picked. This is the National Football League draft, reality television at its finest. What more could a bored college student want? The opportunity to watch Kansas City Chiefs General Manager Carl Peterson blow another first round draft pick has had me on the edge of my seat for weeks. Last year, it was the Larry Johnson debacle. What will Peterson do with this year's first round pick? Draft a punter? Kicker? Long snapper? Holder? The agony is killing me!

There are actually some serious issues to discuss prior to this year's draft. Both Williams and Clarett are currently on hold for the NFL Draft after the NFL filed a stay that was eventually appealed by Clarett's attorney to the Supreme Court. All of a sudden, the American Government class that I am in is being put to good use. Thanks Southwest Baptist University. If Williams and Clarett are not allowed in the draft, they may end up in the supplemental draft. Supplemental draft? When did this happen? What else is the NFL hiding from us?

There is also the debate over what the San Diego Chargers will do with the first pick in the draft. Will they draft Eli Manning, younger brother of Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, or will they trade down and draft someone else? San Diego has made top picks interesting in years past.  They passed on drafting Peyton Manning and decided to go with Ryan Leaf, who became possibly the biggest draft bust in NFL history. They also decided to skip out on a quarterback named Michael Vick. Here are some words of advice to San Diego: if you want to draft well, do what ESPN draft expert Mel Kiper tells you to do. That way you can blame it on him if the pick is a bust.    

The NFL deserves a lot of credit for being able to take a simple draft and turn it into a life or death situation. Partnered with ESPN, they have made the distribution of athletes entertaining.  ESPN brings flavor by allowing analyst Michael Irvin to wear his Star Trek-looking wardrobe and by creating moving lines with important looking information on them.

In reality, the NFL draft is no different then watching the role call of United States House of Representatives on C-SPAN, and has the intensity of Olympic curling.  Behold, the power of random name calling.

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