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Bring on the NFL Draft
04/26/06
by Clay
My wife assures me that whether the Tennessee Titans draft Matt Leinart or Vince Young with the third pick of the NFL Draft, it will not change my life one way or the other. I completely disagree. Millions of fans rooting for their own NFL teams across the country also disagree.
Somehow, we have all accepted the fact that the draft itself is must see television. Recently I was even contacted by a company that sells college highlight footage of each team's draft picks. I was this close to hunkering down in front of the television so I could get an early opinion of a seventh round tackle from Kutztown State.
I've been watching the draft since I was a kid. Put another way, it was back in those halcyon days when draft host Chris Berman was still somewhat funny. A couple of years ago, I sat through the entire first and second rounds because the Titans didn't have a draft pick until the end of the second round. Those six hours set a new record for strained laughter and awkward jokes. It was as painful as a road trip with Stephen A. Smith and Carrot Top as companions. But this year, with the Titans' selection likely boiling down to either Vince Young or Matt Leinart, I have to admit, I'm more excited about the NFL Draft than I am about the opening week of NFL games.
A few weeks ago, I said the draft was now the fourth major professional sport after the NBA, Major League Baseball and the NFL. With less than a week until draft day, I am even more convinced of this statement. Is there any doubt more sports fans care about the NFL Draft than the opening playoff games of either the NBA or the NHL combined?
If this draft infatuation continues to grow, Mel Kiper, Jr. is going to be Hillary Rodham Clinton's running mate in 2008. He will be bringing the much sought after, "Men who would otherwise prefer to see Hillary Clinton running overthrown crossing routes into John Lynch" demographic to the ticket.
But why do fans watch the draft? After all, the picks take forever to arise and are steeped in mind-numbing arcana. And the banter ... oh God, the banter. It's like being forced to sit in the dugout with the annoying kid who eats bugs and never plays for eight hours in a row. At times even a huge college football fan like myself has no earthly idea who a first round pick is or where in the world he came from.
For instance, if at any point this season while watching college football you said to yourself, "That outside-linebacker, Thomas Howard from Texas El-Paso, looks like a first round lock," then there's a scouting job waiting for you somewhere. Exceptions to this job offer are for anyone who actually lives in El Paso and for Thomas Howard's mother who also believes, I'm sure, that her son is a lock for the Nobel, the Pulitzer and the U.S. Senate. And this is just the first round.
Throws football like man, baseball like girl
A fun game is how many schools per round can you not place in the correct state once the second day gets rolling. My personal record is six. Yet even with all these limitations, we still watch with rabid attention. Ultimately, I think this is because, like me, you have a genuine faith that the roadmap to your future fandom is being laid out before you and that if you just squint and incline your head to the perfect angle you just might divine whether its course is paved in championship gold or taking detours to the city dump. And when your team drafts a quarterback ... well, your life as a fan really is being decided.
It may take a few years to determine exactly what has transpired, but at some point you end up smiling broadly each time Peyton Manning reaches for the MVP trophy or you inwardly cringe each time Ryan Leaf's flag football league highlights are shown. Put another way, has there even been a newborn child named Tim in Cleveland the past five years? Amazingly, no.
Vince Young refrains from throwing the ADT trophy
Oh, it matters in your life; it most certainly does. With that in mind, I've decided to provide a rough template of how my life and the city of Nashville's life will ultimately transpire depending on whether Matt Leinart or Vince Young is picked by the Tennessee Titans.
If the Titans take Vince Young:
• For the next five years, when asked whether the Titans will beat any team from the defending Super Bowl champions to the San Francisco 49ers I will legitimately be able to answer, "That depends on whether Vince ..."
• Everyone in Nashville will purchase their own "Invinceable" T-shirt which will necessitate a Metro-Nashville school spelling bee invincible exclusion.
• Young's Uncle Rico-esque sidearm throwing motion will become either exhilaratingly unique or infuriatingly annoying depending on the result of each week's game.
• Based on his dance routine and singing on the sidelines during the National Championship game, I will see Vince Young lip-synching while dancing in a Nashville bar. This is because there are about five places that pro athletes go out in Nashville. For the record, Nashville is probably the only NHL city where Predators players get aced out for women by pimply frat boys.
• Young's friendship with Steve McNair will turn into the most over-reported friendship since Leinart started hanging out with Nick Lachey. Closely following these friendship stories will be the inevitable pupil vs. teacher cliché stories which will endure until McNair retires to his farm.
If the Titans take Matt Leinart:
• Every time Matt Leinart is sacked, Titans fans will turn to one another and say, "Vince Young would have gotten away from that blitz."
• Titans wide receiver Drew Bennett will lose every local endorsement deal he already has. That is, if Leinart is even interested in local endorsements.
• No man is ever going to rest easy when his girlfriend says she is going out to Cabana. Trust me, Matt Leinart will live here. They may even construct him a throne.
• Every announcer will think he is breaking new ground by pointing out that Norm Chow was Leinart's offensive coordinator at USC. This repetition is almost reason enough for me to root against him being the pick.
• Leinart chum Alyssa Milano will be in Nashville at some point. This will fulfill one-fourth of my pre-adolescent Milano fantasy in that she will actually be in the city of Nashville. The remainder of this fantasy is unprintable and has been excised to the fantasy dustbin of my premarital life.
But no matter which player the Titans end up selecting (assuming, God forbid, they don't trade down: The anticlimax of any NFL Draft-watching party is the trade down), everybody has a friend who after the first interception is thrown will say, "I knew we should have drafted (insert other quarterback's name here). I told you on draft day."
This same buddy will change his tune 40 or 50 times during the first season until you're uncertain where he stands on every issue but beer (pro) and the movie Brokeback Mountain (con).
Me, I'm sticking my neck out and saying: Take Young. If only because I can't wait to see him singing along to Friends in Low Places while wearing a cowboy hat on a Nashville karaoke stage. Bring on the draft.
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