Is There A Draft In Here? (NOT YET, And That's The Problem!)

There are almost two full months left until the NFL Draft, which means about 60 more days of mocks and conjecture and theories and smokescreens and ... I don't think I can take it. Seriously.

It seems worse this year than any other, the pre-Draft hype. For the amount of coverage it's being afforded, you'd think it was happening tomorrow. Or right now.

Back in the early 1980s, when ESPN decided to provide blow-by-blow coverage of the Draft, the network was scoffed at.

"They said it would be as exciting as opening a telephone book and reading it," longtime anchor Chris Berman once said in a documentary about the history of sports on television.

Now, in a fit of irony, the network has fueled a rage that makes me long for some telephone book reading.

I just can't stomach anymore Draft talk, here in late February. Almost makes me want to switch over to some more Anna Nicole Smith coverage.

The posturing and "press conferences" at the combines in Indianapolis would best be done, I believe, about a week or so before the actual Draft. A little of gamesmanship thru the media is OK by me, but not when the actual event is two months out. Then again, I'm all for one week between the conference championships and the Super Bowl, so you know where I'm coming from here.

What's the use of so much coverage? Granted, this is a sort of dead time in sports, with March Madness not here yet, and the NBA and NHL playoffs still weeks away. But the daily updates on which quarterback leapfrogged the other, or whether there's in-fighting amongst the Lions braintrust (THERE's an oxymoron for you) about who to select, or if Joe Thomas suffered a hangnail today -- it's starting to get on my nerves.

OK, then, Eno, don't listen to it. Don't read it. And what are you doing right now?? You're WRITING about it!

I'd love to not listen to it, and not read about it, and not write about it anymore, until it's actually upon us, but ... how do you suggest I do that? I mean, other than stay in bed with the sheets pulled over me?

NFL Draft coverage is everywhere right now. I think I saw Bill O'Reilly and Lou Dobbs talking about it the other day. Maybe not. But you get the drift.

Enough. I'm all Drafted out.

So how do I get through these next sixty days without stabbing knitting needles into my eyeballs? Without running a cheese grater over my tongue? Without ... turning to more Anna Nicole Smith coverage?

Help me!