Cramming for the draft

I haven't updated this site in a while because I've been busy trying to decide how I'll spend Sunday afternoons in the fall. With no NFL games to watch, maybe I'll take basket weaving or pottery classes, or perhaps audition for a role in a medieval fair. I hear those giant turkey legs are free if you're in the cast.

There's the NFL draft on April 28, after which the only NFL on TV will involve dudes in suits walking into limos after yawn-inspiring negotiating sessions.

Two years ago, I studied the NFL draft as if I were getting a doctorate in it. Then I blogged live during the draft, which fell on the first real spring-like day of the year, going cuckoo for cocoa puffs over guys like Kraig Urbik and A.Q. Shipley.

There was a lot less hype in these pages last spring about Maurkice Pouncey, Emmanuel Sanders and Antonio Brown. But I more than made up for it when they started playing games.

I'm hoping that approach works again this season with my draft coverage. I've finally found the time to start looking at mock drafts and scouting reports and plan to have my ONE pre-draft column sometime in the next week or so.

In the meantime, what better way to kick off my draft blogging than taking a shot at Tom Brady.

Did anyone see Brady crying on ESPN when he talked about not being drafted until the sixth round in 2000? Are you kidding me with this?

What we didn't see was Brady's acting coach behind the camera. He worked up those tears because he's angling for a career on the silver screen when his playing days are over. It was contrived, just like Brady's chewing out of his teammates on the sidelines during the Patriots' game in Pittsburgh last season. He knows where the cameras are.

During that piece, the camera panned across a card that indicated the Steelers drafted quarterback Tee Martin 36 picks ahead of Brady. When reminded of that, my tears were quite real.