Tonight, we're going to be told that 32 dreams will come true.
And it will take hours for that to happen.
When the Chicago Bears go on the clock they will, undoubtedly, take up almost their entire allotted 10 minutes to finally send in the pick that they, and pretty much everyone else in the world, knows that they are going to make. Hail Caleb Williams, good luck to you. Then another 10 long minutes will pass before the Commanders finally turn in a card with whatever quarterback they settled on weeks ago, then the Patriots, etc. etc.
We're told that this is happening because teams are busy working the phones trying to secure a trade partner to "trade down" in the draft to receive more draft picks, but is that really true? No, they're told to take their time so the NFL TV partners can spend too much time telling us things about the player just selected that we already know. But, are the teams really trying to find a "trade partner"?
In Chicago's case, certainly not. They got rid of Justin Fields and desperately need a new face of the franchise. Do you really believe that they're going to trade with Minnesota (the team targeted as most likely to want to move up) and settle for picks 11 & 23 and (possibly) Bo Nix? And the Commanders, also desperately needing a quarterback, will probably select reigning Heisman winner Jayden Daniels. The the Patriots will select Drake Maye and THEN we might get some serious intrigue.
The Cardinals have a QB (Kyler Murray) but it's thought that they MIGHT be interested in J.J. McCarthy. I say no and they do the obvious (but not necessarily the smart) thing and take Marvin Harrison Jr. At this point we might see a trade as the Chargers will most certainly not take J.J. (they already have a franchise QB in the form of Justin Herbert) despite Harbaugh's glowing over him. What Harbaugh has done is classic draft day smoke. He's hoping to get someone to overpay for pick 5.
And so on and so on.
Already some NFL draft experts are predicting as many as 10 trades in the first round. Breathless regurgitations of "this is the most intriguing draft EVER" gush out of everyone's mouth. At the back end it may be. The reality is that, while this is a relatively deep draft at certain positions, there are probably not 32 players in this draft with 1st round grades. That means that teams near the back-half will want to trade back to get the same quality of player for much less money.
We like to think that the actual NFL draft is much like the Kevin Costner movie "Draft Day", GM's wheeling and dealing and last minute shockers about player's character causing them to fall down the draft board.
The reality is it's a bunch of people in a room pouring over numbers, projections and perceived value, with a smidgen of trade value talk sprinkled in. It's too long and, for the most part, pretty boring unless your team is picking.
But, it's football. In a time when all we're given is the, so-far, very underwhelming UFL. Because of that, we'll all watch it. Then we'll listen to the talking heads after the draft giving draft grades which are about as useless as a shot clock in hockey.
All that said, I'll be watching. Because it's football, and it's the draft, and it is fun to see where the players you enjoyed watching will end up as professionals.
And you probably will be as well.
