… in the National Football League.\u00a0\u00a0 Even for beleaguered Giants and Jets fans, like yours truly.<\/p>\n
The annual NFL Draft starts tomorrow, and I’ll be watching, as I do every year.\u00a0\u00a0 This will be a strangest draft since… well, forever.\u00a0\u00a0 In the past decade or so, ESPN and the NFL network have made the draft a huge televised event, with thousands of fans in attendance and top college players being flown in from all over the country to enjoy their moment of glory when their names are called.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Not this year.\u00a0 Thanks to Covid-19, there will be no big party in Las Vegas, no green room crowded with hopefuls praying they won’t slide, no stars-of-tomorrow parading up on stage to get a jersey from Roger Goodell.\u00a0 The teams will all be working from their own war rooms, or maybe virtually, and the players will be at home.<\/p>\n
Considering that the draft began many decades ago with a bunch of guys sitting at card tables and shuffling index cards, maybe this is a throwback year.\u00a0\u00a0 When you stop to think of it, it is amazing that the NFL has made a huge televised extravaganza of a show where something significant happens every ten to fifteen minutes or so.<\/p>\n
The Giants, courtesy of the truly dismal season they had last year, get to pick fourth.\u00a0\u00a0 If their season had only been a little MORE wretched, they might get to draft Chase Young out of Ohio State, who is widely regarded as the best player in the draft.\u00a0 Alas, he will probably be snapped up by the Redskins, who pick second.\u00a0\u00a0 There is a lot of buzz about this year’s quarterbacks, but the G-Men got their new young signal caller last year when they picked Daniel Jones, so they won’t be playing that game… though their GM has stated that he is open to trading down if someone really wants to jump up to grab Tua or Herbert (Burrows will probably be gone with the first pick, to the Bengals).\u00a0 If Big Blue stays put, Mel Kiper and Todd McShay both have them drafting the linebacker out of Clemson, Isaiah Simmons, a defensive stud.\u00a0\u00a0 Other mocks show them taking an offensive tackle instead, to protect Daniel Jones.\u00a0\u00a0 There are four good ones in this draft, it seems.\u00a0\u00a0 The ideal outcome, for me, would be for the Giants to grab Simmons with the fourth pick, and get one of those big tackles at the top of the second round… assuming one drops that far.\u00a0\u00a0 That may be too much to hope for, however.\u00a0 And knowing the Giants, they are just as likely to go a different way entirely and surprise everyone, as they did last year.<\/p>\n
The Jets pick eleventh, since they had a somewhat better (losing) season.\u00a0\u00a0 The mock drafts are all over the place for them.\u00a0 Then again, by the time you reach eleven, all the mocks are worthless anyway.\u00a0\u00a0 All it takes is one team zigging when the “experts” have them zagging, and everything below that is up for grabs.\u00a0\u00a0 Myself, I think Gang Green should grab a wideout.\u00a0\u00a0 There a bunch of good ones coming out this year, and the Jets lost Robby Anderson, their best receiver, in free agency.\u00a0 Sam Darnold needs someone to throw to.<\/p>\n
Beyond the draft, though, the real question is whether or not we are going to have an NFL season at all in 2020.\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, training camp is months away, and the season openers even further out… but if the coronavirus is still raging unchecked by then, packing tens of thousands of fans into a stadium is a recipe for disaster.\u00a0\u00a0 As much as I love my NFL Sundays, I hope the NFL will do the prudent thing if the virus has not abated by then.\u00a0\u00a0 Life may be meaningless and full of pain for Jets and Giants fans, as I have asserted many a week these past few seasons after watching my teams lose and lose and lose… but it is still life.\u00a0\u00a0 And as Tyrion Lannister once said, life is full of possibilities.<\/p>\n
((I am going to turn comments on for this one, but only for talk about the draft and the NFL season.\u00a0\u00a0 Off comment posts will be deleted)).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
… in the National Football League.\u00a0\u00a0 Even for beleaguered Giants and Jets fans, like yours truly. The annual NFL Draft starts tomorrow, and I’ll be watching, as I do every year.\u00a0\u00a0 This will be a strangest draft since… well, forever.\u00a0\u00a0 In the past decade or so, ESPN and the NFL network have made the draft […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[24],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6154"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6154"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6166,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6154\/revisions\/6166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}