Draft Day - It's Coming Up

To non-sports fans, and even to some serious fans, the allure of NFL draft day is elusive. Hours upon hours of TV coverage of a bunch of suits pondering whether to go for the undersized safety or the QB who scored a 6 on his Wonderlic test. Even I can't claim to sit through the whole day - that's too much Chris Berman even for me - but sometimes those first few rounds make for some great drama. Like when a snot-nosed kid-brother QB lets it be known he'll refuse to play for the team with the number one pick. Or when the team with that blessed top pick passes up a game-changing running back and a not-so-bright but undeniably talented QB to shore up their defence - to howls of disbelief from fans.

But the real drama comes after the fact - when we get a good hard look at the real goods - and find out who really had the stuff to make it in the big leagues and who should have just stayed in college. That's the real test of the picks. Who found a diamond in the rough - a Zack Thomas in the 5th round, say? And who got totally hosed by pre-draft hype? It's a long list and MSNBC highlights the greatest of draft days mishaps here. No questions about that number one - Ryan Leaf was the number 2 pick of the draft in 1998, and many pundits had him going ahead of the actual number one pick, some guy named Peyton Manning. Manning's headed to the Hall of Fame. Leaf, not so much.