Draft Day, the mediocre 2014 film starring Jennifer Garnerand Kevin Costner, opened the world of the American NFL draft to themasses. The 2018 National FootballLeague Draft, held tomorrow through Saturday (April 26 to 28) will be the 83rdannual meeting of National Football League (NFL) franchises to select newlyeligible players for the 2018 NFL season. Coverage is provided on Thursday andFriday evenings, and Saturday morning. For most of those 83 years, the NFL Draft was held in NewYork City, from the 1960s, when the NFL began to "be" something,until 2015. The 2016 draft was held indowntown Chicago, and the 2017 version returned to the place of the first NFLdraft in 1936, Philadelphia. The 2018draft will be held, for the first time, in a Football stadium, the A T & TStadium in Arlington, Texas. This is the normal home of the Dallas Cowboys, andof the Cotton Bowl.
Such a site willdefinitely add to the public spectacle of the event, while possibly diminishingthe comfort of the participants, and definitely curtailing some of the behindthe scenes wheeling and dealing. Gamesmanship and trading is much easier when centered around luxuryhotels in major downtown centers, not so easy in a stadium, where almost every "chanceencounter" will be documented by the news media and seen by everyoneelse. The winless Cleveland Browns, who went 0 and 16 in last year'sseason, pick number one in the first round of the draft. Because of past wheeling and dealing, theyalso pick fourth in the first round. Itis expected that they might be able to choose players to turn their team aroundin the coming season. The New YorkGiants pick second, and the New York Jets pick third in the first round, withthe Denver Broncos picking fifth. Inall, there are seven rounds comprising 256 picks, with the last man pickedearning the dubious distinction of being "Mr. Irrelevant." There are 32 picks in each of the first two rounds. Theoretically, each team would receive sevenor eight picks, but because of trading, this year Green Bay is eligible for 12picks, and five teams will receive only 6 a piece. Three teams have no first round picks, the HoustonTexans, the Chiefs and the Rams. Several hundred players will be seeking a playing position inthe NFL. In order to be eligible toenter the draft, players must have graduated from high school at least threeyears before. Almost all of the players are drafted out of an American college,although sometimes players are drafted from other leagues like the ArenaFootball League, the Canadian or German Leagues, or occasionally an Aussiekicker. The trick is not to show toomuch interest in a particular player, soas not have to use an earlier pick to prevent that player from being picked upby another team. Top names this draft should we known toreaders of this space. They include Saquon Barkley, Lamar Jackson, BakerMayfield, and Bradley Chubb. This shouldbe an exciting couple of days. -- Posted By Blogger to SR at 4/25/2018 04:36:00 PM -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "omnisport" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/omnisport. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
