Depending on your source of information, let's be clear on one very important detail.
Everyone will be wrong tonight.
At some point in time, regarding this player on that team, this General Manager's decision-making skills, this player's impact on some team's locker room chemistry, all the so-called experts will glowingly and haphazardly be stunningly incorrect about something this evening.
Chances are we won't know it for at least 2 to 3 years from now, which is why you're likely to forget about these incredibly horrendous projections the next time these people appear on your television screens, Twitter feeds and shared articles throughout the course of this most important day.
And after all, since you're a fan of XYZ team and will probably have an opinion of your own about what that team needs in order to be better next season, you'll eventually come to the conclusion that you don't really know any better than the guy on some network show or the guy who shouts loudly and has claimed to watch "loads of film" of an offensive lineman from a university that you didn't even know had a football team, let alone the ability to electronically transfer game footage onto a storage device.
Honestly, we're all guilty of it. We book guests, ask questions and assume they know more than we do. And that's why there needs to be more accountability when it comes to these so-called draft experts.
I have neither the time nor the inclination to go back 2 or 3 or even 5 years to determine whether some guy with a degree in watching football games has accurately portrayed the skill set of a strong safety.
There are some places that do this sort of thing, but they've also got their flaws.
Let's say a high profile quarterback gets selected by a team in the first round tonight (Spoiler alert: there will be) and that team changes offensive coordinators after that quarterback's rookie season when a better gig opened up.
Now, new offensive coordinator comes into that team, changes the playbook and thus, the quarterback's entire style has been altered.
Is that the fault of the quarterback? No.
Is that the fault of the draft expert who praised said quarterback on the night he was drafted? No.
Is that the fault of the network or website for hiring so-called experts and then selling them to the general public as the most important draft authority in the history or the spoken or written word?
Yes. In a simple word, yes.
Draft experts are just fans. They're the same as you and me, but with better clothes, hand-picked off a rack of thousand-dollar suits. They wear make-up, sit behind desks under heat lamps and attempt to convince you that their time watching video provides a level of commentary and insight you're too dim-witted to recognize on your own.
You and I have watched enough college football to know what works and what doesn't.
So let's not make one network's coverage greater or more authoritative than anyone else's. Let's start off watching all the broadcasts tonight by reminding ourselves that most everything you'll hear tonight is a monumental load of crap.
My advice to you is enjoy the pageantry of the first round tonight.
Laugh a little when Roger Goodell gets jeered, booed and called all sorts of inflammatory names over and over again by the fine people of Philadelphia.
Watch the uncomfortable moments when Goodell greets each first round pick with a handshake, chest-bump and a few whispered words of advice from the commish to the player about how those two should never meet again unless it's on a podium where streamers are falling from the skies.
Set up a drinking game and take a swig when the words "intangibles", "big time", "game changer" or "high risk" are uttered from the pie holes of these folks.
And most important, trust your own instincts about the "rising superstar" who will soon be receiving millions of dollars in contract money, signing bonuses and endorsement deals to play a game in which he'll later be paid even more money when he decides it's time to renegotiate that over-inflated contract.
Oh yeah, we'll be back here tomorrow morning screaming platitudes of these first round picks on First Sports. Chances are we'll be wrong about most of them. But that's what makes it fun, because opinions and feelings and emotions are what bring us back to this circus.
The countdown is almost over.
With the first pick of the 2017 NFL Draft, the Cleveland Browns..... will still be terrible.
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