Draft Day '08

So every year I pay close attention to the nfl draft, for reasons unbeknowst to myself. Perhaps I just need some football in my life in the middle of spring or maybe I enjoy seeing who botches and who does well for themselves, but regardless, every 3rd or 4th weekend in April I am glued to tv computer and cell phone. This year was no different, except for two things: one, I dont have cable and two, I have a wife.

The cable thing is easy to work around. Espn.com has a great draft cast, packers.com has live feeds from the press room and draft room, and Espn radio broadcasted the first and second rounds. My only regret here is that I heard very little banter by Boomer and Mel and had to settle for John Clayton and some other guy, but whatever, its all the same.

The wife thing was a little more complicated. Jill is not a football fan but it was encouraging that we made it through our first packer season as a married couple. There were moments when things got rocky; such as when I woke Jill up at 12:30 in the morning when Football Jesus through the game winnging TD to Jennings on the first play of OT against Denver or when I almost destroyed the apartment chipping golf balls at the door during the NFC Championship game, but we survived. Anyways, the draft is important to me, its the future and a whole lot of fun to watch (especially last year as Brady Quinn plumetted). Unfortunatley Jill doesnt think like me (a good thing) so I needed to come up with a way to keep up to date on the draft while not surrendering my marriage. My attack was two pronged. First, I would induce a steady flow of text messages from friends without wives which would enable me to keep up on the draft while Jill and I ran errands in the afternoon. Second, I would educate Jill on the draft to keep her somewhat involved and mabye, by a stroke of luck, she would become so enthralled that I would end up being the husband of the female Mel Kuiper Jr. Well, I'm not that lucky but at least explaining things to Jill helped. She still doesn't get why I would want to sit around for 5 hours watching a sporting event where there isnt even a game going on (she has a point but at the same time she doesn't). As far as the text messages go, it was going great unitl the packers drafted a guy named Jordy which induced a series of phrases involving the F-Bomb from me in the Winn Dixie parking lot. For those who care it went something like this:

Text: "Pack picks Jordy Nelson, WR, KState"

Me: Who the F is that guy?

Me: Why the F did we pick a reciever?

Me: Hes F'ing white!?

Needless to say, the rant was not appreciated by my significant other, nor was the constant talking to myself in the aisles of Winn Dixie about how perplexing the pick was. I looked like a crazy homeless guy wandering the streets. However, all in all I'd say the draft was a success. I kept myself in the loop without cable and while running errands, the Packers gave me some excitement, and I am still married. Now if only Jill would start to work on her 2009 NFL Prospectus.......