I think the draft has supplanted the Super Bowl as the NFL’s biggest event. How the ESPN panel kept talking for two days was a miracle … or something far less appealing. I enjoyed Mike Lupica’s take on the “Sports Reporters” Sunday morning. He basically said what most of us suspect: Nobody really knows anything. You and I could probably draft about the same as the big dogs and especially as well as the “experts” ESPN assembles every spring and unleashes them on us for five or six weeks. Lupica called the draft Tom Brady Day, in recognition of one the NFL’s enduring stars being drafted in the sixth round. Sure ESPN touts Mel’s expertise, but Lupica’s point is that we simply have no absolute sure things in a draft. Otherwise, Marcus Colston of the Saints by way of Hofstra would not be a league leader in receiving after missing the Mr. Irrelevant by only a few slots.

I’m not suggesting all the research teams do is all for naught. Nor am I interested in drafting a team (unless it’s a fantasy league). I am wondering aloud here about the inordinate play the draft gets, not only on ESPN but in other media outlets.

All of which makes the event’s enormous popularity even more dramatic and curious. It’s another example of the enhancing and expanding of sports’ periphery (think up close and personal on steroids). Where the games themselves used to be enough, we taken to spend more time and attention on other things. The games are still important, obviously, but they now fight for our attention with drafts, police reports, drug tests, combines, battles of stars, dancing, etc.

*****
Big week for the top-ranked Islander baseball team as they head to Millard Monday for a double header with second-ranked West. It should be a test, but I’ll take the Purple and Gold pitching in a twin-bill or later this month at State.

*******
Final thought: If you have watched Steve Nash and the Suns during the NBA playoffs, you are watching basketball, not a superstar sell sneakers and jerseys but a team playing game designed for five players. Throw the Chicago Bulls and the Detroit Pistons for good measure. NBA coaches and GMs should pay attention to the success of teams built to play together.