Beil's Playground

We are now "on the clock" for the most-hyped, NON-event in sports history.

It is officially known as the 69th Annual National Football League Player Selection Meeting, but you know it best as THE DRAFT. No pass will be thrown (unless Suzy Kolber runs into Joe Namath again), no tackle will be made, no touchdown will be scored, but somehow, someway, THE DRAFT will be one of the most watched NON-events on ESPN this year.

Somewhere in this great land of ours are men who willingly sit through every second of this weekend's 17 televised hours of draft coverage. These guys are either single, soon-to-be single or incarcerated, and they eat up the draft like Gilbert Brown attacks hot dogs.

The draft is the ultimate reality show, a strangely compelling marathon of mini-dramas. Like "Survivor" in pads. Fortunes rise, fortunes fall, fortunes vanish and it happens at the speed of a root canal. My question is simple: "Why does anybody watch it?"

It's like a never-ending episode of "Battlestar Galactica" with Chris Berman starring as Lorne Green.

We all have our favorite teams, college and pro, so we have an interest in where players get drafted. As a University of Hawaii graduate, I want to know who takes my man, Isaac Sopoaga (defensive tackle, 6-3, 315 pounds of pure beast). I like Ike, but can't imagine sitting through six hours to see if he goes in the first round.

And that's what is so amazing about the draft.

It's basically a bunch of guys in a room reading names off a list. Nobody eats donkey intestines like in "Fear Factor", nobody gets in a hot tub like "elimiDate." It's more like two days worth of "My Big Fat Obnoxious Left Tackle." (Note to self: Maybe you've been watching too much TV.)

It would be one thing if the NFL got James Earl Jones to announce the selection of every player in his deep Darth Vader baritone. Maybe some celebrity emcees, assuming they've been screened for possible wardrobe malfunctions.

I'm not sure how one survives 17 hours of the draft, but I am aware of one tactic. Turn the draft into a drinking game. Every time Mel Kiper Jr. says the word "upside" as in "that cornerback from Bethune-Cookman College hasn't faced top-notch competition, but has a tremendous upside," you take a drink of your favorite beverage. You'll probably pass out by the 15th pick, but I think that might be the goal.

Since we're in draft mode, everybody loves to make jokes about Kiper – the draft expert who has been analyzing selections for ESPN for more than two decades. His hair is a popular target – can you say Jimmy Johnson? But in the interest of full disclosure, I must reveal that Mel and I worked together for years at ESPN and we're good friends.

Love him or hate him, give the man credit for this: How many guys do you know that invented an entire industry? Nobody goes to school to become a "draft expert." Twenty years ago, if you told your parents you were going to make a living by analyzing pro football prospects, those tuition checks would have mysteriously stopped arriving.

Now, thanks to Mel – or because of him – there are a zillion guys with web sites for every sport, highlighting second graders to watch. As you know, many of those kids have great upsides.

Defending champs keep improving
Is there a better-run franchise in pro sports than the New England Patriots? Led by quarterback Tom Brady, who was the 199th pick in the 2000 draft, the Pats have won two of the past three Super Bowls. The team has two first-round picks and four selections in the top 95 this year.

The Patriots are so loaded they could easily afford to gamble sending a second-round pick to the Cincinnati Bengals for tailback Corey Dillon. Assuming Dillon's attitude is right, the Bengals' all-time leading rusher gives the Pats a big-time back and would be an improvement over what they might pick up in the draft. It's no accident that New England's VP of personnel, Scott Pioli, was named NFL Executive of the Year.

Among the Patriots' future decisions is deciding what to do with All-Pro cornerback Ty Law. Law is embroiled in a contract dispute and didn't help his cause much with a recent arrest in Miami. Law was pulled over in his Rolls Royce for a lane violation and then tried to flee the scene on foot only to be run down by the law. Which leads to the obvious question: Has Law lost a step?

Weekly musings
I just got back from Japan and can confirm the Japanese are obsessed with baseball and cigarettes. You can watch Hideki Matsui of the New York Yankees and Ichiro's Seattle Mariners regularly with games beamed in via satellite from the United States. There are Japanese League games on all the time and it seems like every taxi and noodle shop has a game on the radio. But it's almost impossible to breath because people are puffing away in restaurants at record pace. Oddly, a cup of coffee in most places is five bucks. No refills. Ouch!

Have you seen Boston Red Sox outfielder Johnny Damon lately? With the beard and long hair, he looks like a cross between Grizzly Adams, Jesus of Nazareth and Charles Manson. Somebody get him to a stylist.

Blender magazine ranked the 50 worst songs ever and "We Built This City" by Starship in 1985 was unfairly tabbed as number one. "Achy Breaky Heart" by Billy Ray Cyrus and "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice were bona fide top 10 worsts. But the correct answer to worst song ever is anything sung by William Hung.