How the NFL Draft became the most exciting and crucial day of the year
‘It’s like Christmas’: How the NFL Draft became its most exciting and crucial day of the year - The first of three engrossing days in Pittsburgh will set up each NFL team for success or failure in the coming months
The dust has long since settled since the Super Bowl, with the Seattle Seahawks sitting pretty at the top of the NFL . But on Thursday night in Pittsburgh, tension will subside, and the hopes and dreams of players, coaches, and fanbases will be pinned to the decisions based on thousands and thousands of hours, with hundreds of minds coming together in a bid to predict the future. The preparation has been laborious, starting back in August, and now the process of beginning, or applying the finishing touches to, a project close to that of Seattle will begin – even if mastering the process continues to elude even the brightest of football minds.
That uncertainty, the furious debate and contrasting predictions make for a content machine in the NFL, a league that, despite only having 17 regular season games, dominates almost every day of the USA’s sporting calendar, despite its rival leagues taking to the field with far greater regularity. “Besides maybe getting married to my wife, it’s the most exciting day of the year every year,” Rick Spielman, the former Minnesota Vikings general manager and now senior advisor with the New York Jets , tells the Independent . “Don't tell my wife that though!
I like our anniversary, but there is nothing like the draft, it’s amazing. ” Spielman has his fingerprints on a number of decisions that changed lives: legendary running back Adrian Peterson was plucked with the seventh overall pick in 2007, and, as GM by that stage, in 2020, he gleefully seized the opportunity at 22nd overall to select Justin Jefferson, now considered by some the very best wide receiver in the league. The dilemma is always thus: how much risk is a team willing to take?
Are you aiming to land a superstar? or can expert coaching and a collection of very good players, on valuable first-time contracts, prove sufficient enough to contend for the Lombardi trophy? “The players get 17 games, but as a general manager, you only get one game [the draft], this is it.
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