ICYMI: Good for you! Opening night of NFL Draft is an OD of deja vu

I didn’t watch much of the NFL Draft Thursday night because I didn’t have to. I knew exactly what was going to happen.

No, not that USC quarterback Caleb Williams was going to be take first overall by the Chicago Bears. That figured.

Here’s what else I figured –

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was going to be booed every time he stepped to the microphone.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wasn’t going to care that he was being booed every time he stepped to the microphone.

Young men with bad suits were going to bro-hug Goodell on stage after their selection and it was going to look awkward for both.

ESPN announcers would do a poor job of hiding the fact that they knew who the pick was before it was actually announced, just like your older brother would let you know that he knew what your Christmas present was but was “sworn to secrecy” by your parents … and would keep dropping hints anyway.

There would be Green Room drama.

Those in the audience would be showing fake excitement when the camera was pointed at them, as if they really were pumped about the pick of that Colorado State player they had never heard of.

There would be more Green Room drama.

Every pick would he overanalyzed so that we would be convinced that the latest selection might as well make reservations for an upcoming Hall of Fame ceremony.

Long ago and in a world we really don’t recognize any more, here’s how much significance the NFL Draft had in the public consciousness: In 1982, the draft started at 8:30.

In the morning.

I remember it well because it was one of the few occasions that those of us who worked at afternoon papers (kids, ask your grandparents) could actually have something that resembled breaking news. We’d hang on as long as we could and try to get the complete first round in the afternoon editions.

You think they might go for an 8:30 a.m. start next year when the draft is held in Green Bay? Breakfast bratwurst for everyone!

It lasted only two days (it’s three days now) and they had 12 rounds of picks, so they didn’t have any time to jack around and wonder what Mel Kiper or Louis Riddick had to say about it.

Kenneth Sims went first that year and Johnie Cooks went next. Heard of them?

Exactly the point.

Much Ado About Nothing was a nice comedy that William Shakespeare cranked out in the late 1500s, but Billy was ahead of the game by about 400-something years because that’s exactly what the NFL Draft has become.

NOTHING is forced on the American sports consciousness quite like the NFL Draft. There’s not even a close second. It’s become a way for non-experts to act like experts and somehow think they are NFL insiders. As if Jerry Jones is going to tell one of his minions “Hey, somebody call Joe and see who he has pegged at No. 24.”

Here are some more things you can pretty much count on.

As great as they have made all of these quarterbacks to be – “I see a lot of Tom Brady in him” – typically only one of them will turn out to actually be the real deal. In the 2021 draft, Trevor Lawrence went No. 1 and he seems to be on his way. But after him?

Quarterbacks were chosen No. 2, No. 3, No. 11 and No. 15 and none of them are still on their same team three years later.

There’s going to come a time pretty early on that a pick is going to be made and you will have never heard of the guy. Last year, they didn’t even make it into double digits before the first “Who he?” was uttered.