For some, mock draft season can’t get over fast enough, while others gloriously parade their mock drafts across social media like newborn babies. The NFL offseason is long and fans engage in a variety of activities to pass the time. Draft season in any sport (that has a draft) is unique because it’s the one time during the calendar year when fans can test their mettle against those who get paid to pick players for a living.
While the goal of doing NFL mock drafts for some is to test their knowledge about selecting the best players for their favorite team, others use the experience to learn more about the players who will be entering the NFL Draft in any given year. There’s often a spirited competitiveness among fans about “who has the best mock draft”.
Years ago, this was a pencil and paper exercise. Now we have draft simulators where computers give you a grade based on whatever criteria they set for what they believe is “good value”. It’s an amazing transformation and big business. Many fans invest a lot of time and money on trying to predict what their favorite team might do come draft day, but there is one common denominator among those of us who care at all about the NFL Draft.
Hope springs eternal.
The NFL Draft is the fairy tale we tell ourselves will be the answer to finding the key to winning the next Super Bowl. Every year we believe “if only the Bills could get Player X, it will get us over the hump of winning an NFL Championship. And the draft is the ticket that will get us there. Free agency also adds to the drama, but predicting which players will be acquired in free agency doesn’t quite have the same effect.
The lead up to draft is like no other sport… the NFL Combine… then the mock drafts… then planning the draft parties. Before we know it, it’s Thursday, April 24th and the whole cha-bang is over with and we wake up Sunday morning the 27th with a hangover… and the realization we are entering the NFL dark season.
Sure there’s OTAs, minicamps and assorted drama before training camp. But the greatest extravaganza during the NFL offseason is over. Fortunately for Western New Yorkers it’s the best time of the year weather-wise, so it’s easy to slip into summer mode and busy ourselves with all the incredible things there are to do during the summer months.
Hope is the healthiest emotion Bills fans embraced over the last six decades. Some of us have endured decades of despair when the team was the laughing stock of the NFL with little or no hope for a change in outcome. We carried on because we were either stubborn or had hope for the future. We learned suffering is part of the process necessary in order to achieve the pinnacle of joy when the goal has finally been achieved.
Hope is what made us who we are as fans. So let us rejoice the reason for the season… the NFL Draft season… the season of hope.
Editor’s babble: You can also find me blabbering and forever ‘hoping’ on Xwitter @RobynMundyWYO or Bluesky @RobynMundyWYO.bsky.social.
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