By Rick “Snake” Arnold

As we put a wrap on the 2010 NFL Draft weekend, I figured I’d take a minute to pen my thoughts on the whole event so at some point down the road when the beer has finally completely wiped out my memory I can read this and know what I was thinking…that or I’m just looking for a place to bash Mel Kiper’s hair and the color teal?

First order of business is to accept the fact that the NFL is now going to make us all stay up late on Thursday nights for the 1st round of the NFL draft. The ratings for the 1st round were up 23 percent from 2009. If you’re reading this article, you aren’t a part of that 23%, you’re here every year for the draft come rain or shine. They could put it on 2 a.m. on Wednesday morning and your sick and twisted fantasy football addicted self would be tuned in (I know I would). Nevertheless, we’re stuck with Thursday nights now. My beer consumption was NOT affected by the switch in days…I refuse to let THE MAN hold me down. All the NFL has really accomplished is to single-handedly make the Friday after the 1st round the LEAST productive work day in American history. Ratings up 23%…productivity down 98%. Nice.

This is the point where a good writer would neatly organize his thoughts in paragraph format starting with the weakest and finishing strong. As we all know, I’m far from that. Paragraphs are for conformists…its THE MAN’s way of trying to put me in a box…screw THE MAN! Put on your seatbelts folks…I’m going bullet!

• The Detroit Lions had a great draft…I need to type that again just so that it resonates…the Detroit Lions had a great draft. Wow. I just can’t believe this happened. I don’t know which one of you fantasy football geeks hacked into the Lion’s war room and put these picks in…but whoever did it, BRAVO! Just before the Lions picked Ndamukong Suh, I thought sure they were going to blow it and pick a TE from Western Polytechnical Fashion Arts School. They picked Suh and instantly helped their sorry defense. They ACTUALLY made the right pick! I couldn’t believe my ears and eyes. Then they follow it up with a trade and late 1st round pick of RB Jahvid Best from California? He’s an instant home run threat that should give their offense an instant shot in the arm. The Lions actually moved up to make a good pick? Okay, what the hell is going on here? Did I get a little blue stamp mixed in with my beer again? I kid you not…I actually looked down at the alcohol content of my beer to see how strong it was after the Best pick. Scary.
• See how this article is titled “Lions and Tigers and Teal…Oh My”? Well I would love to be able to slide right into a Tiger topic but neither the Panthers, Bengals nor Jaguars had a really great draft and I’m beyond tired of lame ass Tiger Woods jokes so I got nothing on the Tiger front. Nada, zilch…bupkis. What we do have is a Seattle Seahawk team that absolutely took names and kicked ass on draft weekend. They made the smart move by drafting OT Russell Okung at 6, he’s a stud OT for a decade. They follow that up with an absolute gift of Safety Earl Thomas at the 14 pick and close out their top 3 with the WR I feel is going to be better than every WR this side of Dez Bryant…Golden Tate at the 60 slot. That’s 3 absolute stud picks in one draft. Nobody else did that. Seattle also traded for Lendale White and Leon Washington on draft day to add to their haul. They covered every base and improved their team 10 fold in one draft. Brilliant! It’s a happy time for Seattle fans (that will probably end by the time they’re 2-4 in week 6 so enjoy).
• Teal…you all know what I’m talking about here! We all saw Tim Tebow in his house on draft night with the teal color shirt with shoulder strap buttons on. Do I even need to type the “G” word here? No way in hell Tebow should have gone in the 1st round and there is ABSOLUTELY no way in hell his people should have let him wear that fruit-box glowing teal Members Only shirt on draft night! Could this be any worse? I’m glad you asked…it was. It was worse than sporting a fruity teal Members Only shirt on national TV. In the same room…in the same camera shot was another guy with the same color teal color shirt on! SERIOUSLY? Nobody in Camp Tebow thought this might look fruity? No publicist around? Agent? Hell, doesn’t Captain America have any cool friends that could have pulled him aside and said, “Tim, look man…either you lose the minty Scope shirt or you kick your gay cousin Sebastian with the same colored shirt on out of the house. Your call bro.” I don’t know if I was more shocked by Tebow going in the 1st round of the draft to the Denver Broncos or the fact that not one, but TWO dudes had on the single gayest shirt I’ve ever seen in my life.

• I’d be remiss in any post-draft blog if I didn’t take at least a few minutes to bash on the helmet-haired short bus driver Mel Kiper Jr. We all bash him…we all want his job. I don’t know how he’s done it, but he has lined himself up with the sweetest gig on the planet! He knows absolutely nothing about his job, has no football experience and no real qualifications. Yet somehow, he is the “expert” draft analyzer. Props to big Mel. I now use Mel’s advice and player evaluations quite extensively. If Mel says a guy is “Can’t miss!” I scratch him off my draft board. If he says, “This guy doesn’t belong in the NFL” then I slide that guy up the charts. If he ever says anything like, “He has John Elway like skills” (which is what he said about JaMarcus Russell) I RUN as fast as I can away from that player. I’m sure Mel makes a nice salary for being wrong 95% of the time and now getting punked by Todd McShay. We all wish we had his job…we all drink the Haterade.

• Overall the draft was great and the NFL is about to catch an infusion of talent in the likes of RB CJ Spiller, WR Dez Bryant, LB Rolando McClain, WR Golden Tate, LB Sean Weatherspoon, S Eric Berry, RB Ryan Mathews and RB Jahvid Best just to name a few! There were plenty of trades and some crazy picks…like Al Davis and the Raiders selecting LB Rolando McClain! It was so strange to see the Raiders make a good draft pick! The Lions drafted well too? Maybe this whole Thursday night thing is better for the NFL? It was an amazing weekend of football action and now we begin the long haul to late July and mini-camp…how in the world will we make it?