Nurse the Hate: Thoughts On The NFL Draft

 

I was watching some of the NFL Draft last night, and came to the conclusion that it is a modern marvel of entertainment.  Running across three networks, ABC/ESPN/NFL Network, they have made a mega TV event of people walking to a podium and reading names.  I watch a ton of football, but once you get past the top five prospects and some of the Ohio State guys, I have no idea who anybody is.  Yet, I find myself having an opinion on why the Giants drafted the Florida St edge rusher (who I've never previously heard of) instead of the Big 10 offensive guard (who I definitely have never heard of).    

Each player is introduced and broken down by the talking heads as if these guys know anything except what their computer screen is telling them.  I mean, do you think Booger McFarland knows anything more than you about a cornerback from the University of Cincinnati?  Sure, someone at the Network typed in a bunch of useful notes down, but just because Booger is reading them doesn't mean he ever saw the player or is even capable of evaluating the guy even if he did.  That's the bottom line on this.  NONE of these guys know anything.  Hell, most of the teams spend a kazillion dollars and have reams of information on all these players and THEY still fuck it up.  There are 32 teams and probably 10 good scouting departments.  That's it.

The bets part of the draft is the TV shot into the pick's home or in the green room.  I find it absolutely compelling to try and break down the social structure of what is happening.  I think it was Georgia lineman Devonte Wyatt that got picked by Green Bay surrounded by 25 people who all immediately started trying to hug him while simultaneously taking video with their phones.  Instantly you saw that his life was now going to be focused on trying to swat these people away from his wallet.  There's always a weird dynamic on the couch shots in player's homes too.  It's always the same.  An enormous player is sitting next to his assertive mother with his prom night attired girlfriend anxiously flanking him.  There is a passive aggressive situation when the player has to choose to hug his mother or his girlfriend, one of them sure to shoot him daggers when he chooses the other.  

The looks into the Team Command Centers on Draft Night are great too.  My favorite are when we go into teams that always fuck shit up like the Jets.  Those guys were so smug last night, high fiving their Bros in their sport jackets and white soled "sneaker loafers".  This is the organization that took Zach Wilson #2 last year and running back Elijah Moore in the second round.  Who can forget their "high impact receiver" pick of Denzel Mims in 2020?  Yet, they are absolutely certain they got it right this time.  The good news for them is that with all their maneuvering they got a bunch of high profile picks last night.  The bad news is that in the Fall they will have to be Jets and go 5-12.  These next few months those Bros will be strutting around having been convinced they "won" the draft though.  The best part of being a Jet fan is the offseason.

I think ultimately it's fun to watch because you see 32 people win a lottery.  Out of all the people their age that play football, these people were so good that they were better than everyone at the college level, an incredible feat unto itself.  Now, on national TV, they are awarded not only life changing money and a measure of fame, but the greatest prize as perceived by viewers, a glorious future of unlimited success.  A man takes a card to a podium and says "This young man is going to get a whole bunch of money and is going to live in THIS city and wear THIS uniform.".  It's too bad all careers don't have an interview process that ends with a televised event that says "John Doe, salesman, drafted by KPIG-FM, San Francisco."  Then the guy sitting in his apartment in Toledo is embraced by his crying mother and has to pack to drive to his new job across the country.  There are enough channels.  Someone should do this.

By the way, before you think "man, all those guys have it made", remember this.  No. 1 overall draft picks average just 69 games, or four seasons.  NFL=Not For Long.  For most of these guys, this will be the highlight of their lives.  The games will only be a crash back to reality that there is another level to ascend, and most can't do it.  Bring on Round 2.  Let's see some more crying Moms and player's bad suits.

             

Nurse the Hate: MW Update

 

I have been remiss in writing on the blog.  Almost all of my time is now committed to this Master of Wine program.  I wake up, start reading while eating breakfast, walk the dogs, go to work, eat, get back to wine work I started in the morning, and then have about 35 minutes of "free time" until I fall asleep and start the cycle all over again.  When I sleep, I often dream about writing accurate tasting notes about wines, beating myself up over the exact wording of descriptors for a Prosecco that suburban moms don't think about at all as they slurp it down at lunchtime patios.  This is the personal hell I'm in that is 100% of my own creation.  I am like one of those people that destroy their lives by training for a marathon except I changed the details.  In both cases, there is no justifiable payoff beyond a sense of personal achievement, which I think might be true of almost everything.  Those people that won medals in the Olympics for fringe sports like bobsledding and speed skating dedicated their lives to something that essentially is TV programming.  They win their medal, hop on a plane to go home, get a quick burst of local media attention, and then it's over.  It's you sitting on a couch with a medal.  

It is this realization I am continually trying to balance when my day is ruined because I failed to blindly identify the exact village where a French chardonnay originated from.  Beyond the 50 or so people across the entire planet beating themselves up in a similar fashion, NO ONE CARES.  I saw someone that had crossed the magical threshold of passing the MW exam a couple weeks ago pouring wine samples at a table at a wine event.  A man walked up and said "I'll have some of that.  It's not sweet, is it?  I don't like sweet wine.".  She could have spoken to him for three hours about the specific fermentation techniques, oak aging protocols, differing soils of the vineyards and resulting impact on the grapes, history of the region and recent DOCG rule changes and potential impact to this bottling in the future, and on and on and on.  The guy took a swig of the wine sample, said "That's pretty good", and walked away.  Like most people, he DOESN'T CARE.  This woman spent her life amassing a level of expertise in her field that would put most people to shame, and in the end she was like a wedding bartender giving some Rube a buzz.  She was the olympic bobsled champ pushing a child down a toboggan run at a Kid's Fun Kamp.

I am trying to keep a sense of perspective on this quest.  I am naturally competitive, so when I don't know an answer that someone else does, I get pissed off.  I should keep in mind that every single other person involved in this has a career 100% focused in the wine trade, and I'm just some guy.  It's like I showed up in a room full of airline pilots and I'm pissed off that I can't land on the aircraft carrier deck as well as they do.  I've never flown a plane before for God's sake.  I'm doing my best and working hard.  I had someone get a little snotty with me a couple weeks ago via email.  One on hand, I am willing to look past this perceived slight because most people are very poor at expressing themselves with the written word.  On the other hand, I'm standing here at the apex of this subject and it's not even my field, so cut me some slack.  This is all you do, and it's a side gig for me. 

There is no reason why I can't just "enjoy the journey", though I become irritated at even typing the word "journey" as it is a word that has become synonymous to me as "self-important way of making a chosen task sound epic because you believe the entire world rotates around you".  I was on a Zoom call recently where a woman said "her journey in marketing began with blah blah blah".  I think what would have been more accurate would have been "I took a job out of college and then got a higher paying job shortly afterwards".  In her case her "journey" was "working for one shitty TV station and then going to another shitty TV station".  Get a hold of yourself.  I am not on a journey.  I am just learning way too much about something that interests me.  I need to stay in my shoes, though I'm still pissed off that I recently thought a very identifiable wine was instead a Cornas.  How did I miss that?  (Man hits self in head yelling out "stupid!  stupid! stupid!)

I have been writing only wine essays and tasting notes.  It does feel a bit robotic to write "a traditional cava blend of xarel.lo, macabeo and parellada with distinctive citrus and new tennis ball aromas with slight autolytic character.  The acidity is elevated with a rounded waxy texture on the pithy citrus fruit profile and a moderate finish".  What would be more accurate would have been to say "This is a good sparkling wine to show up with for a group of people that call anything with bubbles "champagne" and can't tell the difference between really good stuff and shit.  They will however drink an ocean of wine when they show up, so this at about $11 makes a lot more sense than busting out the good stuff.  I mean, it's not great, but it's acceptable, so you won't feel like an idiot when your buddy's wife pours a bunch of it into a Red Bull and calls it a "mimosa"."

I'd love to keep writing, but I have used up my 34 minutes of "free time" this morning.  I need to figure out what has to be done to re-plant a vineyard, which is ironic as I'm not sure how to plant grass in six foot radius dead spot in my backyard.  Cheers and be back soon.