Hello, and welcome again. C.H. Dalton here, your tour guide through the magical world of race and racism.
With the College Football season reaching its apogee and the National Football League’s competition in full swing, it’s hard not to look ahead to the most exciting event of the athletic year: the NFL draft. The weeks leading up to the draft are a dizzying spectacle of camps and tryouts, as the elite players are tested to determine their speed, their strength, and their intelligence.
Their future owners stand on the sideline with stopwatches, carefully noting each display of strength, each physical weakness, and any measure of the athletes’ durability and endurance.
It’s not all hard science, though. The NFL draft is a guessing game, and the scouts have to do their best to see the future. Will the running back be injured in his first season? Will the wide receiver be able to memorize complicated routes and downfield blocking patterns? And, perhaps most importantly, do they have a good attitude?
It’s often difficult to tell which players will be "problem" cases. If there’s one thing that the owners and coaches can’t allow, it’s sass, backtalk, and poor team spirit. Being a good worker who won’t complain is every bit as important as being able to run fast, or lift lots of bundles of grain.
Then, on the day of the draft itself, the players stand on stage, stripped to their skin, glistening in the klieg lights of the live telecast. Each team takes its turn examining their teeth and gums, squeezing their muscles, checking for lice, and taking firm hold of their powerful genitals to determine their suitability as breeders. After all, the draft isn’t just about building this generation’s football team—it’s about building a football team for many generations to come.
When the teams have made their decisions, the bidding begins, with the strongest, most stoic players going early for top dollar, and the less wealthy clubs forced to look for bargains among the Tight Ends and return specialists.
Finally, at the end of the last round, the final player chosen is dubbed “Mister Irrelevant,” because it is unlikely he will ever play in the NFL, but the name is inappropriate. An NFL team still needs people to cook, clean, and be hunted for sport. These late-round scrubs are anything but irrelevant to a billionaire owner that knows how to use them.
After the draft, camps begin in earnest, to separate the wheat from the chaff and so that teams can evaluate their investments. At this stage, some teams may actually trade human beings back and forth in exchange for each other or, in some cases, for cold, hard cash. It’s a thrilling process, and it’s no wonder that the end result is the most popular sport in America.
Drafts have existed in this country for hundreds of years, ever since the first NFL players were brought to this country from Africa, but it’s still exciting every single time. When it comes around again, in April, I urge you to tune in and watch the history of America… today!
Come back next week, when I’ll describe the process by which the National Hockey League chooses its brides from Eastern Europe. Good day.
