Draft Exclusion

I've gone back and forth in my head about this all week: Shall I stay up all night for the NFL Draft?

The Draft is one of my favourite things about the league, and it's one of the aspects of the sport that helped draw me in. It's one of the many ways in which the NFL promotes competitive fairness.  The Draft is a chance for teams to address their needs by picking the best players to come out of the US College system.  It's where the next Mannings, Urlachers's and Reed's are unveiled (as well as the next JaMarcus Russell) and we find out where they will be starting their careers.

The main problem is that I don't follow College football.  If truth be told, it's a sport too far.  They are only so many hours in the day to watch sport and maintain a job and a relationship.  Football (both forms), cricket, golf and snooker just take up too much time.  Maybe one day I'll have time for college football, but it won't be any time soon.
Of course, the other main reason for not watching the Draft is that it takes place at 1am and lasts for around 200 minutes!  I'm not adverse to staying up all night watching an actual football match, but I'm not sure I can manage it, just to watch some names being read out, handshakes and photo ops.  Especially, when it's not being covered live on UK tv, so I'd be watching it on an internet stream.

But then again, there will be some excellent online coverage of the event and chat between fans.  Plus, it'd make me a proper fan if I sacrificed a night's sleep for the event.  It's a tough decision.

In the end, my sensible head is going to win and I'll be off to bed at a normal hour tonight.  Before, I get labelled a "part time supporter", I'll quickly reveal that I have put a Mock Draft together.  Given my lack of College football watching, it wasn't easy.  But by using a combination of reading expert analysis, watching lots of you tube clips and sticking a finger in the air.  You'd think assigning 32 teams with a player from a list would be pretty easy, in reality it took me about 3 hours. On at least 5 occasions I thought I'd finished, only to realise that I'd completely forgotten about somebody  Just by putting that one name in the Mock, meant multiple chances across the board.  Eventually I was happy with my effort and here it is:

Pick #		Team	Player
1		Indianapolis Colts	Andrew Luck
2		Washington Redskins	Robert Griffin
3		Minnesota Vikings	Matt Kalil
4		Cleveland Browns	Trent Richardson
5		Tampa Bay Buccaneers	Morris Claiborne
6		St. Louis Rams	Justin Blackmon
7		Jacksonville Jaguars	Stephen Gilmore
8		Miami Dolphins	Ryan Tannehill
9		Carolina Panthers	Fletcher Cox
10		Buffalo Bills	Jon Martin
11		Kansas City Chiefs	Luke Kuelhy
12		Seattle Seahawks	Dontari Poe
13		Arizona Cardinals	Michael Floyd
14		Dallas Cowboys	Michael brookers
15		Philadelphia Eagles	Melvin ingram
16		New York Jets	Quinton Coples
17		Cincinnati Bengals	Dre kirkpatrick
18		San Diego Chargers	David Decastro
19		Chicago Bears	Mark Barron
20		Tennessee Titans	Whitney Merculis
21		Cincinnati Bengals	Courtney Upshaw
22		Cleveland Browns	Kendall Wright
23		Detroit Lions	Cordy Glenn
24		Pittsburgh Steelers	Donta Hightower
25		Denver Broncos	Jerel Worthy
26		Houston Texans	Riley Reiff
27		New England Patriots	Janoris Jenkins
28		Green Bay Packers	Andre Branch
29		Baltimore Ravens	Pete Konz
30		San Francisco 49ers	Stephen Hill
31		New England Patriots	Harrison Smith
32		New York Giants	Coby Fleener

First of all, even by American standards Whitney is a terrible name for a bloke!
More importantly, I'm pretty satisfied with my effort.  I've probably not nailed it, but I think my effort's won't be a million miles away from the truth.  I've tried to assess each teams' needs and pick accordingly. I haven't included any trades as I think they are pretty much impossible to predict.

I've only made one truly leftfield prediction;, I've got the Patriots taking Jenkins at 27, despite the personal issues that have seen him tumble down Draft boards.  I can see Belichik taking a gamble on him as the upside is immense.  Aside from that, I've not massively deviated from what the experts are predicting, they are experts after all.

So, the plan is to find out the 1st Round outcome on Friday morning and review how it has been reported.  What are the headlines? Who has thrown a massive curve ball to ruin everyone's Mock efforts?  And who will the Eagles take in the 7th round, to make up for losing Asante Samuel.  Actually, we'll have to wait another 24 hours for that last question to be answered.

Because if there's one thing I've discovered from the Draft build up, it's that the Eagles can make some absurd decisions, even though the new season is over 4 months away!

Merchandise of Doom - Part 2

I thought I'd put together a pretty comprehensive look at the bizarre merchandise available to NFL fans.  I was proved completely wrong, as I've subsequently received an array of pictures showing all manner of weird stuff that can be purchased.  It was whilst going through some of these items that I had a flash of inspiration and decided what my first NFL merchandise purchase was going to be.
Before I get to that, here are the 5 most absurd pieces of NFL merchandise I've come across....

5. The Miami Dolphins Baby Bedding Set

Firstly, nice garden!  Secondly, I'm not show the baby will sleep comfortably surrounded by bright orange and pictures of Dolphins.  Imagine the look on mum and dad's faces when you arrive with this present at the Christening.


4.  An Arm Sticker for the car door  (best explanation I could think of!)

Dear God, this is horrific.  Although I am a bit surprised that I've never seen this, or something similar.  Given the awful items people decorate their cars with, this isn't a great leap.


3.   The Cleveland Browns Clock

Yes, it's rather gaudy and a horrible colour (see all Browns merchandise!), but the real crime here is the layout....the Browns will be losing every time the minutes go past 12!  In fact, at just before one in the morning the Browns will be 0-59 down! Actually, that may help young Browns fans prepare for the disappointments coming their way.


2.   Mr Potato Head

What young Bengals fan wouldn't want to have this in their bedroom? Actually, don't answer that.
Potato Head seems to have a very unorthodox throwing motion, that looks more like he's answering the phone than throwing downfield. At least he's happy though.



1.  All rise please for the most absurd piece of merchandise ever created....The Oakland Raiders Forest Face!

The "Forest Face" is designed to be hung on tree trunks to show your support for the Raiders. It comes with a handy hook and is just over a foot high.  Here's the face in action...

The sales pitch suggests you buy a job lot of them to decorate a large number of trees. Thus confirming your eternal love for the Raiders.
I've encountered man many items of merchandise over the last week, but this is by far the most ridiculous, useless, leftfield and ugly creation I've ever seen.  But if you are interested, they retail at a very reasonable $25 each and are available from most NFL stockists.  That's right, the "Forest Face" is an official piece of NFL merchandise.


You'll be amazed to know that I haven't purchased any of the above items. However, I have made my first NFL purchase, and it's a present for somebody else!
After stumbling through pages and pages of largely rubbish NFL items, I couldn't decide what to get myself. I am yet to have a favourite player, so I didn't want to get a jersey.  Besides, I can almost guarantee that the player whose name I have on my back will get traded/injured/arrested within a week of the purchase.

Instead, I decided to buy a present for my new nephew! And what 2 day old baby doesn't want this...

It's a Baby Gift set - consisting of dummy, bib and feeding bottle!
It could be argued that I'm trying to corrupt a tiny babies mind and lead them on a path of misery and despair.  I prefer to think that I'm sowing the seeds for a fulfilling life as a fan of the NFL's top team.

I'll leave you to decide which is more accurate!

And so ends my look at NFL merchandise.  It allows me to tick off another of the "30 Things to Do" and who knows, it may eventually help me tick off the task of converting somebody into an Eagles fan.  Although that could be a very long term project!

Apparently, there's a minor NFL event taking place on Thursday night.  After much umming and arring I've decided that I won't be staying up all night to watch the Draft.  Instead, I'll be writing a "non live" commentary of the Draft, as I look at the immediate reaction to the event and how the media are reporting it.

Merchandise of Doom

I knew that sooner or later, a topic would crop up that would require 2 articles to fully cover. I thought it might be the Draft, or possibly Free Agency or even the recently announced Schedule for 2012.

As it turned out, it was none of these.  In fact, my first 2 part blog is on the important issue of NFL merchandise and a trawl through the weird, wonderful and just plain awful items that are out there for fans to purchase.

Of course, bad merchandise isn't an NFL only phenomenon.  At the age of 16 (16...not 5!), my mum bought me a Gillingham FC jumper for Christmas.  Nothing wrong with that, except that the jumper was a bright sky blue and had a massive print of some goalposts with the word Gills in large letters across the middle.  Wearing it with my equally bad GFC cap made me look like cross between a local radio DJ and a terminally ill out patient.  Being the polite child that I was, I agreed to wear the item, but made sure it was only on very cold days when I'd have a thick coat protecting my shame.

As an adult, I've only really purchased the occasional item - a t-shirt with a Gills badge or sometimes a home shirt.  Now, I'm an Eagles fan I need to find a suitable piece of merchandise to solidify my love of the team...and man alive, there are a lot of options out there! Here is just a small selection of some of the oddities available:

If you're a fan of draughts (checkers) you may be interested in:

A slight drawback is that the Jags can only play the Titans, so fans of other teams may not get invited to the party. Or they could just stay outside and hang out by the Arizona Cardinals portable bar ($500)..

If Derek Trotter was
an NFL fan!

The above item is intended for Tailgating parties. Franchises have all manor of items available to enhance the tailgating experience - beer fridges, barbecues etc.  This next item isn't the most absurd, but at $200(!) most be the most overpriced:

That's right, $200 for a bit of wood with a hole in and 2 small beanbags.  Surely you can buy something like this at Poundland. The official name for the item is "Buffalo Bills Tailgate Toss", which is a very accurate description.

As upset as I was with my Gillingham jumper, it could have been worse:

This is actually a Bucs golf shirt! I'm not sure even John Daly would fork out $70 for it.  I was thinking that an Eagles t-shirt may be the way to go, although I probably won't go for this one:

The worrying thing is that there's a man out there who designed this.  Clearly, he saw John Squire's Stone Roses artwork and thought he'd have a go.  Luckily for me, there are plenty of more tasteful alternatives out there. I'm currently having a shop round a few sites to see which shirt takes my fancy. I want to get a proper Eagles jersey in time for the start of the season, but I haven't got a favourite player yet, so not sure which name to have on the back.  Of course, I could opt to get a non clothing item instead, perhaps something for the house...

It rotates!!!

I'm sure my other half would be delighted to see that on the bedside table.  I guess I could appease her by getting her something for the kitchen.  Who wouldn't want to serve soup in this:

A set of 4 sets you back a mere $40 and guarantees your dinner party goes down a storm.

Finally, for this first half of my hunt for a suitable piece of merchandise, here's an item that's not for the faint hearted...

That's right, it's a Cleveland Browns "ghost".  The sales pitch for this states that "Halloween is right in the middle of football season, so why not embrace both at the same time? " I'm not entirely sure how the above is "embracing" either, but at least I can be confident that the only way is up as I search for my NFL merchandise.