You might think the NFL is a well-oiled machine. You might buy into all of the hype about how the NFL is the best run, most valuable, most efficient league in the world. If that's the case, why was I stuck out here an hour after the doors were supposed to have opened? And yes, that's some tool in a Matt Leinart USC jersey. And you thought I was kidding when I titled this post A Study in Elegant Death.
My buddy and I managed to get in just after 6:30 with round 2 scheduled to start at 7, so that didn't give us much time to check the environs this year. For what it was worth, it wasn't measurably different than what was there for Day 3 two years ago.
No Alyssa Milano this year, though.
I seem to remember going last year as well, but I can't remember for the life of me why I didn't write up a post about it. Probably because I spent most of my time there studying for the CFA exam and reading the Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. There was the Lombardi Trophy again:
It's even shinier than it looks.
And there was also the requesite overpriced merchandise:
One crisp Benjamin for one of the balls on the top of that display case, by the way.
Unfortunately, there were no cheerleaders about (that's only on day 3), and no players on hand signing pictures or the like. They did, however, have these nice goodie bags for everyone on hand.
As I said on Twitter, I was really looking forward to those little Snickers bites. Really thoughtful of them considering hot dogs were running 4.50 a pop. Up top is a Deion Sanders fairy thing advertising DirecTV. Really.
Around 7 we settled into seats on the third mezzanine and took in the draft. Welcome to flavor country. Oh wait, I'm mixing slogans again. WELCOME TO PRIMETIME
See, says so right in the middle.
A cursory glance around revealed what the NFL Network crew was having for dinner.
Sure looks like Halal food to me. (To the left of Marshall Faulk, right in the middle back there.)
So, a couple of quick thoughts on round 2:
- Coby Fleener actually got a fairly mixed reception, but I think that was because a lot of Giants fans (and I do know of a few) were hoping that the Giants would pick him up at the end of round 1. I'm just happy he and Luck are no longer on the farm. Speaking of which, haven't we had more than a little bit of trouble covering tight ends recently? I feel like Ed Dickson just scored again.
- No one in the entire third mezzanine level that I was on reacted to Mychal Kendricks going to the Eagles except me. Which led to this exchange on Twitter:
Mychal Kendricks to the #Eagles!!!!#GoBears
— GoldenBlogs (@GoldenBlogs) April 28, 2012
Looks like I need to get another Cal/Eagles jersey twitter.com/GoldenBlogs/st…
— GoldenBlogs (@GoldenBlogs) April 28, 2012
@GoldenBlogs do you have that CAL/Redskins Jersey.
— Lorenzo Alexander (@onemangang97) April 28, 2012
Uh, no sir, I don't. But I'll think about it. In the meantime, I do have this:
- And finally, there was much consternation over this in person:
Until next year...or until the NBA draft. I just might have to head back to Newark one last time for that. Go Brooklyn Nets.