NFL, give me my Thursday back.

When I was in college, the NFL draft meant setting up shop with my computer in the living room of our apartment with my laptop out pretending to care while I feverishly plotted the next month of my pre-doomed fantasy baseball campaign. Now, I don't even have the energy to pretend.

Well, let me step back. I usually watch the first round to see where the big names go, and then when it's all over, I'll see how my Bengals (or Bungles, depending on how clinically depressed I feel at any given time about them) have decided to spend our money this year. But does the NFL Draft really matter?

Okay, of course it matters. The draft is how teams begin the campaign for next year, where late-round steals becomes starters and stars, and when Detroit Lions fans start thinking, "This might actually be our year..." until the first game of the season.

My frustration is with Mel Kiper Jr., Todd McShay, John Gruden, and the rest of the goon squad hogging 75% of ESPN time leading up to the draft with an endless repitition of speculation that amounts to a heaping pile of nothing.

And all the while, I'm trying to find the replay of Tuuka Rask and Ryan Miller showing the rest of the NHL what playoff goaltending is all about. I'm trying to watch a recap of how the Boston Celtics made Quentin Richardson and the Miami Heat look like a high school summer rec-league team. I want to see triple overtime hockey games and buzzer beaters, not Roger Goodell reading glorified index cards.

This year, the draft is dominating Thursday and Friday nights for only three rounds of the draft?! There are championships on the line in the NHL and the NBA and we care about a group of 96 people that essentially have a 50% chance of succeeding in the NFL. The history of the draft shows that the only thing we know for sure about Sam Bradford is he could be anywhere between Peyton Manning and Tim Couch.