Are you Ready for Some Football?

After two weeks of non-stop hype and media efforts to invent stories to fill the sports pages, Super Bowl weekend is finally here.


I’m a football fan. I’ve enjoyed watching football for as long as I can remember – rooting for the Minnesota Vikings and Fran Tarkenton when I was a little kid (just to annoy my neighbor Art, who was a die-hard Green Bay Packer fan), to the last 20 years as a Denver Bronco fan.

Ask Phil about football and his response is “meh.” He would rather do yard work or simply take a nap. Football holds virtually no interest for him. Every now and then, he tries to humor me by watching part of a game with me, but it is rare for him to last more than 5 minutes.

So I was surprised a week or so ago when he asked me some questions about the NFL draft. I could answer some of his questions, but certainly not all of them. Rather than suggesting he spend some quality time on Wikipedia reading up on the draft, I rented “2 Days in April” from NetFlix so we could get educated together. 

TWO DAYS IN APRIL is a 90-minute documentary about the NFL draft seen through the eyes of four star college athletes. With never-before-seen access to the draft process, viewers travel with the players as they navigate the intense training and nerve-wracking emotions of a rigorous training camp, the 2006 Senior Bowl, the NFL "Combine" and draft weekend. It provides a behind the scenes look into the secretive, fiercely competitive and often brutal process of creating NFL players.


After watching the film I learned there was a big controversy in the making/release of the film. Sometimes it seems that the “rest of story” is almost as interesting as the film itself.

Phil really enjoyed the film and felt he learned a lot about how the NFL draft process works.

The statistics are what shocked me. Of all the eligible players, only 1400 sign up for the draft. Typically only 255 players are drafted. For all those little boys with a dream of playing in the NFL, the reality is harsh.

So tomorrow, while you’re eating chips and watching the game, know that you are truly watching the best of the best.