The Night Before:
Being that I live in New York, only a ten minute subway ride from Radio City and given the historic nature of this year's draft taking place during a lockout. I decided that this was the year to go and attend the draft amongst the unwashed masses that call ourselves Jets fans. For those of you who have never been or are unfamiliar with the process, in order to procure tickets for the draft you have to wait outside Radio City for a minimum of three hours. The way the NFL distributes draft tickets separates the real fans from the front-runners or band wagoners (or at least in theory). According to the NFL website people are not allowed to start lining up until 10:00 PM on Wednesday night, only the "gringos" show up at ten.
The truth is people start lining up before 8:00, so if you come at 10:00 you jeopardize your chances of getting in at all. I showed up at 9:00 only to find a mob of football fanatics lined up as far as the eye can see down 50th street. Naturally I had to represent the green and white and showed up sporting a Nick Mangold jersey, the reception was mixed but us Jets fans are well represented so overall the reception was positive.
I got in line and the countdown to midnight began because midnight is when the NFL distributes the wristbands that guarantee you a ticket. The NFL's sponsors are good to the saps who wait in line to hear the commissioner say the name of a soon to be under-achieving player. Free Pepsi and Doritos were definitely a plus but the surprise of the night was getting the opportunity to meet Commissioner Roger Goodell. Due to the circumstances surrounding the NFL's recent labor negotiations, the Commissioner was doing his equivalent to "presidential baby kissing" by shaking hands and talking to the fans waiting outside Radio City. It was a great PR move and I had the liberty to talk to him for a little bit but ultimately unless these labor negotiations are settled and we the fans are guaranteed football, it doesn't matter how many hands he shakes. One would think that waiting outside, standing in line for three hours would be extremely monotonous. Actually to the contrary being amongst hundreds of people who are just as crazy about football, the time just melted away. It was 11:30 and the line began to move, we approached the entrance and before I knew it, wristband accomplished.
Draft Day:
Although the draft starts at 8:00, the doors open at 6:00 and tickets are traded for wristbands on a first come, first serve basis. Wanting to get good seats, me and my compatriots decided to arrive promptly at six and...so did everyone else. It should probably come as no surprise there was another rather long line outside Radio City to get in and guess who was there to entertain the fans waiting in line. If you guessed Roger Goodell, you would be right. For the second straight day, the Commissioner of the NFL was trying to ingratiate himself with the fans, perhaps as a last ditch attempt to avoid getting booed by the Radio City faithful. A little over an hour later, we got in the door with tickets in hand. It turns out that we were relegated to the upper deck, but not to worry we were there and with the real fans in the cheap seats, even though admission was free. As we approached our seats, we received the coveted "swag bag" full of sponsored out free stuff including a radio, a t-shirt, program, and a bunch of other free goodies.
The radio provides the audio feeds for the ESPN and NFL Network telecasts that were being broad casted on the massive screens flanking the stage.
As the Commissioner approached the stage all of the hand-shaking he did could not save him from the "boo birds" and the now famous "we want football" chant ensued, to which he responded: "I know, I feel you." It was nice to see that the Commissioner was able to take it all in stride and before long he found himself announcing Cam Newton's name as the first overall pick in the 2011 draft. Name after name and player after player came off the board with a few surprises. Among the most shocking was the Vikings pick of Florida State Quarterback Christian Ponder and equally surprising was the free fall of Clemson defensive end Da'Quan Bowers from potential number one overall pick to not even being selected in the first round.
It is unusual to wait so long for the Jets to draft but as the first round went on Jets fans including myself were looking their chops as certain defensive linemen began to fall down the board. When the Saints traded up to get Alabama Running Back, Mark Ingram it became apparent that the Jets would be able to get their pick of Muhammed Wilkerson, Da'Quan Bowers, or UCLA linebacker Akeeem Ayers. As soon as the Jets were on the clock, we rushed to be with our vocal constituency chanting Da-Qu-an Bo-wers however; it appears as though the Jets had the same concerns about his knee as the rest of the league and chose Wilkerson. The reaction was not boo's or cheers but a palpable air of satisfaction, knowing that it was the right pick to make. Although there were two more picks left, for all intents and purposes our night was over, we knew who our first round pick was but we did not know if and when we would see him play, we're looking at you Roger.
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