Green Bay Crushes the NFL Draft Like an Empty Beer Can

As you probably know by now, the NFL Draft was held in Green Bay last week. Football fans from all over the world ventured to Titletown to see their teams select college stars over the course of three days.

Those who made the trip to the Lambeau Field were treated to a taste of local culture and midwest hospitality, along with a lot of beer, bratwurst, and cheese. The NFL turns the draft into a de facto variety show, so there was plenty happening on stage between actual player selections. Those interludes are why remote controls were invented. Little is known about those speeches, songs, and presentations, but they were probably great. Word on the street is the event wrapped up with a concert performance by Brad Paisley.

Since Green Bay is the NFL’s smallest market and a little more difficult to get to than the major markets, they were projecting 250,000 fans over the course of the event. But those projections were about as accurate as a Vikings placekicker at crunch time, with an estimated 600,000 visitors getting in the mix. Apparently television executives said the broadcast did “boffo numbers,” which roughly translates to “really good ratings.”

The Packers selected speedy Texas wide receiver Matthew Golden in the first round. He is one of two receivers they chose, along with two offensive tackles, a defensive tackle, a cornerback, a linebacker, and an edge rusher. Several experts gave the team’s selections an A grade, while a few crackpots assigned them lower marks.

There have been rumblings that Deion Sanders’ son was in the draft this year, but the Drink Wisconsinbly Week in Review Sports Research Department was unable to unearth any media coverage of the purported slide.

So, now begins the hard part of the football calendar. The NFL schedule release comes on May 15th and there are OTAs a few days later, a minicamp in June and training camp in July. There’s pre-season, too, if you’re into that sort of thing. But the meaningful football doesn’t kick off until September 7th. That’s a long time to wait. Fortunately, winter should be wrapping up soon. And you’ve got the whole state of Wisconsin to help keep your mind occupied for the next four months. So you might as well get out there and distract yourself the best way you know how.

A limited supply of commemorative Draft Wisconsinbly merchandise is still available and on sale!