Plenty to look for in the upcoming NFL draft - including its finish

The NFL Draft is coming! The NFL Draft is coming!

Hallelujah, if only for the fact that once it’s done, the endless speculating, promoting, advertising and hype will be done with it.

From April 26-28 — three days, count ‘em, three days — 256 players, mostly college, over seven rounds will find themselves the property of various franchises. I can’t wait to sit down to watch on TV and the Internet — not!

Draft day used to be interesting, and still is somewhat. Finding out where the future home of our favorite college players will be, and how our favorite NFL teams — and not so favorite rivals — did to improve themselves can be fun if only to have material for conversations around the water cooler,

Which leads me to a question: Does anybody really stand around the water cooler and talk? Did anybody ever do this?

This year, quarterbacks are the hot ticket item, with four of them tabbed to go in the first four picks — and yes, one of those teams are the 0-16 Cleveland Browns. One mock draft report has the Browns picking Wyoming QB Josh Allen, with the New York Giants selecting USC’s Sam Darnold second and the other New York team (“the woeful Jets”) taking Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield.

Denver, in a trade with Cleveland, picks fourth and tabs UCLA’s Josh Rosen. The Browns — this is what you get when you’re spend the last several years in the league’s cellar — draft fifth and pick Penn State running back Saquon Barkley.

And so it goes.

Looking at all these QBs makes me think of other drafts that featured supposed “franchise” signal callers. Anybody remember the Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf 1-2 punch in the 1998 draft?

Manning, picked number one by the Indianapolis Colts, went on to a record-setting career that featured two Super Bowl wins. Washington State University’s Leaf? Four seasons with four teams and out.

How about Philip Rivers and Eli Manning in 2004? Manning was the consensus top pick, but announced he would not play for the San Diego Chargers, who drafted him No. 1.

Instead, he was traded to the New York Giants for Philip Rivers, who was taken with the No. 4 pick. Rivers has had a solid career, but Manning won a pair of Super Bowls for the New York team that plays in New Jersey.

And has anybody seen Johnny Manziel?

For Seahawk fans, the draft is always an interesting exercise in frustration. Under general manager John Schneider and head coach Pet Carroll, Seattle has two NFC titles and one Super Bowl championship ring, but did it by going the opposite way most teams go in the draft order — down.

That hasn’t necessarily worked the past couple years, and in 2018 the Seahawks have nine overall picks, but just one in the first three rounds. The No. 18 selection is the result of one of the few good things former place kicker Blair Walsh did for us last season —miss a game winning field goal against Arizona.

If he’d made it, Seattle would’ve drafted 20th.

Seattle has a number of needs, almost evenly split between offense and defense, so we’ll see what the Schneider/Carroll brain trust can do.

And finally, the question on everybody’s mind: Who will be Mr. Irrelevant?

The last pick of the draft, No. 256 the past several years, always gets more fanfare than he’ll ever likely see again, simply because he made the cut and was picked. Last year, Mr. Irrelevant was Ole Miss quarterback Chad Kelly, selected by the Broncos and who is currently on the reserve/non-football injury list after off-season wrist surgery.

If he comes back and is able to perform, he’ll be only the second Mr. Irrelevant to achieve any kind of NFL success. Place kicker Ryan Succop, taken with the 256th pick by the Kansas City Chiefs in 2009, went on tie the record for the highest field goal success rate of any rookie kicker.

Happy draft hunting everybody.

John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.