Call him a Grinch, but Browns linebacker Scott Fujita isn’t too fired up about the NFL draft.
“I’ve always viewed the draft as somewhat silly,” Fujita told ProPlayerInsiders.com in a phone interview Wednesday. “I mean, if you’re the best in your field in the medical profession, or the best coming out of law school, you get your pick of where you want to go. But here, it’s, ‘Okay, your new team is Carolina, and by the way they were terrible last year and you might not want to play there, but you have no choice.’ And this year it’s, ‘Oh, and by the way, you can’t talk to your coaches, either, because we’re screwing them over too.’ So I’m not real big on the draft, but I recognize that I’m in the very small minority.”
He is, which is why millions will tune in Thursday night to find out if Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton really is going to be the Panthers’ pick at No. 1, and whether the player they’ve been dreaming about will fall to the spot where their team is picking. Thanks to the lockout, this NFL off-season has been devoid of the kind of player-movement news that gets fans fired up in the spring and summer, so fans have been looking forward to Thursday night for some time. So have the players.
“It’s exciting that it’s finally here,” said Alabama running back Mark Ingram, the 2009 Heisman winner who’s projected to go somewhere in the middle of the first round. “I’m excited, anxious, all of those things. You imagine that moment for a long time, and I think guys are excited to find out where we’re going to be going.”
Ingram did admit that the labor situation has cast an odd feel over this year’s draft. Draft picks will be able to go to their new cities for introductory news conferences, but unless the lockout is lifted as a result of Judge Susan Nelson’s orders, they won’t be able to talk to their new coaches, learn their new offenses and defenses, practice with their new teams or even work out in their new teams’ facilities.
“I feel bad for the incoming guys, because they’re really caught in a bad spot,” Fujita said.
The NFLPA is hosting draft-week events for the incoming rookies, beginning with a welcome reception Thursday afternoon at a midtown Manhattan hotel. The incoming rookies will meet with media and sponsors all day Friday, conduct a skills clinic Saturday morning in New York City and then join current and former players at the NFLPA’s “One Team” celebration Saturday night at Cipriani Wall Street. By then, they’ll all know the identities of their new teams. And who knows? They may even know how soon they’re allowed to start practicing.
