The NFL Draft used to be a private gig. Only members allowed. BYOB. They’d hold it in a speakeasy around a hideaway corner and maybe you’d get an invite and maybe you wouldn’t. The password to get in didn’t have to have eight letters and a number. It was something like, “Blitz,” or “Hike.”
Now, of course, it is its own three-day weekend, pulling ahead of Columbus Day and giving Labor Day a flat out run for its money in a 40-yard dash on the American holiday turf. It is a bash, an extravaganza, an orgy of hype, celebs, gossip, and numbers.