Masters of Media Hype

It's that time of year again ... are you excited? Sure, the season has been over for quite some time, and the Super Bowl is almost a distant memory. But, this is the NFL ... where there is no offseason.

It's time for the NFL Combine!!!

Everything — and I mean everything — the NFL does is a big event. Press releases are issued every time Roger Goodell farts … OK, maybe that's a bit extreme.

Seriously, though, the marketing minds at the NFL have a knack for garnering interest in the most mundane events.

The NFL Draft is a huge ordeal, with an abundance of media coverage and analysis. In fact, last year it was moved from Saturday and Sunday afternoons to a four-day weekend's worth of coverage beginning with a Thursday night prime time first round.

Most training camps are open to the public so that fans can make pilgrimages to watch their team practice. The horrendous preseason games are treated as if they're real games — with regular season pricing — though the outcome is meaningless and hardly anything worthwhile happens.

Now, it's the NFL Combine which draws big attention from football hungry fans. It's not enough to simply look at some mock drafts from "experts" and watch Sportscenter highlights from college football … now, fans need to see how the top prospects do at the annual "tryout" in Indianapolis.

Representatives from every NFL team will convene, starting today, in Indy to watch a bunch of former college standouts strut their stuff.

Of course, not everyone who is eligible for the draft will be there. Only certain players are invited. Also, some of the really big names in college football may not even show up at all (preferring instead to have a closed tryout session for certain teams), or they'll show up and not participate in the skills competitions.

Basically, it's totally ludicrous that this is even a "thing" that we should care about … but we do!!! It's the freaking' NFL Combine, for cryin' out loud! It's (almost) the last chance we'll be able to see how well (some of) the top college football players can impress NFL scouts before the Draft!!!

Without the NFL Combine and it's abundance of media coverage, how else will we be able to update our own personal mock drafts?

Go Browns!