How the NFL Draft crushes dreams

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Molly McIntyre, Staff Writer

The lights are turned on. The commissioner walks on the stage ready to announce the first pick of the 2017 NFL Draft.

Players fresh out of the combine wait in hopes to hear their name called, but pray to whatever god they believe in that they do not get drafted first.

Everyone looks at the giant clock that says that the pick is in. There is no more time to waste, the 2017 season starts now.

“With the first pick in the 2017 NFL draft,” says commissioner Roger Goodell over the deafening booing. “The Cleveland Browns select…”

Everything stopped moving.

For most teams, the NFL draft is about finding a new face for the franchise in hopes of turning their team around or replacing veterans that have retired. But for the Cleveland Browns, the draft is all about ruining the lives of young men with high NFL hopes.

Hundreds of men in glamorous suits start sweating. The weaker cry in the arms of their mother and swear that if they get drafted first they are going to pull an Eli Manning. Their moms tell them it is going to be okay, but wonder what they are going to do when their kids dreams die.

Everything starts moving again.

The booing for the commissioner gets louder, and finally the first pick in the draft is announced.

Walking onto the stage, a young man is in tears. He is shaking and has to tell himself not to vomit. The crowd laughs. In a prision cell miles away, Johnny Manziel becomes empathetic, knowing full well what it is like to throw on that brown uniform.

The rest of the draft continues, while the first pick in the NFL draft is found in the men’s bathroom in a fetal position sucking his thumb. There is no hope left for this young man.

 

Rest in peace to whoever the Browns draft this year.