My least two favorite days of the sports calendar have finally come and gone. 

Media Day at the Super Bowl is one of the biggest farces in sports.  The NFL, in it's desire to involve people form all walks of life and dominate the headlines that day, will literally let anyone in.  That's why in addition to the usual suspects and the hard working sports people who need to do legitimate work, you'll find people from Comedy Central, Bravo, MTV and a host of other places asking ridiculous and irrelevant questions.  As a serious sports fan and as someone who takes covering sports seriously, I have always be appalled and annoyed by this.  It's like letting Peter King into a fashion show.

The other day I'm glad is over is National Signing Day.  When I worked down South, we used to joke that there was no mail delivery and all federal and state offices were closed.  While the guys who feast on taking your money to subscribe to their publications (similar to draftniks) can rank recruits and classes all they want, the end game is no one has any clue how this will work out.  Need some examples?  How about Mitch Mustain, a highly rated quarterback a few years ago who signed with Arkansas.  Mustain started a few games his freshman year, but, based on his performance the next season, was reduced to second on the depth chart. That didn't sit well with him or his helicopter mom.  Mrs. Mustain started a stink at Arkansas that eventually got Coach Houston Nutt fired while Mustain took off for USC.  As highly rated as Mustain was, he has played very few downs for both teams and probably will never play for pay (unless you count maybe the Arena League).

Some of these kids won't make the grade, others will get involved in some unsavory activity that will get them booted off a team.  Still others will not like their PT and transfer to another school.  So, sure, you can look at names on a list and project all you want, but the secret lies in coaching these guys up.  Some coaches turn out to be better salesmen than coaches.

There is also the issue of which analyst is most successful at ranking these guys.  My top ten may not be your top ten.  I may be more familiar with players in my region than I am in another region and so fourth.  Most importantly, these kids are 17 and 18 years old and pretty raw maturitywise, so while many of the analysts talk to these kids, you can't really get a true measure of them until a couple of years from now.

I'm happy these two days have passed and we can get back to what's important in sports, like what to serve during the Super Bowl party.