Keyboard Quarterbacks

By Mark La Monica

It's been 41 minutes since I turned the television off and I still can't figure out which event of the evening has me more furious at myself.

The events of perplexity:

- ESPN dedicated 90 minutes of its 12 hours of daily non-SportsCenter programming to a fantasy football draft involving 6 ESPN personalities, one NFL player and one actor.

- ESPN had analysts for this.

- I watched some of it.

- I was overheard by myself saying things such as "Now that's a stupid pick!" and "Geez, why doesn't Michael Smith know to take running backs first if you want to win?"

There were unconfirmed reports that when the program ended, I threw myself out the second-story window of my place and into an industrial-strength wood chipper.

In the latest attempt to prove they can do whatever they want and we're powerless to stop them, ESPN honchos decided to smack us in the face with a fantasy football draft. They even went so far as to allow the people to talk trash to each other about their picks. The only thing that kept this from being completely accurate was the lack of technological glitches that always arise when eight fantasy teams are in eight different places for their draft. That, and no one was wearing pajamas or was in their mother's basement.

What happened, ESPN? Were there no more outbracket rounds from the 2001 World Series of Poker to air? Surely, you could have squeezed one more SportsCenter out of John Anderson and Stuart Scott. Or maybe even a "Who's Now?" recap.

Seriously, why did I watch even a minute of this? I'm canceling my cable once "Entourage" ends.

P.S. Sean Salisbury drafted Jon Kitna in the fourth round. That would explain most of the decision he made on the field during his playing days.