Discussed: clairvoyance, Mardi Gras, what-have-yous, riff raff, softball throws, Tolkienian hair, old men, Internet searching, models of reality
There are hundreds of millions of interrelated factors which play a role in what you or I or any other human being on earth will do tomorrow, or next week, or next year. We can, at best, barely make predictions about our own future state of being, let alone another person’s. Thus, ad nauseam discussion of draft picks is a futile exercise and serves only to bolster egos and pilfer valuable time and energy from small-minded individuals. However, we absolutely must know why the Denver Broncos drafted Noah Fant in the first round.
First, some thoughts about the first round in general. Watching the contrived spectacle of assembled superfans assorted into mini superfan nation-states, replete with face paint, team-logo-patterned blazers, for some reason Mardi Gras beads, oversized foam apparel and appendages, and other what-have-yous is a whirlwind of self fulfilling regional stereotyping and cultural appropriation. All of us not in attendance are (most likely) acting like normal human beings, yet we suspend our disbelief and buy into the notion of we’re-number-one! carried by every fan who is.
We also get interviews with just-drafted players that go something like this:
Interviewer: You said you couldn’t imagine what it would be like to get that phone call. Now that it’s happened, what was it like?
Player: It was everything I imagined.
This entire extravaganza makes one feel dumb for being a sports fan.
But we’re not dumb! We’re sure of it. THEY’RE dumb. The MACHINERY is dumb. We, of course, sit outside of all that and are capable of making actually intelligent observations about the pure aspects of the going-ons. The skills, the team needs, the value, the strategy, the things the other riff raff don’t understand.
Which brings us to the Denver Broncos, the team for which we care the most. The Broncos traded out of their initially slotted 10th pick with the Steelers in exchange for Pittsburgh’s first round pick (20th overall), plus a couple of other picks. With that 20th pick the Broncos selected Noah Fant, a tight end from Iowa. But why?
Fant was the second tight end taken from Iowa in the first round, which is pretty interesting. The first guy was taken at number 8 overall by the Lions, TJ Hockenson. We learned that Hockenson is quite an athlete as evidenced by his placing third one time in a softball throw. This has to give Lions fans a great deal of confidence to have such versatility at the tight end position. By way of inference we Broncos fans should have slightly less great confidence to have picked the slightly less good version of the man the Lions picked. Smart fans, however, would argue that he is just a different TYPE of player. More athletic maybe. Certainly less of a Hobbit-y hair style than that of Hockenson. But is he as good at throwing softballs? Could he have placed as high as third in such an event? These are the riveting questions of the draft of which the answers only time will reveal.
What was going on in the collective minds of the old men in the Broncos war room that led to this decision? To understand that we need to take a trip to San Francisco. Here you will find a man called George Kittle. Kittle is a tight end and Iowa alumni. Sound familiar? You see, one time last season George Kittle racked up an impressive 362,527 receiving yards in a single half of a single game. Learning this, you might wonder what lowly team could give up such an inordinate amount of yards to a single player in a single half of a single game? That’s right, the Denver Broncos.
Obviously, being on the business end of that whooping by Kittle made them realize that they, too, must employ their very own George Kittle, or at least the closest possible thing: TJ Hockenson, third place softball thrower. However, upon realizing that the Lions had this very same plan, they had to do the next best thing: ask the Internet who else plays tight end for the Iowa Hawkeyes. And that’s how you end up with Noah Fant on your team.
Not many face-painted superfans understand the intricacies and multi-layered decision making that goes into deciding to draft players like Noah Fant. If you can manage to ignore the pomp you can get a peek behind the curtain into the fascinating inner workings of the sport at the highest level. Now, this doesn’t answer the question will Noah Fant be any good, but nobody can see into the future. The best you can do is rely on a solid model of reality to make the best decisions you can using a reliably consistent process of gathering relevant information.