The NFL Draft

The first round of the 2010 NFL Draft was today. It's hilarious folks. Seriously, have you ever watched it? It's 10-15 lucky chumps that get paid to talk experts that wax eloquent about the prospect of a college athlete making their future NFL teams into much better NFL teams. Here's an actual quote (almost): "If this guy does the same or better than he did in college, there's no reason to doubt that he won't make it in the National Football League." What does that mean?

There are three things that you need to do in order to succeed as TV Sports Announcer:
One: Say all acronyms completely. None of this NFL, MLB or SCUBA junk; You hammer out National Football League, Major League Baseball or Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. Try this one and watch yourself get smoked by some Foo. "Hey didn't the National Aeronautics and Space Administration increase all of their Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act paperwork because a Central Intelligence Agency worker stole an Automated Teller Machine and contracted Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus?" Yeah, that's right... you're the coolest.

Two: Talk in extreme hyperbole and generalities. Use words like: upside, value and potential to describe someone good and downside, issues and gamble to describe someone bad. Say things like: "This wildly entertaining defensive back has the strength of 1,000 men and if he stays positively healthy is going to be a great value, but if he's hit with a devastating or debilitating injury his potential will be severely limited causing people to insatiably wonder if this hugely controversial pick was a gamble that could result in an earthquake of epic proportions."

Three: Learn the language. There's a lingo that goes along with the "sports world." Start sentences with "You talk about..." and then insert what ever the heck everyone else has been saying about the subject for the last 20 years and you're money. When you agree with someone, you can't just agree with a simple "I agree." You have to say almost the exact thing that the person you're agreeing with said; but word it in a way that people don't think you're saying it. Practice the next time someone says "I love pizza." Then say, "Pizza IS great but when you talk about pizza, you have to talk about the best part about pizza and that's the tremendous upside it has over other comparable food."