Time for the talking to stop with NFL Draft finally here

Millions will be watching when their team is finally put on the clock in Cleveland on Thursday night. After a season and offseason like no other, it can’t come soon enough

San Francisco’s selection is one of the most talked about (Getty Images)

“I can’t guarantee that anybody in the world will be alive Sunday, so I can’t guarantee who will be on our roster on Sunday,” San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan said on Monday. “That goes for all of us.”

Foreshadowing a global apocalypse was as good a sign as any that this year's pre-NFL Draft media cycle had reached its peak.

Outside of the Super Bowl, this is American football's busiest period as the latest class of collegiate prospects finally find out where they will be playing their professional ball after what seems a lifetime of build-up.

The NFL Draft has grown into a multi-million dollar enterprise, what once was a small, purely transactional process now unadulterated sporting and money-spinning theatre with the annual announcements routinely being watched by more people than play-off basketball and baseball games.

When all is said and done - and selected - this weekend, millions across the US and more across the globe will have tuned in to find out where their favourite prospects will land.

With the gravity of the career-defining decisions being made in Cleveland over the next three days comes hour after hour and column inch after column inch of speculation and counter-speculation on just who could be selected where and why.

Much of this year's bluff and bluster centres around Shanahan’s 49ers and what they will do with the third overall selection at the top end of the board and, more specifically, which quarterback they will select.

The scouts' pick would be Justin Fields, a top-tier, dual threat runner and passer from Ohio State, while other onlookers are enamoured with the raw potential of North Dakota's Trey Lance, another QB with outstanding physical gifts.

The draft gurus, however, believe it will instead be Mac Jones, a more polarising prospect who won everything there is to win at Alabama, but was never the star of the show while doing it.

What is for sure is Shanahan, the man tasked with making the call, has had enough of the talking.

“I think there are five quarterbacks,” he said having traded three first round picks to move up the board to have his pick of them. “Everyone’s excited to draft a quarterback. If you would have been excited about one of these guys at 12, then you should be excited at three.”

There will be a new signal-caller in San Francisco come Saturday afternoon, of that we can be certain. The rest, however, is less clear after a collegiate season and offseason like no other before it.

Coronavirus decimated the playing schedule for teams up and down the country - Lance was reduced to playing just one game - while as the teeth of the pandemic hit many of the class' top stars including LSU wide receiver Jamarr Chase and Miami edge rusher Greg Rousseau opted to not play at all.

And then, come Draft time, the usual league scouting combine was cancelled leaving the all-important height, weight and speed measurements to be done from afar.

For talent evaluators that has presented a unique challenge.

"I think it’s the most mysterious draft ever" long-time ESPN analyst Mel Kiper Jr says. “I said it was gonna be that way in August. We had all opt-outs, guys not playing, guys playing some, guys being affected by all the disruption and all the Covid tests and all that.

“I think it’s the most intriguing draft ever, the most fascinating draft ever, the most interesting draft ever. In the 43 years I’ve been doing it, I would say all those words apply.”

NFL Network's Daniel Jeremiah, a former scout with the likes of the Baltimore Ravens and Philadelphia Eagles, agrees.

"Look, group think is a real thing," Jeremiah says of the tendency for teams and scouts to fall in line with their opinions of players.

"When you get scouts that pal around together, we go to the same schools and you'd be at the same places watching the same players. Everybody ends up talking and and you kind of end up getting some consensus on some players."

"I think in some ways it's better because you get individual evaluations," Jeremiah added. "But I can't remember more variance just talking to buddies around the league about specific players where the (evaluations) are so wildly different."

Different is right but the hype remains the same. Millions of eyeballs will be watching when commissioner Roger Goodell finally announces the 49ers pick. Shanahan is ready for Thursday night. The NFL-watching world will be on the clock with him.