For fans of American football, the NFL Draft springs hope eternal

Analysis: A bad pick could set your franchise back years but the right one can rewrite the history books

To understand the interest in the NFL Draft, you have to get inside the mind of a sports fan.

In Britain, the burgeoning eyeball economy of the internet has seen transfer news take on a whole new level of importance, with clubs and media companies (spot the difference, in some cases) pouncing on the surges of interest that brings.

Transfers get supporters excited because they feed the eternal hope of the sports fan, the thought that your team can always get better and might be just one signing away from salvation or – whisper it quietly – glory.

A wild transfer spree can invigorate and re-engage a fan base in a way that no ticket promotion or sale in the club shop can.

Plenty of owners have fallen into that trap: Everton and Fulham are two Premier League teams who splashed out £100m each on players last summer to get very little in return. Well, that’s not strictly true...Fulham got a relegation.

The NFL Draft benefits from the very same mental gymnastics, with NFL fans imagining what their team could achieve with just one or two special additions.

Much of the focus lies on the opening few picks of the first round, which takes place on Thursday, as that is when the finest players college football has to offer end up being taken.

Curiously, for the most hyper-capitalist nation on earth, American sports leagues take an almost communist approach to their competitions. The idea is competitive parity, and so the worst teams in the league are given the first picks of the best college players graduating, while the Super Bowl champions are given the last pick in each of the seven rounds.

That means the Arizona Cardinals are first up this year, with the current holders of the Vince Lombardi trophy, the New England Patriots, picking 32nd before it goes back to the Cardinals for the start of round two.

Arizona are expected to take quarterback sensation Kyler Murray, a brilliant dual-threat QB who could well change the course of the franchise forever.

Equally, as many first-round picks have in the past, Murray may flame out. Injuries could ruin his career or off-the-field issues could overcome his talent. The Oklahoma quarterback might struggle to adapt to the speed of the NFL or, alternatively, he might have a 15-year-long career that sends him to the Hall of Fame. A bad pick could set your franchise back years but the right one can rewrite the history books.

That is why the draft is so engrossing, because just like those pesky transfers it gives fans the opportunity to dream and to wish and to hope that the useless/brilliant/evil* (*delete as appropriate) people who run their favourite team might happen across a player who changes everything.

For what is – essentially – a simple administrative function, that is a lot of emotion and promise. It’s a lot to process, and that’s why you surely don’t want to miss it.

The Independent is in Nashville, Tennessee for the NFL Draft. Follow all of our coverage at independent.co.uk/sport and follow the first round LIVE as it happens on our live blog.