The NFL Draft Is Here!!! And It’s In Detroit!!!
The National Football League's (NFL) Annual Player Selection Meeting (aka: The NFL Draft) is this weekend in downtown Detroit.
After holding the Draft in New York City at various sites within NYC throughout the years. The NFL decided, in 2015, to "bid out" the Draft to different NFL cities. And after wild success the league had with holding in it in Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, etc. The league has come to the Motor City for the premier off-season event for our National Pastime, the National Football League Draft.
Millions of dollars have been spent to bring the Draft to Detroit. Lots of "sprucing up" has been going on ever since it was announced the NFL was coming to Detroit. And it looks like it's going to work. Attendance is expected to be high with fans of all 32 NFL teams showing up. And the boos will be loud for NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell (pictured above) when he takes the stage for the first time Thursday night (which has turned into a tradition that Goodell embraces wisely, IMO).
The biggest problem with holding the Draft in downtown Detroit? Traffic hassles. And there are many more of them than usual because of the annual construction in Michigan which close many highways, streets, and roads every spring. Add the extra closures for the NFL Draft and you have a potential major issue.
And that doesn't count the extra security and law enforcement (from the Feds right on down to Detroit's finest) that must be on scene to make sure that order is kept and nothing gets out of hand. Nobody wants a tragedy like what happened this past February in Kansas City at their Super Bowl celebration rally.
But overall, I think it's a great thing to bring the Draft to Detroit. Any positive publicity that Detroit, and the entire state of Michigan, can get is a good thing.
Tomorrow, I will analyze the Draft and look at the picks the Detroit Lions have this year.