The NFL draft

In the end, the NFL draft was just like any other year. One thing you can always count on -- every team will say they got EXACTLY the players they wanted. Correction, make it two things. Every team will also say they greatly improved themselves and this will be the year they contend for a Super Bowl.

So their fans should -- quick -- buy season tickets, because they wouldn't want to miss out on the wonderful things that are sure to come this season.

Right.

Thing is, perennially superior teams don't need to throw out such hype, because it's hard to remember when they WEREN'T pretty good. See the New England Patriots -- and the Green Bay Packers, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Seattle Seahawks to a lesser extent. You just know they're going to make the playoffs every year and have a shot at the Vince Lombardi trophy.

Conversely there are teams like the Buffalo Bills, Cleveland Browns, and NY Jets. You just know they're going to be lousy every year. I mean, when was the last time any of them were any good?

In between are the Detroit Lions. Their glass ceiling appears to be winning a playoff game, which they've only done once since Super Bowls started. Make it past the first round of the playoffs, and Detroit sappies would be delirious with a fantastically successful season. This would be considered a miserable failure in a place like New England. Not good enough. Not nearly good enough.

So now all the new draftees will trot off to their mini-camps, try to learn the playbooks, and hope to make the team that drafted them. If they went in the first two rounds, they're pretty much a lock. Because head coaches and GMs would never admit they missed that bad on a high round pick by cutting him before the season began.

If they went in the later rounds, it's more of a crap shoot. Some "diamonds in the rough" will emerge, because they always do. Tom Brady was a sixth round pick -- almost an afterthought.

But for every Brady there's a Ryan Leaf, Tony Mandarich, or Charles Rogers. All top-three picks and all busts.

What can we expect this fall? The usual. Nobody knows which team(s) will out-perform their expectations -- see the Philadelphia Eagles from last year -- or crash and burn when so much was expected of them. The historically terrible Jacksonville Jaguars made some serious post-season noise. The historically pretty-good Dallas Cowboys went out with a whimper.

The Detroit Lions, per usual, had their fans believing, believing, believing, they could get over their hump last year. They didn't. Of course they didn't. Quarterback Matthew Stafford is highly celebrated in Detroit as the best thing since wireless remotes. But despite his gaudy passing yardage, he's been playing for a decade and is yet to win a single playoff game.

Never fear, this will be the Lions year, because they have a new head coach, killed the draft, and everything just has to be peachy. So sayeth the Lions, the local scribes that will always hype them to the heavens, and their legions of sappy fans that will -- amazingly -- buy into it another year.

If they were to win a playoff game, but fall far short of the Super Bowl, the city would likely celebrate. If the very same thing happened in New England, the people would be in an uproar over what would be deemed a colossal failure. It's all relative.

So another NFL draft has come and gone. It's all feel-good stories now. Everybody's in great shape. Just ask them.

But come September, we shall see.

The most interesting possibility is the Oakland Raiders, playing it out before they move to Vegas. Can new head coach Jon Gruden get those guys back to the former fearsome team the Raiders were for so long in years past?

I wouldn't bet against him.