The beer: Bent Water Jolene Porter
The commentary: We’re switching to Roman numerals. It’s so goddamn obvious, I wish I’d thought of it years ago.

And here we are: the second and third rounds, one week after the fact, with full big-picture knowledge of what went down. It’s one way to bring back my “live” draft diary, right? One desperate way. I recorded five hours of this shit so hold tight while I fast-forward my ass off.

Regarding the Pats’ picks, which I’ll get into more below, consensus seems to award them a C+. Between that and Brady’s reinstated suspension (a lot of “I told you so” from the media who correctly recognized Goodell’s all-encompassing power that the NFLPA agreed to), the team dropped all the way down to… favorites to win the Super Bowl. It’s good to root for these guys, as you can see by G. seeking one for the thumb.

Time stamps are “live,” not live, because I was busy cheering on local Guns N’ Roses cover band Cocaine Tongue in Salem last Friday night. Truth.

7:00
Oh good, a Greek mythology metaphor to start things off. I don’t think Sisyphus signed on for millions and millions of guaranteed dollars.

7:03
Rich Eisen is “thrilled that [you] chose us tonight.” Well, I inexplicably have the NFL Network right now, but not ESPN. “And there you have it.”

7:05
“Boooooooooo!!!!!!!” Ladies and gentlemen, the commissioner of the most popular sports league in the world! Goodell follows a string of hall-of-famers onto the stage and asks “Do we have everybody?” No, Rog, you left any semblance of self-awareness in the elevator.

7:06
Dick Butkus could have played one of those angry cops in The Fugitive. He’s a Chicago stereotype at this point. After a few words, Goodell tells him “Thank you, Dick,” something he hears himself a few dozen times a day.

7:07
Folks in Cleveland’s war room (all nine of them, and those are only the ones you can see!) are sitting around idly until they notice they’re on TV. Then it’s all “Oh, um… check out these… stats?… on my laptop!” Eisen says “Nobody’s on the phone!”

7:08
Analyst Charles Davis projects a lot of “wheelin’ and dealin’” early in the second round. Rudy Ray More projects a lot of “whalin’ and jailin’” on my iPod every Christmas.

7:10
The pick is in! Smiles, handshakes and basic signs of life make an appearance in the Browns’ war room at last. You only had twenty hours to think about this, guys.

7:14
Goodell fucks up and calls it “the Ohio State University” instead of “Thee Ohio State University.” What’s the deal with that, anyway? Paul Garfield announces the pick. I loved him in The Charmings. “With the thirty-second pick in the 2016 NFL draft, the Cleveland Browns select…” someone I’ve never heard of. I will now skip to the Pats.

8:45
Hold the phone! J–E–T–S! The highlight of every round. Chad Pennington comes out looking like he’s on his way to Easter Mass with his parents. Moron Jets Fan No. 1 claps and proclaims “We got a QB! We got a QB!” Followed by Mike Mayock, who is generally tolerable this broadcast despite wearing a vest (and before showing signs of humanity over the “beavers”/“bush” giggle-fest the following day), humiliating generations of Hackenbergs with “Here’s what drives you crazy: in a pair of gym shorts, you ought to be a hundred percent. Sails three feet over his head.” God bless the Jets. Long live the AFC East.

9:23
Good guys on the clock! “NE: Won AFC East last seven seasons,” reminds the graphic. Left unsaid is “Oh, that eighth year, Brady was placed on injured reserve after the first game and the team missed the playoffs with eleven wins. Before then, you ask? Five straight division titles.” Richard Seymour strolls out to announce the sixtieth pick as Eisen spoils that the team traded away the sixty-first. Drag. Seymour looks like he could still hold the edge. Idiot Patriots Fan No. 1 is wearing a TB12 hat and clearly has no idea who Cyrus Jones is. I didn’t either at the time, but I’m also more likely to attend a cosplay of Frozen characters in a bar constructed out of ice than I am an NFL draft ceremony. More truth. On Tuesday the PFW in Progress guys compared Jones to Ellis Hobbs with a bit more upside, which sounds good to me so long as we don’t play the Giants in another Super Bowl. Mayock, after some encouraging analysis: “Now, the issue with him, you saw Laquon Treadwell basically take a ball in the end zone off his helmet.” Red flag. See you in eighteen picks.

10:19
Good guys on the clock! My main man Kevin Faulk solidifies his standing as this year’s Patriots’ Hall of Fame inductee by strutting onstage with a Brady jersey under his sport coat: “The New England Patriots and Tom Brady select…” Well, he called Joe Thuney a linebacker instead of a lineman. Belichick should convert him on principle. This turned out to be a controversial pick because Mike Reiss suggested he could play tackle but everyone else, including Dante Scarnecchia and Thuney himself, said he was a guard. Which wouldn’t be bad if we hadn’t drafted two guards last year who played a lot of snaps. What do I know.

10:35
J–E–T–S! That “Jets green” fountain looked like Homer Simpson neglected to hit the right button this time. The pick is met, more or less, with silence. They need to move this thing back to New York. Hey, let’s talk about the Jolene. I understand that cans are the craft-beer fad because they “preserve the beer” or some bullshit about it not being a savings scheme, but Bent Water out of Lynn, where death comes to die, labels their cans with stickers rather than traditional screen-printing. Because “cheaper” “flavor.” Excellent designs nonetheless, and there are worse songs to have stuck in your head while drinking dark beer.

10:58
We’re on the clock again! And… it doesn’t look like the NFL Network is going to show it live. That’s OK, I already know it’s a quarterback no one is excited about except for Bill Parcells, whose is a valuable opinion because he has been the team’s coach since 1993 really dicked us over in 1997. Daniel Jeremiah says Jacoby Brissett “looks like a quarterback” (Flavor Flav responds “So step back!”) and concludes with “Jimmy Garoppolo, a little competition now.” So he thinks Brissett might start four games during Brady’s suspension? Belichick barely starts rookie running backs, and if Garoppolo has not progressed to the level where he’s ahead of an incoming spread-based quarterback then he would already have been traded to the Bears for two first-round picks. Anyway, now’s a good time to talk about the… unpleasantness… and how the first four weeks of the season could shake out if “legal” fallout (over air pressure!) is unchanged in September. At Arizona would likely be a loss with or without Brady: on the road in a hyped environment against a strong defense. Special teams might have to help out Garoppolo if he has any chance to win his first start. The next three games, though: at home against the Dolphins, the Texans and the Bills? Any quarterback in the league could win two of these three in front of fans who will wait at least a two-game losing streak to run screaming to Michael Felger. Thing is, we still don’t know if Garoppolo actually belongs in the league because he hasn’t yet played a meaningful minute. (That’s not a knock. I feared the same thing about Matt Cassel going into 2008 and that turned out OK.)

Let’s assume Brady would lose against the Cardinals and win the rest to start three and one. My guess is Garoppolo will also lose to the Cardinals, win the home opener against the Dolphins, eke one out against the Texans and lose one that won’t be as close as the score indicates against a Bills/Rex Ryan defense that will give us problems. Two and two? Is Garoppolo merely one game worse than the greatest quarterback of all time? Over this four-game spread, including three at home against teams that probably won’t make the playoffs? Sure. Now let’s acknowledge Deflategate itself as a scandal more absurd than the actual deflating of footballs that Brady probably directed and be on our way. (I don’t expect the appeal, if there is one, to be successful. See you in Cleveland, Tommy. I recommend the Winking Lizard.)

11:10
Kevin Faulk is back! After fighting a handful of NFL officials he comes out looking sharp in all-over purple. G. would love that outfit. “Big-body” Vincent Valentine is the pick, another head-scratcher in these parts. He could be Mudhoney’s tour manager for all I know about him. Mayock: “He’s not always in the best of shape… and, at times, his play reflects that.” Woot! Eisen forgets he can’t rewind and fast-forward at will like I’ve been doing and asks Mayock “Wh-what was that all about?” regarding Brisset, fretting over Garoppolo’s potential free agency next year and outing himself as one who turns to Twitter before forming an opinion, any opinion, about the sport he covers professionally. Mayock answers that no one knows how long Brady can keep playing at a high level and so drafting quarterbacks is, essentially, good business. Sound analysis that Mike Reiss has been providing since Kevin O’Connell (shudder) was taken in the third round in 2008.

11:33
Let’s end with a post-mortem roundtable discussing the Jets and Christian Hackenburg. “A pleasant task!” Charley Casserly’s tie is somehow excellent. These are the only four people on the planet who like the pick. They’re spending more time discussing the Jets’ need to have drafted a quarterback and Ryan Fitzpatrick’s right to demand a salary bump—following a career year in which he did not make the playoffs—rather than Hackenburg’s talent, achievement and/or NFL readiness. This was not the schadenfreude I was hoping for but you can ask me again November 27. Until then, cheers and goodnight.