Dawg Bites: Making the Most of Your NFL Draft Party (Or Avoiding It Altogether)
With the return of the NFL draft comes the return of the vaunted NFL draft watch party. What better way to lament your team’s choices than with a group of friends?
In this edition of Dawg Bites, we take a look at how you can make the most of your own watch parties this weekend:
Jordan Marks: My friends and I are getting together for a major draft watch party, equipped with ribs, pulled brisket, and, of course, a keg. Watching with friends enhances the whole draft experience. As a student at The Ohio State University, I will be watching with not just Browns fans, but rather fans of many NFL teams. Thus, I really only have one request of the Browns for this year’s draft: please don’t do anything stupid.
This year’s draft is sure to be a whirlwind. ESPN will no longer be showing players answering a phone call before they are technically announced as the selection for a particular team. Because of this, there will be an added element of surprise and excitement with each pick announcement, and I love that. If you’re not having fun watching this year’s draft, I implore you to grab another beer. That should do the trick.
Kevin Nye: I know nothing about draft parties. The NFL draft lost me as a participant when it moved to Thursday nights. I can no longer take a weekend at my brother’s house, nor can I go visit dear friends in another location. I am confined to wherever I can go on Thursday night so as to be home at a reasonable hour and wake up for work on Friday. Not only does that make me sound like a 46-year-old father of two, it makes me sound angry, which I am. As a personal protest, I did not watch it last year, and as a matter of circumstance – which I’m going to call a personal protest – I won’t be watching it this year. Regardless of what time I look at the TV, the Browns’ selection will not be any different. I’m sure I’ll get a flood of texts about it, but whomever they pick is not going to magically change. So thanks, NFL, for taking away a reason for me to go see my family (Seriously though, when I get out of class I’ll surely go straight to a computer).
Jimmy Weinland: The NFL draft party as a Browns fan’s Super Bowl is an affair in irony. It’s fun because the team has such high draft
choices, but that’s because the team is not good. The Super Bowl contenders pick towards the end of the draft, so they don’t have fun on this night; they have fun during the season. So I say we keep this in mind. Enjoy the draft to the fullest and make your draft party an all-around celebration of Cleveland sports. Thursday will be unique in that you’ll have Indians and Cavs games to watch as well. The Indians were on in the afternoon, serving as the perfect appetizer. The Cavs’ season finale against the Bulls should be positioned on a secondary TV somewhere in your environment. They make irony easy as everyone should be rooting for them to lose.
Go all the way for C-town. Get your Cleveland sports gear out and wear it all. Play Cleveland sports trivia games with the fans at your party. Take a drink every time ESPN shows a replay of The Drive, The Fumble, etc. Embrace being a Cleveland sports nerd, because that’s what we are. It’s the only explanation for how excited we are for this draft.