Next year, just skip Goodell and let network call every pick

More than an hour into the telecast of the 2008 NFL Draft -- 1 hour and 13 minutes, to be exact -- something shocking finally happened.

I turned my television off.

Gholston's telegraphed pick adds to Gregg Doyel's frustration. (AP)

That never happens. Not in my house. The draft is a fraud and a hoax, all those things I said about it last week, but it stays on in my house. For one thing, it's job research. For another, it's pop culture. And finally, this could have been the year that Mel Kiper bared his nasty little teeth and tore into Todd McShay. The mere possibility made the draft must-see TV.

For 1 hour and 13 minutes.

And then I got pissed off.

I'm guessing lots of you got pissed off, too. Not all of you, which is fine. We can't all think alike. If everyone shared the same opinion, every last one of us might worship cows or listen to Rascal Flatts. Some opinions are stupid.

The way ESPN handled this year's NFL Draft? Stupid. This column has been coming for years, because ESPN has been doing it for years. But this year ESPN reached a new low, or possibly a new high, because ESPN is guilty of nothing more than doing its job. And doing it spectacularly.

After 10 picks of the first round, ESPN was 10-for-10 in predicting, and sometimes flat-out reporting, who the pick would be. The draft is Christmas come to April, and ESPN was telling us what was inside the wrapper.

The first pick was obvious enough. Jake Long had already signed with Miami. No drama there. None expected. Fine.

But then it stayed that way. Analyst Chris Mortensen told us the Rams would take Chris Long with the No. 2 overall pick. Reporter Rachel Nichols, standing outside the Falcons' draft room in Georgia, told us the Falcons would take Matt Ryan third. Mortensen said Oakland would pick Darren McFadden fourth.

About this time, it occurred to me: This is not fun. ESPN is winning its game of gotcha, but the rest of us are the big losers. This was like buying a book for your birthday, maybe the latest by James Patterson, and having the stupid store clerk read the last page out loud. Or like sitting down for M. Night Shyamalan's latest thriller and inadvertently starting with the last scene, the one where Bruce Willis realizes he's dead or Samuel L. Jackson reveals himself to be an insane killer.

The strange thing is, ESPN understands drama. Just days earlier the network had fooled the Houston Astros' Miguel Tejada into a good-faith interview, only to sucker-punch him with a birth certificate that showed he had been lying for years about his age. It was cheap and cruel and unnecessary, but dadgum ... it was dramatic.