A show about nothing.

All weekend, the NFL Network has been running the NFL Scouting Combine, which is a skills contest between all of the top college players who plan on coming to the pros. February is kind of a dead zone for TV, and it's made even more dead by broadcasting guys bench pressing and jumping up and down.

The strange thing about the Combine is that it judges players on skills that they will never use on a football field, like bench pressing and jumping up and down. There is a mile of game film on every one of these guys, yet they insist on bringing them to Indianapolis and putting them through this stuff. There's something wrong with a system where guys play football for 3 or 4 years and you still have to put them through this nonsense. It'd be different if it led to better decisions, but mostly it leads to second-guessing and poor decisions. Can he break a tackle? I don't know, but he can bench 550.

The other strange thing is that it's on TV. We live in an era where the NFL draft is a TV show, and now it's gotten to the point where the Combine is a TV show too. I guess people are watching it. When George Costanza pitched the idea for Jerry's "show about nothing," he was asked, "Why would people watch it?" He replied, "Because it's on TV." True enough, I suppose, but I can't think of too many more boring activities than watching a guy lift weights.

The overriding feeling I got in the twelve seconds I watched it was that it seemed a little like the way slaves were chosen. The biggest and strongest were trotted out in front of the owners and the best ones were chosen first. The concept made me feel a little creepy. I realize that the NFL is a far cry from slavery, but the idea of putting on a demonstration of "feats of strength" for the NFL scouts and owners seems demeaning to me, but I suppose it's justified given the reward at the end of the line.

However, it isn't so far-fetched to see people demean themselves where large sums of money are concerned.