This is always a difficult time of year for me. I am never sure which leaves me with a greater numbness of the brain — the NFL draft or grading final exams.

This is a question that will have to be resolved by greater minds than mine, particularly in my current mental state.

The NFL draft is clearly the biggest non-event on the sports calendar. ESPN created this monster with its ill-advised decision to televise the draft and oversaw its growth with incessant hype. If I had a dollar for every minute that ESPN has expended on it over the past decade, I would retire in luxury. If I had a dollar for every word uttered by Mel Kiper over the same time frame, I would be a billionaire.

Sports talk radio has picked up on the draft and compounded the cacophony geometrically. Never has so much been said by so many about so little.

The other day a colleague asked what could become the most feared question at ESPN: “If Mel Kiper is so good at draft analysis, and capable of critically grading the performance of the New England Patriots who seem to do fairly well drafting, why is Mel not working in the NFL?”

Once the draft ends and the analysis subsides (although it never ends), then it is time to look ahead. Not to the actual football season, but to next year’s draft. I believe it was Tuesday that ESPN.com was already asking if three top college quarterbacks would be first round picks next year. Only an air strike on Bristol, Conn., can save us.

In an effort to trump this madness, the NCAA last week approved two new bowl games. One is the Congressional Bowl, which reports say will feature Navy against a team to be determined by the most effective lobbyists in D.C., or an ACC team. I am not certain which.

The only thing to top this is that St. Petersburg (Florida, not Russia) is also getting a bowl game. Because the weather is so bad in Florida in December (lovely, warm, beautiful), the game will be played indoors in the facility affectionately known as The Can. I assume they will set the air conditioner to 20 degrees and pump in some snow to maintain the proper bowl atmosphere.

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