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It’s a cringe-worthy bit of hokum, this idea the NFL has of allowing teams to announce their Day 3 draft choices (rounds 4-6) “from unique locations” and with special guests.
Nevertheless, 14 teams have signed up to play along during the upcoming draft, per an NFL news release issued Monday. That includes the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, whose special guest will be a parrot.
The Raiders also have signed up, but no whimsy here. The Raiders are employing unmistakable messaging with regards to the “unique location” (Nellis Air Force Base northwest of the Las Vegas strip), and their guests (Las Vegas-area youth and high school football players).
You don’t have to like it, but as far as the Raiders are concerned, it’s all happening. Rubbing elbows with the locals during the NFL draft. The live cam that shows the stadium site, just across the 15 from the Mandalay Bay hotel property. More than six dozen cranes can be seen hard by Dean Martin Drive. What you don’t see, at least yet, is where fans will park.
No matter. The team’s web site encourages fans to “place a $100 deposit to reserve your place in Raiders history.”
The Eyepatches aren’t missing many tricks. Recently the team Twitter account shot an encouraging tweet to the NHL’s Las Vegas Knights at the outset of their postseason adventure.
— OAKLAND RAIDERS (@RAIDERS) April 11, 2018
Does anyone else smell a bromance coming on?
There doesn’t seem any stopping the runaway moving van that will take the Raiders to their new Nevada home. But here is an item that could allow Oakland Raiders fans to wish upon a star.
The Nevada state treasurer, a Republican candidate for governor, pledges, if elected, to divert the $750 million in taxpayer money earmarked for the stadium to the state’s educational system.
“We are absolutely dead last in this country in terms of education, so why are we spending $750 million to build a football stadium for a bunch of billionaires?” Dan Schwartz told News 3 Las Vegas.
“I mean, if you want to disagree with the stadium, that ship has sailed,” County Commissioner Steve Sisolak, a Democratic candidate for governor shot back.
So, who knows.
The Raiders seem sure of themselves. From a April 1 story in the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
Las Vegas Stadium Authority Chairman Steve Hill and Raiders President Marc Badain put their signatures on dozens of documents Wednesday, wrapping up all the legal ends of the process to build a 65,000-seat, $1.8 billion indoor stadium for the team to start play in 2020.
So what happens next?
“You heard the chairman (Hill) say, it’s really a construction project now,” Badain said.
But first there is the small matter of the draft, live from Nellis Air Force Base and a purposeful use of hokum.
Hey Bucs, Polly want a cracker?