I get more creeped out and disturbed by the NFL combine every year.

I said this last year but it really is like a modern slave auction. A bunch of players are paraded around in front of people who are essentially betting on their abilities. All these old people are judging these underwear kids on everything, deciding who to bid on. Oooh, this one is very strong. This one is very tall. This one runs a fast 3 cone drill. Dance for me. Dance in your form-fitting underwear for me. Run an arbitrary distance for me. It’s weird as shit.

I listen to ESPN radio on my commute (when I’m not playing music, that is) and normally it’s jokey jokester shows like Dan Lebatard but once in a while they get actual sports people on to talk actual sports. This week, for 20 minutes, I listened to Todd McShay talk at length about hand size. Hand size. Who gives a fuck if someone has hands that are an 8th of an inch below average? These people do. These disgusting weirdos. Draft people weird me the hell out.

The sad part is I get why it’s important. These are insane investments by teams. Millions of dollars at stake. You want to be sure you are getting the best product (*shudders*) possible, and small issues with hand size that might affect pass catching or ball gripping (lol) genuinely do matter at the highest level. But it doesn’t really make it any less weird to be going on radio shows talking to people about how players with a middle finger metacarpal length under X size results in a 22% success ratio at the NFL level for linebackers. It feels bad to see some guy get reviewed, have short arms (something he can’t help) and essentially watch his draft stock fall in real time.

What I honestly wish is that we’d stop watching it. I can’t watch it. I tried once and felt bad about myself. I’ll admire the highlights afterward. But the lack of content in the offseason and a whole bunch of amateur draftheads have turned the combine into a spectacle and it’s just not right. What I really want to watch…what I would pay good money to watch…is the team interviews. I want to hear the weird stuff. I don’t care about how fast players run. They are all faster than me, and all basically run within the same 2 second time window, which makes every run look the same. I want to see how teams are psychologically challenging players.

I want to hear Eli Apple get asked if he’s gay in real time. This would be aces reality television. It’ll never happen, but imagine how good it would be. There are bizarre stories that come from every player about the insane stuff NFL teams ask at the combine in an attempt to judge a player. Give us the goods, NFL. If you are going to take this stupid spectacle further than you already have while neglecting the actual on-field product, at least give us the WWE soap opera shit in the meantime.