With sport ground to a halt globally and little to nothing for sports journalists to report, the NFL has found a way of filling the vacuum.
The American Football season ended at the start of February as the Kansas City Chiefs and their star young quarterback Patrick Mahomes won their first Superbowl in 50 years.
With little going on elsewhere, it is now transfer drama in the NFL that is currently offering the most excitement in the world of sport.
The Kansas City Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers 31-20 in Super Bowl LIV
This period of the calendar for the game usually involves the trading around of players between teams and drafting of College players into the 32 NFL franchises.
In itself this is not usually that interesting for anyone other than hardened fans.
But with every other sport in the world ‘on pause’ or hiatus, the drama of players leaving teams or speculation on who will be the first draft pick (‘best’ and first chosen College player) has been received with more enthusiasm than any other season of the game.
The biggest story of the last week has centred around arguably the ‘Greatest Of All Time’ quarterback Tom Brady.
After almost 20 years at the New England Patriots (during which he reached 9 Superbowls and won 6 of them) he recently announced that he would be leaving the Patriots and has now signed for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at the age of 42.
Tom Brady has moved on to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after 20 seasons with the New England Patriots
Elsewhere the Carolina Panthers have let go of their star quarterback Cam Newton who was dogged with injuries last season.
Newton took the Panthers to the Super Bowl in the 2015 season and won the overall MVP (Most Valuable Player) award for that season.
There has been a lot of speculation as to whether Newton may replace Brady at the Patriots.
But most pundits do not see Newton’s eccentric and id-focussed mentality (and outlandish fashion sense) fitting in with veteran ‘no nonsense’ Coach Bill Belicheck.
Cam Newton was the reigning Heisman trophy winner when he was chosen as the overall 1st pick in the 2011 draft by Carolina. He was released by them last week
In terms of the College draft, the drama has also heightened as Draft day gets closer.
Interestingly for the first half of last year’s College season there was only one player that was being talked about and that was Tua Tagovailoa.
Born in Hawaii and of Samoan descent, he led the University of Alabama to back to back National Championships and looked a certainty to be the number 1 overall pick in the College Draft until suffering a horrific dislocated hip injury last season.
There was speculation as to whether he would come back from the injury and most thought that he would not be ready for the 2020 draft.
But in January he announced that he would enter the Draft rather than take his senior year of College.
In his absence Oregon’s Justin Herbert and LSU’s Joe Burrow have potentially taken the number overall pick position away from Tua in most pundit’s mock draft lists.
There is speculation that Tua could be the second or third overall pick and perhaps end up at Washington or the LA Chargers who have also recently released a veteran Quarterback in Philip Rivers, who after 16 seasons with the Chargers has moved on to the Indianapolis Colts.
Tua Tagovailoa suffered a severe hip injury during the 2019 season but will enter the 2020 draft.
With all this excitement, let’s hope that come September, some actual football can be played, otherwise we could end up with an anti-climatic unattended birthday party despite the sending out of the best invitations ever.
For the latest NFL updates, check out nfl.com
Categories: Sport
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