Brian Batko

And it makes it a big calendar event for NFL fans around the league to gather in places and see a different city or stadium.

I think there's probably a lot of overlap between the people who are saying, okay, what does my team need?

We need an interior offensive lineman.

this year.

We need to upgrade at guard.

I disagree.

I think there's just levels of fandom there.

And that's the whole conceit of the idea, I guess, of making the draft this big thing.

And they try to do events along with it.

We'll obviously have a better idea of what those festivities entail once the draft is here and gone in Pittsburgh.

That obviously the league decided, hey, this could actually outgrow the infrastructure that we have for it now.

Let's make it even bigger and travel city to city with it.

I would always watch the NBA draft too, growing up, because you'd see those guys in the McDonald's All-American game or college basketball, and then they'd wear audacious suits, and there'd be funny things.

I even watch the MLB draft because, well, as a Pirates fan, when you're in Pittsburgh, this city, that's kind of one of the few things you can grab onto in the offseason.

As a 34-year-old father of two now with other things going on, I'm probably not carving out a night for it.

But I can think back to before I was covering the Steelers and I was probably just working on the sports desk at the Post-Gazette.

no no it was the first now let's go over to backo's house tonight to watch round six it was the laramie tonsil one where the uh the gas mask picture came out with the bong or whatever he had i remember we went crazy at my friend's house when that all was good but we're also still second screening it on our phones to figure out what is going on right now with this picture being leaked of this lineman right that was funny um

It's names across the screen.

So I suppose the idea of being there in person with, again, like-minded fellow NFL fans who know as much about the teams as you do, Will Howard gets picked.

Now you start up a conversation with the Browns fan to your right.