Column: Despite spectacle, NFL Draft again offers compelling elements

Each year, the NFL Draft arrives on my living room television as an unwelcome guest.

An exercise in banality, I imagine it’s what a non-movie fan thinks of the annual Oscars telecast, or a non-music fan tuning into the Grammy’s. Even for the fans themselves, you’re not going to form an opinion of the award candidates by hearing a snippet of a song or watching an overacted clip from a movie.

So why bother with the whole charade?

For anyone with familiarity with the Penn State football program, Thursday night offered a reminder.

Taken as the 12th overall pick in the first round of this year’s NFL Draft, former Nittany Lion linebacker Micah Parsons was, at least for me, the hook. A guy who was on serious recruiting radars from the earliest stages of his high school career, through his rollercoaster commitment to the program, and finally throughout two seasons in three years at Penn State, Parsons’ selection was the moment of actualization of that journey.

From this particular couch, that was cool to watch, especially in the context of previous conversations we’d had through his career as a Nittany Lion.

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Coming off his true freshman season in which he had patiently accumulated 83 tackles, 1.5 sacks, and a pair of forced fumbles in 13 games, starting only once, a summer interview opportunity led the two of us to the coaches’ lobby upstairs in the Lasch Building. Ahead of Blue White Illustrated’s preseason magazine that summer, Parsons dubbed the cover subject long before we’d secured the interview, the conversation meandered from position changes to his cooking, with interruptions from eavesdropping James Franklin and Brent Pry throughout.

Eventually, though, we landed on the qualities that had ultimately brought Parsons to Penn State. Describing Franklin and Pry as guys he could trust to develop him into a better player and person, to get him “where I want to go,” I asked him where that might be.

“Lord knows. I can't tell you yet,” Parsons said. “I just keep it to myself right now.”

Joking that he’d already been offered a position by the staff as one of its primary recruiting liaisons, thanks in large part to his effervescent personality and love for the game, the job would have to wait, though. Right? At least until he’d taken his crack at playing in the NFL, a proposition for which he’d already generated buzz and future projections. Right?

“I hope; God-willing,” he said.

Thursday evening, Parsons’ aspirations took the next step toward becoming reality. And not long after, Jayson Oweh found himself in a similar position. Picked No. 31 overall by the Baltimore Ravens, the Nittany Lions defensive end ensured the program of a first-round with multiple selections for the first time since the 2003 NFL Draft.

As Penn State defensive line coach John Scott Jr. predicted earlier this month, the characteristics and attributes brought to the field by Oweh (now referred to by his given first name, “Odafe”) were understood and recognized by the Ravens.

“Jayson Oweh has an opportunity to be a great player at the next level. He's got a big ceiling,” Scott said. “People sometimes forget, last year was his first year starting here at Penn State and you saw what he was able to do from a number standpoint with his pressures and how disruptive he was in the run game starting one year at Penn State. So I tell him I think he's got a super high ceiling. Jayson is like a sponge, learning the game, learning the ins and outs, and the small nuances of playing the defensive end position. I think (his ceiling) is extremely high.”

An appetizer to Friday evening’s second and third rounds, as well as Saturday’s fourth through seventh rounds, the selections of Parsons and Oweh are soon likely to be joined by some or all of the combination of tight end Pat Freiermuth, Will Fries, Michal Menet, Shaka Toney, and Lamont Wade.

Less an assurance than that of Parsons’ first-round selection, as disinterested as I might otherwise be by the rest of the spectacle, theirs are the reactions for which I’ll be watching again.

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