The NFL Draft Exists So That:

1. Straight men can call another man "tight in the hips" and "lacking in explosiveness" without feeling the slightest bit self-conscious.
2. Mel Kiper Jr., the world's only Oompa-Loompa Elvis impersonator, can steal another piece of all of our souls. Every year we watch; every year he takes a little more. It's directly proportional to the height of the hair.
3. People can finally rationalize having watched Central Michigan's bowl game ("But that Dan Bazuin was a prospect!")
4. Untold millions of man-hours that might otherwise have been devoted to the betterment of the planet and the species can instead be diverted to the vital question of which incipient millionaire who doesn't give a rat's ass about the draft-watching fans is going to be made insanely rich a little quicker than the other one.
5. ESPN can focus on the draft prospects of the long snapper at Brown. Because, you know, ever since Buddy Cianci went down, they'll do anything to get out of Providence.
6. The fact that a bunch of teenagers tried for a little extra credit in smokable botany can become a national story, except that the national story was that it shouldn't be a national story because they admitted smoking the wacky tobaccy, which somehow makes the fact that they were smoking weed all right in a year when it's supposedly all about character issues, except that, oh, never mind.
   
7. We can confirm for ourselves that you'd love to have Al Davis in your fantasy football league.
8. Some 21 year old kid can be utterly humiliated on national television for being "the last one in the green room." Last I checked, even the tenth pick in the draft makes a lot more money than any of the reporters or commentators so eager to report on "falling draft status", so I suspect the kid will come out of things just fine. Mel Kiper's hair, however, will no doubt be severely disciplined by its alien overlords on the planet Zarnoth for failing to wring the last drop of precious pathos out of the situation.
9. Everyone can do enough fake drafts that they can legitimately claim they got most of the picks right. Which is true, if you consider that most of them have done upwards of 200 mock drafts. This week, The Sporting News ran 5 mock drafts, no two of which were even remotely alike. This will, however, not stop TSN from picking and choosing from among those it printed and claiming it has an unmatched record for prognostication. As for Kiper, at this point he's predicted everyone going first except for Ronald McDonald's pal Grimace, whom he has going in the late 3rd round as an offensive lineman for the Saints.
10. Those of us who spend our lives sitting at desks and occasionally scribbling notes on small pieces of paper can pretend that a televised corporate recruitment seminar wherein people sit at desks and scribble notes on small pieces of paper can be an EVENT.
11. Mel Kiper Jr.'s hair can kill and eat Sean Salisbury. Well, maybe not, but we can hope. We can hope.