BOSTON -- I've been trying to find reasons to justify the NFL pushing back the draft by a whopping three weeks next season, to Mother's Day weekend, May 15-17. I can't find one. I'm not alone.

Talked to one personnel czar last night on the phone. "Hate it. Absolutely hate it.'' Saw one owner at dinner last night, and he said (sarcastically) his GM "would just love this ... more time to obsess on final decisions he made a month ago."
The NFL will say if the change is made -- and it's all but done, and could be approved at the meetings here today -- it's because Radio City Music Hall isn't available next year on the last long weekend of April. I live in New York City. There are other venues. Lots of them. It's ridiculous to trot out that excuse. To say the league couldn't find another place at Madison Square Garden or the Barclays Center in Brooklyn or any one of a score of other options in New York is insulting to the intelligence of any thinking person. Say what it is: three more weeks to hype the most ridiculously overhyped event on the NFL calendar. Three more weeks for spring-programming-starved NFL Network to be relevant. And less time for NFL coaches, GMs, scouts and coaching staffs to be human beings and have family lives.


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