Springtime in NFL land.

• Author: Schley, Stewart
• Position: Sports Biz

AH, APRIL. BROWNEA ARIZA BLOOMING AT THE BOTANIC Gardens, the welcome trickle of fresh mountain springs, the seasonal direct-mail assault from TruGreen.

And here in the world of sports, amid the pageantry of opening day at Coors Field, with a thick soup of forest-green paint newly applied to the ol' ballpark, with LoDo breweries boiling up fresh batches of beer and vendors flexing their vocal chords after a long winter, all thoughts turn to ... the NFL draft.

It is spring. And we are hungry for football.

We are poring over draft lists. We are questioning the prospect of trading Trevor Pryce. We are expressing concerns about Randy Moss in a black jersey.

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On recent weekday afternoons when spring has seemed only hours away, the prevailing chatter on local sports radio has not been about: Todd Helton's remarkable work ethic, or Shawn Chacon's return to the rotation, or the decision to anoint Joe Kennedy over Jason Jennings as the Rockies opening-day starter, or the inspiring bid by cancer survivor Andres Gallaraga to make the Mets roster, or the striking new red and blue uniforms of the Washington Nationals, or the redemptive sound of a spring-training baseball thumping into a spring-training catcher's mitt.

Instead, radio fare has been about far more consuming questions: Whether signing Jeff Garcia might provide the sort of competitive spark that could encourage Jake Plummer to exhibit a more exacting touch on the fade route. Whether Shannon Sharpe was better than Terrell Davis.

Radio talk at 2:30 p.m.: "Dan Reeves did not discover Shannon Sharpe. I think his talents got discovered under Jim Fassel."

No particular attention on the airwaves is paid to whether Aaron Miles can display better range toward second base this year. No escalating debate over Matt Holliday's ability to hit for power. Few words about Charles Johnson's trade demand.

We can't be bothered with all that. Not when the combines are going on.

4:27 p.m.: "Kenoy Kennedy is a better player than John Lynch."

Sure, it's a Broncos town. But there's more going on here than tradition. We are up to our shoulder pads in a brilliantly orchestrated example of market expansion wrought by 32 NFL team owners and their modern-day Billy Rose, Paul Tagliabue. No cigarette maker has demonstrated a keener facility for addicting its customers. Carefully and methodically, the $5 billion-a-year industry that is the NFL has rolled out an expansion plan far more sweeping than the...