Dine and Draft: 2023 NFL Draft Prospects

We take football too seriously. By extension, we will naturally take the NFL Draft too seriously.

This article is intended to help that situation. We’re going to evaluate 2023 NFL Draft prospects today only through the use of food metaphors. Let’s test our culinary prowess:

• Jaxon Smith-Njigba, WR (Ohio State): The best pizza place in your hometown that you haven’t been to in a while

You know that pizza spot. The one you frequented what seems like only a year ago. Your hometown has multiple pizza joints that all have their own claim to fame, and maybe there’s even a discussion amongst long-time denizens as to which of them reigns supreme.

But it’s been a little bit since you’d had a slice from this particular joint.

You think it’s fantastic. You remember it being fantastic. And in February you saw someone walking out of the place with that familiar pizza box that brought back memories of when it managed to stand out amongst other pizza joints vying for local supremacy. It’s an odd mixture now of nostalgia and risk. It simultaneously feels like the safest pizza decision you could make and also a risk knowing that it might not quite be what you remembered. Maybe it only felt like the best place in town because you had a few magical moments with it when you were inebriated. Maybe it just really hit the spot on that one date you had with Riley one blissful January evening and created a memory you’ll never forget.

Maybe it’s just as good as your nostalgia recalls. Maybe it’s not. But you feel like if the opportunity presents itself, you need to know for sure.

• Jack Campbell, LB (Iowa): Reluctant vegetables

Your mother was right: you should have eaten your vegetables. But you didn’t, and now the doctor tells you that you have blood pressure issues. You’d like to spend your daily calories on something a little bit more fun, but the truth is that you put yourself in this position by not committing to a diet rich in nutrients before now.

So it’s time now to pick your favorite vegetable from a list you don’t particular like. You’re doing it because you have to, so it’s time to find something nutritious and edible. Maybe you can fall in love with asparagus? It might make you need to plug your nose a day after the consumption, especially when you think about other people eating sweeter, saltier and more savory things, but the truth is that deep down, you knew you’d have to do this at some point if you want to maintain a good defense against heart disease.

• O’Cyrus Torrence, IOL (Florida): A big bowl of coffee ice cream...when you’re lactose intolerant

I mean, yeah it’s probably not a fit with your particular body, and you’ve tried hard to change your diet so that you’re not ingesting this kind of thing any more, but it’s still good. Nobody can doubt that. It might not be good for you in particular, but it’s fun to consume and it makes you smile. Part of you is only having a bowl because you don’t want someone else to have it. It’s gonna get you pepped up and you know it’s strong. You’re convinced that you can fit this square peg into the round hole. You might suffer for it later, but you’ve talked yourself into a big bowl.

Emphasis on “big.”

...and that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I’m Bruce Nolan with Buffalo Rumblings. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram @BruceExclusive and look for new episodes of “The Bruce Exclusive” every Thursday on the Buffalo Rumblings Podcast Network!