So I’m posting a 53 man roster prediction comparison at our Packer Fan Forum, when I decide to use Packergeeks and Mike Vandermause to compare predictions. Well needless to say, Packergeeks are trying to make it a 58-man roster- I knew something was up when they had 12 DB’s and Vandermause had 9.

I wasn’t going to say anything but come on. That’s pretty ridiculous. You would think that if the name of your post is “Which Packers will make the team of 53?” you would take the time to add. I think what happened is that the brother who can add is at a certain convention in Denver and the one who can’t is filling in while he is away.

Sometimes, it’s hard not to get despondent.

You kiss your wife goodnight, explaining that you simply must respond to the latest salvo against your Packer-related reasoning, and hunker down at the computer, Firefox Bookmarks at the ready, and spend the better part of an evening putting together what you think is a fairly coherent, well thought out response to a fellow blogger taking exception to your hatred of futile instant grading of the NFL Draft.

You feel good about the post overall, though perhaps a bit disappointed you couldn’t quite work everything in that you really wanted to say, but overall, you think it’s an excellent post, full of passioned ideas that can better help explain your reasons for being, and I quote, an “Anti-Grade Zealot”. You head to bed, knowing that a response will follow at some point, but fairly sure you have at least opened an eye or two.

And then.

You read the response from your intended audience, and feel as though you have wasted a good part of your and his time, because it’s obvious that he is not the least bit interested in trying to learn why you’ve taken the position you’ve taken, and all the more interested in finding the “roots of my rage” (A phrase that is repeated yet again in Steve’s post - rage? Really? See, I would equate rage with, um, maybe, firebombing the NFL’s Park Avenue headquarters. That’s ‘rage’. Calling the instant grading of the draft bullshit? Not so much.)

It’s obvious we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one, (because goodness knows, if I can’t convince someone of my position in two posts, I never will…….that’s a joke…..) but I would like to point out what I consider the underlying difference between us, with the following quote from Steve’s latest missive:

Of course we can’t know whether the draft is going to be great right after the draft and of course readers know this.

So, in other words, he agrees with me, he just doesn’t mind engaging in useless exercises that only serve to waste the time of those involved.

Got it.

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• Blog Battle 2: Electric Boogaloo

Steve over at PackerGeeks has taken umbrage with my tirade against the immediate grading of the draft and those that practice it.

As the kids say, “Oh, it is so on…”

After trying to work out some of his own childhood issues, Steve states that I never explain why I believe the giving of grades is an exercise in futility. Fair enough. Perhaps it’s because I start each post here at Cheesehead TV with the assumption that you, dear reader, are not an idiot. That every person compelled to follow a professional football team to the point where they check multiple blogs about their team is well aware of the tried and true axiom of needing to wait AT LEAST three years before one can truly begin to take stock of what transpired on draft day.

Steve then tries to engage in a game of ‘gotcha!’ by pointing out that if I don’t believe in grading a draft, how could I possibly be able to offer cogent analysis of various picks throughout the weekends’ proceedings, using my post labeling the Brohm pick a steal as his prime example of my double standard. The problem with this tactic, as I’m sure he is well aware, is that assigning value to individual selections is a much more subjective exercise (and therefore well suited to blogging) than giving out letter grades for an entire draft, with a universally agreed upon standard of what constitutes “A” through “F”. I’ll debate whether you think getting Brohm at #56 is a steal or not (mostly because it’s an argument I’d win) but to try and give a group of nine players one unifying ‘grade’, which attempts to encapsulate how the entire crop of selections have helped or hindered the fate of their respective franchise, when they haven’t so much as attended a mini-camp, is absurd. Or, to quote my original post, bullshit.

As for Steve’s noting that I never explain the “root of my rage”, well, there he has me. I think mostly it’s because the grading of drafts as they happen in real time (I mean, ESPN had a poll up immediately after the Brohm selection asking who would be the Packers’ starter by the end of the year…) is a crystallization of the Great Dumb Down that has held our country in a death grip and that shows no sign of stopping any time soon. I won’t pretend to have more lucid, laser-sharp insights into the “root of my rage” (Thanks Steve, loving that phrase!) or that I have some grand manifesto explaining the correlation of immediate draft grading and it’s effect on, say, the subprime mortgage crisis. (All I’m saying is Congress should investigate…;) I’ll just leave it as something unexplainable in my gut and beg Steve’s pardon that I can’t offer a better explanation.

I will, however, thank him ever so much for his kind words regarding my post about Day Two at Radio City. He is too kind.

UPDATE: Just for fun, have a look at this roundup of grades immediately following last years’ draft. Both teams that ended up in the NFC Championship got ‘C’s from Rick Gosselin. Both teams that ended up in the AFC Championship got ‘D’s. (Kiper gives them a C- and a C, respectively) Didn’t the Packers have key contributions from several rookies last year? Mason Crosby, James Jones and Justin Harrell all played pretty big parts. How many rookies contributed to New York’s title run? Bradshaw, Ross, Smith, Boss: the list of huge contributors to New York’s Super Bowl triumph is long. And apparently worthy only of a ‘C’.

Like I said, bullshit. Complete bullshit.

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• Why character issues matter

At 12:37, I posted:

So on this, the first day ‘A.F.’ (After Favre) on the Packers’ calendar, the team and it’s fans should be anxious and not a little bit excited to see where Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy take our favorite team. It all starts with the draft in late April, then mini-camps and training camp, to pre-season and opening weekend sometime in September, 2008. I, for one, am thrilled to see what the Packers look like, A.F.

And at 1:49, Greg Bedard posted the following headline:

1 Day, A.F. (After Favre)

Now, we know Mr. Bedard is a fan, but really, a little shout-out to your friends at Cheesehead TV in your blog post would not have been too much trouble, Greg…

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• OK, I’ll Bite…

Less than 24 hours after it began, the great Blog Battle of 2007 between Packer Geeks and CheeseheadTv has come to an end. And lo, the Pabst did flow. And it was good.

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• Blog Battle!