Is new limit a 'legitimate ten minutes'?

As I write these words, I'm on the clock.

One way or another, aren't we all on the clock?

Does that mean that life imitates the NFL draft?

Just in case it does, let's synchronize our watches. The curtain goes up on the big TV production at 3 p.m. Saturday.

This year, first-round selections must be made within 10 minutes of one another. The 15-minute limit was reduced after last year's first round dragged on longer than a Ken Burns documentary.

Will the cutbacks cut into the fun of the draftniks who wear chinstraps to bed and who will spend the long day shouting at TV and avoiding their wives and kids?

Also, do team officials still huddle in "war rooms"?

With a real war going on, is it asking too much for the NFL to drop the phony military jargon? I thought we went over this several years ago.

The draft is all about "filling a need," but as usual, I need to be reminded what all the fuss is about.

I know this much: the draft is about teams "building for the future." That makes sense, because even somebody who scores a 12 on the Wonderlic test knows that building for the past would be silly.

In some ways, every NFL draft is the same. Among the most coveted players are those with 4.35 speed in the 40.

But not just 4.35 speed; "legitimate 4.35 speed."

There's that jargon again.

The draft is ESPN's most viewed program with the exception of Monday Night Football games, but I'd be more inclined to watch if the Worldwide Leader replaced Chris Berman with Norah O'Donnell.

Wouldn't that be the very definition of "trading up"?

For viewers who fit the draft audience's, uh, unique demographic, Mel Kiper Jr. is the high priest of picks. His slicked-back, piled-high hair would make a televangelist proud.

It's not true that teams measure the vertical leap of prospects by having them jump over Kiper's pompadour.

But after all these years, Kiper remains the star of draft day. A lot of us have made fun of him over the years, but with his foam-at-the-mouth enthusiasm, Mel appears to have been the role model for Chris Matthews, whose spittle-producing political rants on MSNBC take a page from Kiper's playbook.

Kiper knows his stuff, and perhaps more teams should follow his suggestions. But never mind that; no matter which players are chosen, each team assures us that their selection is "just what we wanted."

It's uncanny the way it always works out that way.

During the draft process, the athletes couldn't be treated any more like livestock. Simply by pointing a finger, a team takes possession of a young man's future.

A few years ago, though, a player fought the machine and won.

Remember when Eli Manning was taken No. 1 by San Diego after announcing he wouldn't play for the Chargers? Archie's baby boy was eviscerated by the league's media mouthpieces for bucking the sacred system.

As John Elway did years before when he forced the Baltimore Colts to trade him to the Broncos, Manning got his way. A Super Bowl ring is proof that he knew what he was doing.

When franchises swap draft picks, it's shrugged off as good business, but when one of the livestock manages to alter the league's master plan, it's interpreted as sabotage.

Nobody expects a first-round pick to break away from the herd this year; nobody has the leverage to attempt it.

With no high-wattage quarterbacks in the mix, this is a fairly ordinary draft.

Not that ESPN will let on.

Bob Molinaro, (757) 446-2373, bob.molinaro@pilotonline.com