NFL Draft 2018: Chewbacca, Olympic curlers, parrot will make Day 3 picks

Jay Busbee
The gold medal-winning men’s curling team will make the Vikings’ Day 3 NFL Draft pick, which is pretty much perfect. (AP)
The gold medal-winning men’s curling team will make the Vikings’ Day 3 NFL Draft pick, which is pretty much perfect. (AP)

By the time we hit Day 3 of the NFL Draft, the big names are long gone. Teams are shoring up depth charts and taking flyers with players from schools we’ve never even heard of. So the NFL has to do something to stoke interest in the draft, right? Once again, the guest pickers on Day 3 of the draft will be a cavalcade of celebrities, celebrity-like figures, and charitable beneficiaries. Let’s run through some of the best of what you have to look forward to:

• The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will have an actual parrot deliver the pick to an announcer at the pirate ship in Raymond James Stadium. I believe we can all agree that having actual mascots deliver picks would be outstanding theater. Imagine a dolphin delivering Miami’s pick, or a raven delivering Baltimore’s. The possibilities are endless, unless you’re Washington.

• The Minnesota Vikings will have the gold medal-winning U.S. men’s curling team announce their picks from the St. Paul Curling Club. Hope it’s not league night.

• The Buffalo Bills will bring back Thurman Thomas and some local Buffalo-area flag football players. Nobody make a lost-helmet joke about Thomas’s pick, please.

• The aforementioned Miami Dolphins will have members of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School’s football team, as well as family members of coach Aaron Reis, who died in the Parkland shooting, announce their picks.

• The Oakland Raiders will have youth football players from Las Vegas announce their picks from Nevada’s Nellis Air Force Base, which seems an unnecessarily cruel jab at the Raiders’ Oakland fans.

• The San Francisco 49ers will have Chewbacca, stormtroopers, and R2D2 announce picks; by that point, Chewbacca himself ought to be a decent late-round pickup.

If you’re still watching Day 3 of the NFL Draft, we salute you, hardcore fan. And the NFL is going to make sure you’re rewarded for your efforts by giving you aliens and parrots to watch. That’s about as good a deal as you’re going to find on Day 3.
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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.

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