NFL draft is tonight, NFL games are aplenty

Football fans who’ve been jonesing for a fix ever since the Super Bowl concluded a few months back will be relieved to know that the National Football League is holding its annual draft tonight; it’s that magical time of year in which every team is still technically undefeated for the 2010 season and fans get to watch their favorite team make itself better tonight by stocking up on fresh college talent, while overlooking the fact that their favorite team’s rivals will all get better tonight as well. The St Louis Rams are considered likely to take quarterback Sam Bradford with the first pick, but as always, all bets are off after that.

So why are we telling you about that? Well, for the one thing, we’ll be watching the draft; Beatweek’s staff includes fans of the Dolphins, the Patriots, the Cowboys… actually, with half our staff being located in Southern California, more of our team members would probably have a favorite team if Los Angeles actually had a team… but the reason we’re reminding you of tonight’s NFL draft is that even though all thirty-two teams get a piece of the action tonight, none of them are actually playing football. So if you’re still left jonesing for gameplay, it’s worth pointing out there are a multitude of pro football games available in the App Store for use on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. Most prominently is Madden NFL 10 from EA Sports, which we’ve reviewed in depth, but there are also a whole host of other titles as well. Unfortunately none of them are yet iPad-optimized to take advantage of its ginormous screen, but they’re still playable on an iPad – and perhaps they’ll be optimized by the time the 2010 NFL season kicks off when the Tennessee Titans (led by Vince Young) and the Pittsburgh Steelers (presumably without Ben Roethlisberger) face each other on opening day on September 10th.

In any case, good luck to your team tonight, and here’s hoping the virtual football will help you make it through until the real football begins.