The NFL Draft is over, I think. Sure, the last player has been picked (UCLA’s Caleb Wilson by Arizona), but it never really ends. ESPN will bombard us with made-up terms such as “catch radius” and “arm talent” until Roger Goodell walks back across the stage and starts getting booed before he can announce the first pick in 52 weeks.

The NFL Draft is important solely because of one thing — the NFL tells us it’s important. And the lapdogs (here’s looking at you, ESPN) fall right in line.

It’s hard to imagine that anybody could have possibly watched the entire three days of coverage (on THREE networks), but for those who were like me and occasionally dropped by during the televised marathon, there were a few tidbits:

** I knew Josh Jacobs was a running back for Alabama but that was about it. After hearing his story and watching his interview, he may be my new favorite player. Raised by a single dad and sometimes forced to sleep in the family car because they had nowhere to go, he made himself into a first round pick. You’ll hear the story again, Pay attention.

** LSU’s Devin White to the Tampa Bay Bucs just seems like the best fit for any team in the entire first round. In an unpredictable first round, this seemed very predictable.

** Why do we have to sit through the same old tired story of someone being upset with where they were picked and how they are going to make those teams that passed him by pay for it? Hey Dwayne Haskins, just be happy you got chosen by a team that wants you. Quarterbacks fall all the time; even this year, when Missouri’s Drew Lock was supposed to go in the first round. Instead, he went in the second round to the Broncos and was thrilled about it.

** Dallas has never had a player from Shreveport’s Woodlawn High. After drafting Donovan Wilson from Texas A&M in the sixth round, all of that can change.

** How did Washington stockpile all this talent and not do a whole lot with it? The Huskies had nine picks, topped only by Alabama’s 10.

The F3 (at least) tornado that came on a southwest-to-northeast route through Ruston Wednesday night didn’t play fair.

First of all, the two fatalities in the heart of town…so terribly sad. You go to bed and then in the middle of the night your house is invaded. Not a fair fight.

Even with knowledge of that incomprehensible tragedy, with that sorrow in mind, there are blessings for the community, for all of us, to count. How worse it could easily have been makes you shudder if you really think about it.

Associate AD for Communications at Louisiana Tech and in his 20th year at the school, DW’s good friend Malcolm Butler awoke before 2 a.m. to the sound of a Tornado Warning alert on his phone. He and his dog Jeter, either a border collie or an Australian Shepherd but for sure a dog and a pretty one at that, got in the bathtub for about 30 minutes and sat there. Safety people tell us to do that; don’t know why, but why not?

He saw a post on Facebook that a couple of trees were down on campus. Now wide awake at 3:30 a.m. or so, he made the short drive to campus, came over the hill on Tech drive heading south, and drove his Jeep around a huge piece of concrete. Later, he’d realize/discover he’d driven around part of the roof of J.C. Love Field at Pat Patterson Park, pictured here as it was Thursday morning. The tornado had thrown the concrete a couple hundred yards back up the road.

The videos and pictures, he said, don’t do justice to what it actually looked like as the sun came up in Ruston. What if it had been in the middle of the day and students were trying to drive out of town? How did the tornado manage to skip over the dorms/apartments directly behind the baseball field and the ones just beyond the wall in left, which was severely damaged? What if it had stayed on the ground as it made its path through town?

It’s really really bad. But most people are by now grateful that it wasn’t what it could have been, which was much much worse.

Mother Nature remains undefeated. Tough customer.

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