The NFL draft which takes place this weekend is one of the most hyped sporting events in the US sporting calendar, wrongly so argues Michael Silver of our sister site Yahoo! Sports.

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And with the sixth pick of the NFL draft, the New York Jets select Biff Stiffowitz from Underachiever University

"Booooooooooooo!"

Hello, and welcome to America's most overblown sporting event, a two-day spectacle during which fans of 32 teams convince themselves that life has suddenly gotten much, much grander for the lads in pads.

It's a quaint, socialistic concept: Each NFL team, from weakest to strongest, gets a chance to improve its fortunes by plucking from a rather large pool of former collegiate football players. Many months of research, tens of thousands of dollars and a small forest's worth of pastry boxes are expended, countless options are analyzed and, when a franchise is finally on the clock, a decision is made that will be instantly hailed as terrible or transcendent.

Yet if you break it down, the supposed consequence of the draft - and especially the first round - is basically a scam. More often than not, after all that buildup, the end result simply isn't that earth-shattering.

I'm not just talking about the Ryan Leafs of the world, either. Along with the well-known busts, there is a strikingly high percentage of first-round picks that end up becoming what NFL insiders term "just a guy" - serviceable, semi-productive complementary players who don't make a significant impact.

"I've heard people say that 70 percent of all first-round picks fail to become Pro Bowl-type players," one team's college scouting director told me recently. "Go back and look at the last five or 10 first rounds and see how many of those players become difference-makers for the team that picked them. It'll blow your mind."

So I did, and though I didn't do any hard statistical analysis, the exercise helped convince me that for the most part, the selections didn't merit the heightened level of fan excitement during draft weekend.

Pick a number, any number, and there's an underwhelming story waiting to be told.

Let's start with that sixth overall pick. Since 2002, the players selected in that slot were: defensive tackle Ryan Sims (75 tackles in 59 games with the Kansas City Chiefs, now with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers); defensive tackle Johnathan Sullivan (three non-impressive seasons with the New Orleans Saints before being traded to New England); tight end Kellen Winslow (fought back from potential career-ending injuries to become a 2008 Pro Bowl performer, albeit a replacement selection, for the Cleveland Browns); cornerback Pacman Jones (train wreck); tight end Vernon Davis (seven touchdown catches in two seasons with the San Francisco 49ers, though it's too early to deem him an outright disappointment) and safety LaRon Landry (had an impressive rookie season with the Washington Redskins).

Getting grumpy, Jets fans? History suggests you should have plenty of company. As St. Louis Rams fans anticipating their team's selection at No. 2 overall will be happy to recall, the past five picks in that slot were wideout Charles Rogers (out of football), offensive lineman Robert Gallery (now an Oakland Raiders guard after getting abused at tackle), halfback Ronnie Brown (was becoming a star for the Miami Dolphins before blowing out his knee last season), halfback Reggie Bush (3.7-yard rushing average over two NFL seasons) and wideout Calvin Johnson (showed promise in catching 48 passes as a Detroit Lions rookie).

Adrian Peterson was an instant dominator as last year's No. 7 overall pick, but three of the four men before him in that slot (Raiders safety Michael Huff, Jaguars wideout/Vikings washout Troy Williamson and unemployed quarterback Byron Leftwich) have been hugely disappointing.

Earlier this century there was a run of ugliness at No. 12 that included Cade McNown, Damione Lewis, Wendell Bryant and Jimmy Kennedy. At 17 we've had Phillip Buchanon, Bryant Johnson, David Pollack (career-threatening neck injury in '06) and Chad Greenway. Among those selected 19th in recent years were Ashley Lelie, Kyle Boller, Vernon Carey and Alex Barron. A spot later brought us Adam Archuleta, George Foster and Kenechi Udeze. The 22nd picks have included Rex Grossman, J.P. Losman and Mark Clayton.

Obviously, projecting which college football players will become standout pros isn't an exact science. Injuries, difficulty adjusting to new systems or immaturity in the face of newfound riches can derail the most talented of prospects.

But when it comes to the highest-profile of picks, shouldn't the NFL's powers-that-be have a far higher rate of success than, say, 2005 No. 1 overall pick Alex Smith's completion percentage on deep passes?

The answer: Absolutely. But like 2002 No. 1 overall pick David Carr in a collapsing pocket, too many of the people running war rooms make poor decisions under pressure.

Talent evaluation, in its purest form, involves scouts traveling to colleges in the fall, observing players on tape and in person and talking to coaches and others involved with the program. There are many reasons the process gets polluted between then and April, from unimaginative groupthink among some scouts to an overemphasis on all-star games, the NFL scouting combine and pro days. It gets worse as coaches seeking a quick fix, general managers trying to cover their butts and owners in search of star power bring their respective agendas to pre-draft meetings and to the war room. Teams tend to reach for need picks and place too much value on measurables and even allow media coverage to impact their thinking, seeking to avoid ridicule and earn good next-day grades from alleged experts.

An entire column can be devoted to the way franchises muck up these decisions, but the gist is this: The tenet that a team will take the best player available is too often compromised.

"It's something that should be so simple," says the scouting director, "but it gets way more complex than it has to be."

It's not surprising that, for many scouts, the second day of the draft is more exhilarating than the first. After the first two rounds, outside influences wane and the bulk of the media coverage subsides. History has shown that plenty of impact players - even future superstars like Joe Montana, Tom Brady, Terrell Davis and Terrell Owens - can still be found.

"You can't really judge a team's personnel department on its first-round picks because there are so many outside forces at play," the scouting director says. "But from the second round on, those are what we call 'scouts' rounds.' You can still find good football players, guys who may have been eliminated from the first round because they didn't run fast enough at the combine or they weren't tall enough or big enough or they weren't well-known in college. But if you've done your homework, the film tells you they can be successful at this level, and picking guys like that isn't so risky at all."

Maybe there will come a day when later-round picks receive the same degree of attention as the ones at the top of the draft, when Jets fans will go nuts over a guy they view as the next Anquan Boldin or a potential Matt Birk. In the meantime, as New York prepares to pick sixth, let's look back at the last time the franchise selected a player in this slot.

To great fanfare, the Jets took a quarterback who had played for Bear Bryant at Alabama.

Broadway Joe?

Uh, no.

It was Richard Todd, he of the 121 career touchdowns against 164 interceptions.

Booooooooooo!

Michael Silver, Yahoo! Sports / Eurosport