A certain amount of fatigue usually sets in by Day 3 of the NFL draft, especially now that the event has become the a three-day affair of literal name-calling. To remedy this, the league has turned the draft’s final day into a cavalcade of guest stars, because who would you rather have calling the name of a guy you’ve never heard of, a team’s assistant to the assistant general manager or Chewbacca?
We all know the answer to this. Here, then, is a small sampling of what you’re going to see Saturday on the draft’s third day, which has suddenly become the weirdest variety show on television.
Bucs: Staying on-brand to an absurd degree, Tampa Bay will make its fourth-round selection via a parrot named Zsa Zsa who hails from the Florida Exotic Bird Sanctuary. Zsa Zsa, who specifically is a Catalina Macaw, will swoop in with the selection at the pirate ship located in one end zone at Raymond James Stadium.
As for the Bucs’ third-round pick, well, it’s a little more complicated than simply finding a willing bird. Former Tampa Bay quarterback Jeff Garcia announced on Twitter on Monday night that he will be making the selection, but there’s one minor issue: The Bucs don’t have a third-round pick, having traded it to the Giants in the Jason Pierre-Paul deal.
Garcia was reminded of this fact by Tampa Bay Times sportswriter Greg Auman and got a little prickly.
“Whatever the pick is, I’ll be announcing one,” he responded via Twitter. “Don’t turn this into some clown show dude. I could care less about who they pick nor do I pay attention as to what picks they have or don’t have. I have a life.”
To which Auman replied, “Great to hear from you, Jeff.”
On Tuesday, Garcia said he had been perhaps misinformed about the whole thing.
“I wouldn’t have said it was an honor if it wasn’t but I would have like to have been informed that they didn’t have a 3rd before I tweeted it, just was a bit of an embarrassment,” he wrote on Twitter.
49ers: With the Han Solo movie set to come out next month, it was only a matter of time before we saw some “Star Wars” cross-promotion (NFL game telecasts have been reliable homes for Force-laden trailer premieres over the past couple of years). Thus, R2-D2 will announce San Francisco’s fourth-round pick and Chewbacca will announce its fifth-round selection along with “Solo” director Ron Howard and a local youth flag-football team.
Broncos: Denver will make its fourth- and fifth-round picks from Casa Bonita, the Mexican-restaurant wonderland in suburban Lakewood, Colo., made nationally famous in a classic 2003 “South Park” episode (yes, it’s profane). Will the selections be made from Black Bart’s Cave? By a cliff-diver? Stay tuned?
Vikings: Members of the gold medal-winning U.S. men’s Olympic curling team will announce some picks from the St. Paul Curling Club. Or at least most of them, anyway: Mustachioed team second Matt Hamilton tells The Post’s Cindy Boren that he will not be participating because of the minor detail that he’s a Packers fan from Wisconsin.
Dolphins: On a much more solemn note, Miami’s Day 3 picks will be made with members of Marjory Stoneman Douglas along with the family of Aaron Feis, the assistant coach who was shot and killed as he shielded two students during the February shooting massacre.
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