I couldn’t be more excited. Really, I couldn’t. It happens every year, and it’s back again: the single best weekend to be a sports fan in America. Sure, the NBA and NHL playoffs are nice. Yes, the national pastime is in full swing. But that will all be true for the next month. No, what makes this weekend special is simple — the NFL Draft is upon us.

Every year I write this column, and every year it’s kind of the same. So I’m ramping it up a notch this year. I say there is no better learning experience in any sport than its draft, and nowhere is that more true than in the NFL, where the media coverage is the heaviest as America’s two greatest passions — college and pro football — collide for one weekend every year.

The NBA Draft, which is next in terms of the exposure it gets, can’t compete with the intrigue the NFL has to offer year in and year out, simply because seven rounds are better than two. Because 22 positions (and more, including special teams) are more fascinating than five. Because NBA philosophies rarely change — if there’s a dominant big man, he’ll always go first. Otherwise, go for the most electrifying offensive player you can find or the guy with the most upside.

In the NFL, though, the differences in the thought process from one team to the next are staggering. Where one coach may roll the dice with a quarterback in the first round, another may decide to seek more immediate help in hopes of preserving his job. Where some teams focus almost exclusively on college performance, rating athletes by how good they look on game film, others tend to rely more on “measurables,” drafting for statistics like size, speed and strength.

So there will always be intrigue in the NFL Draft, even in a down year for talent, like this one appears to be. Even the most highly sought-after players “on the board” have their flaws.

Michigan offensive tackle Jake Long, for instance, who just signed with the Miami Dolphins as the draft’s top pick, may not be nimble enough to stick at the left tackle position in the NFL and could be forced to move to the right side, where his value clearly diminishes.

Gifted Ohio State pass rusher Vernon Gholston has what some scouts would term “an inconsistent motor,” as he failed to dominate some of the competition he should have in college.

Even the most talented player on the nation’s best team, LSU defensive tackle Glenn Dorsey, has struggled with injuries, leading some to question whether he’ll be able to stay healthy at the next level.

But all that perceived mediocrity has only led to an uncertain top of the first round, which just adds to the drama. Will the New Orleans Saints leap into the fray, trading up to land Dorsey? Will the near-perfect Patriots manage to add a dominant talent like Gholston to their roster from their seventh position in the draft order? Which team will swing for the fences and hope to find a franchise signal-caller in Boston College QB Matt Ryan?

What’s great about the draft is that no one knows the answers to those questions. The fans don’t know. The media “experts” don’t know. The teams themselves often don’t know as so much of their decision making process depends on who is left for them to select. So for everyone watching, the draft is a time to watch and learn what a team really thinks of itself, of its opponents, of the value of certain positions and even of the way the league is trending on the whole.

Indeed, sometimes even those of us with zero access to the pro-ranks of GMs, coaches and owners can have a better notion of what’s going to happen than noted members of the media.

I never claim to be sure of anything that’s going to happen on draft weekend, but when national writers with broad audiences, like Sports Illustrated’s Peter King, claim that they have no idea what the Oakland Raiders are going to do with the fourth overall pick in the draft (as King did in this week’s “Monday Morning Quarterback” column), sometimes I feel really smart.

Really, it’s fairly obvious what the Raiders are going to do because it’s what they’ve been doing under Al Davis for decades — they’re going to take the player that will make the biggest splash. Period. Davis is enamored of measurables and he is enamored of stars.

Add those two things together and I’d be pretty certain Roger Goodell will either be calling out Gholston’s name or that of Arkansas running back Darren McFadden. And given that the Raiders spent plenty on first overall choice JaMarcus Russell to be their quarterback of the future last year, I’m betting they try and complement that choice by adding McFadden to their backfield this year.

Unless, of course, I’m wrong. And the great thing about the NFL Draft is that’s always a possibility, and there’s no better way to learn.