This weekend will mark my first NFL draft. Now that may seem quite bizarre considering I'm 21 and another 20 of these babies have happened in my lifetime. But this will be my first one, and I'm quite excited.

Of course, before setting out for America this year I knew absolutely zero or very little more than that about all the big American sports other than NASCAR. I couldn't tell you what a first down was, I didnt know any other position than quarterback, and the only reason I'd heard the word blitz before was because it was in the title of a computer game.

I tried to learn a little football before I left English shores but picking up a cheap copy of Madden 2004 helped me roughly zero because I understood absolutely nothing about what was going on. Now, coming up 10 months later, that has all changed. Except im still RUBBISH at Madden.

So after a quick education in a year, I'm not going to pretend like im an expert. If you gave me a chalkboard covered in Xs and Os, I'd most likely challenge you to a game of noughts and crosses rather than understand the play. But I'm getting there.

I never did make it to an NFL game, but I did manage to get to five of Kentucky's home games in their break-out season which saw them take an 8-5 record and a Music City Bowl win against Clemson back to Lexington this year. That was the start of my understanding. I sat with American friends asking what the hell was going on and why the hell is he doing that.

Still this isn't a column about my understanding of football. It's about my excitement about the draft. It's not because of a number of players that I have heard of; though I've read all the reports I can find about the big names going in the draft. I've read the USA Today Sports NFL Draft Special. I've read everything I can find on EPSN and in Sports Illustrated. And those have only piqued my interest higher.

No, the reason im excited is because the NFL draft helps to keep a level playing field. Now I know that Oakland having the first pick and taking a future star (it hopes) isn't going to take the Raiders to the Super Bowl next year, but it's more than likely going to help their team out in a big way. A team isn't going to go from bottom of the barrel to the top in one year, but with solid rebuilding and shrewd decision accross a number of years, the potential is there to not be a perennial tail-ender, especially in a league where the advantages shift so quickly (due to retirments, trades and injuries among other factors) such as the NFL.

The reason I love this is that I grew up with soccer in Europe. Now just in my home league, the English Premiership, there are four elite clubs, who have all the money, all the best players and routinely qualify for the Champions League by finishing in the top four spots. Those four teams are Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea, who only joined that group in recent years thanks to a multi-billionaire owner who came in and threw hundreds of his millions at the team to buy megastars like Andriy Shevchenko, Didier Drogba and Juan Sebastian Veron. Not all of those purchases went well, but the amount of purchases meant it didn't matter; those that didnt make the grade could be sold on at a loss (see Veron) or loaned out (see Hernan Crespo).

Now this domination means that those four teams keep getting rich, and the smaller teams keep getting poorer. The term "revenue sharing" is about far from the minds of soccer team owners as it could possibly be. And that's a shame, because less than two months into most season, the same teams are at the top, and the excitement is gone.

Now some teams are being bought up by rich people from around the globe; Portsmouth has been sold, Aston Villa has been sold, rumours have Manchester City being sold off soon. But even so, the domination of the big four is likely to continue for a long time. And how boring is that?

Once the NFL draft is completed on Saturday, all the teams will have a lot of new additions. Some won't make it through training camp, some will become backups and bit-part players, and someone will probably be the next Marques Colston.

The one thing no one will know until the season starts though is where everyone is in the pecking order. Will Indianapolis' losses in free agency and draft picks by others have sent them tumbling, or have the Colts drafted shrewdly and more than adequately patched up the holes.

Raiders fans wont be expecting a 14-2 record, but they should have reason to be optimistic for a much more productive season than last year with one of the big names in the draft in the line-up -- more than likely JaMarcus Russell, the quarterback they are desperately in need of.

In my opinion, the Patriots seem like the best placed team this year. They've made some shrewd signings in free agency and have two picks in the first round of the draft -- not bad for a team that was already capable of a narrow loss to the Colts in the AFC championship game.

So here's to my first NFL draft this coming weekend. As far as I know there won't be any Kentucky players in the mix after Andre Woodson, Keenan Burton and Rafael Little decided to return for another season in Lexington, but that's not going to stop my enjoyment. And just because I still dont have a great understanding doesn't mean I can't make some predictions. So here goes my first five:

1) Oakland Raiders - JaMarcus Russell, QB, LSU
2) Detroit Lions - Joe Thomas, OT, Wisconsin
3) Cleveland Browns - Brady Quinn, QB, Notre Dame
4) Tampa Bay Buccaneers - Calvin Johnson, WR, Georgia Tech
5) Arizona Cardinals - Gaines Adams, DE, Clemson

We'll see how well I've done after the weekend, when Adrian Peterson will probably ruin my predictions!