In college, Manziel was a swashbuckling talent, an undersized playmaker and a master of improvisation in an increasingly robotic position. But despite having been voted the best player in the college game and awarded a Heisman Trophy, Manziel is very likely to join the lists of all-time N.F.L. draft busts that flood the web this time of year. Some compilations are not retrospective. This year’s draft starts Thursday, but you can already find an “N.F.L. Draft 2016 Bust Watch” online. USA Today provided a list of “five players most likely to disappoint.” The only thing more fun than guessing which players will succeed, apparently, is predicting which ones will fail.

The N.F.L. draft — our coverage of it and our appetite for it — is a cultural phenomenon. But it also shows, as much as any sporting “event” in this country does, how fans and leagues — and even the players themselves in this age of social media — are willing to dehumanize the games they love, turning people into products and lives into entertainment.

The draft is the apex of football’s off-season, which used to be a time to watch basketball and baseball. It is now a time to view future N.F.L. players as livestock. It starts with the N.F.L. Combine, where players are stripped down (literally), measured for size and tested for speed and strength. Sometimes they are asked if they are gay. This is how teams decide who is fit for the league.

The results of those measurements, along with those from various other tryouts, are mixed with rumor and speculation to create “mock” drafts. Players are plotted over seven rounds of the coming draft, as if it is important, or possible, for anyone to know whom the Denver Broncos might select with the 253rd pick.