Things we fail to comprehend

Look, maybe it's an education thing. Maybe there are things going on in sports right now that I don't understand, and maybe that's just because I don't follow them enough to have the appropriate working knowledge.

Although even if I did have the appropriate working knowledge, I still couldn't explain the Las Vegas Golden Knights, who didn't exist a year ago and are one of the top teams in the NHL in their inaugural season.

On the other hand, maybe someone can school me about some of the things that are going on right now in the National FOOT-ball League, as Howard Cosell used to enunciate it. Because I'm just not seeing what the plugged-in people are seeing, apparently.

For instance: Why would the Cowboys cut -- not trade, cut -- their all-time franchise leader in touchdown receptions when he's only 29 and still has a lot of football left in him? Did they sign Antonio Brown when I wasn't looking? Did they recreate Jerry Rice in a test tube in Jerry Jones' super-secret experimental lab (because I wouldn't put it past ol' Jer to have one)?

No, they did not. Instead, they cut Dez Bryant and signed, um, Allen Hurns and Deonte Thompson, who, last I looked, are not Dez Bryant. They're also looking hard at all the top receivers in the upcoming draft. But for the time being, they've gotten exponentially worse at wide receiver, with nothing certain on the horizon that suggests they'll soon get better.

True, they did make their cap space roomier. But to what end?

Someone way smarter than I am needs to explain this.

Also, someone needs to explain to me why some of the gurus have as many as three quarterbacks going in the five in the upcoming draft. Did I fall asleep and wake up in 1983? Is there really a John Elway and a Dan Marino and a Jim Kelly in this draft?

Maybe so, but I'm not seeing it. I think Sam Darnold's pretty good. I think Josh Rosen's pretty good, and I like the way his mind works. And I think Josh Allen is pretty good for a guy who played at Wyoming, and who didn't exactly make me grab my head in amazement the couple of times I saw him play.

Yet I don't see a franchise QB in any of them, which would justify all three going in the top five. Don't see one in Baker Mayfield, either, although some people smarter than I am think he's the best of the lot from a physical standpoint.

Me?

I look at Baker Mayfield and see Ryan Leaf all over again: Million-dollar talent, ten-cent head. That whole grabbing-the-crotch-and-dropping-F-bombs-on-the-sideline thing? That was straight out of the Ryan Leaf playbook, boys and girls. And against Kansas, no less.

So ... yeah. I'm clueless.

I am, in fact, so clueless that the one quarterback prospect no one seems to be enamored of, I'm enamored of. That would be Lamar Jackson from Louisville, whom everyone seems to think should choose another position. But I look at him and see someone who, in the right hands, could be exactly the kind of mobile, multi-skilled quarterback the NFL more and more leans toward these days.

So what am I missing?

An inquiring but apparently uninformed mind wants to know.