NFL DRAFT : New Jaguar Boselli Is the Biggest Cat in This Circus : USC: Jacksonville makes Trojan offensive lineman sweat before selecting him second overall.

It seemed only fitting that on the day USC’s Tony Boselli became the highest-drafted offensive lineman since Tony Mandarich, there was a circus playing next door.

The actual circus was from Moscow, playing at Madison Square Garden. The perceived one was the NFL draft at the Paramount, a theater, possibly of the absurd, at the Garden.

The three-ring aspect of the day had nothing to do with Boselli or his much-heralded talent of protecting quarterbacks, but the series of slights that followed him through his first hours in the NFL.

The backdrop to this pseudo-event was the 4,000 fans who lined up at daylight, hoping to get in the building to show how little difference there is between man and animal. Many dressed in their favorite team’s costume and talked as if everyone around them was hearing impaired.

The show began with Paul Tagliabue, the august commissioner of the NFL, holding up the start of the draft because ESPN was “in commercial.” And that was just the beginning.

Ki-Jana Carter was the first player chosen. Once his agent, Leigh Steinberg, the man who promised to keep the Rams in Anaheim, and his orchestrated entourage left the stage, everyone thought Boselli would quickly assume center stage.

He was said to be a lock to be the second pick, but Jacksonville wasn’t sending word to announce it. Was there something wrong? Why was Jacksonville watching its allotted 15 minutes dwindle to only a few?

“I was concerned there,” Boselli said. “I’m like, ‘If they know they want me, what’s taking so long?’ They said I was their guy all along. When it got down to three minutes or so, I’m saying ‘What’s going on?’ ”

Finally, with 2:20 remaining, Tagliabue got the word and announced that Boselli was the first-ever selection of the Jacksonville Jaguars.

“We were getting lots of phone calls,” said Jaguar Coach Tom Coughlin. “We just needed to hear them. But he’s going to be looking real good in teal and black.”

After the obligatory picture with the Commish, of course holding a giant teal and black jersey with “1” (it’s not his real number) on the front, it was time for the obligatory interview with ESPN’s Craig James.

Boselli and his modest-sized group of 11 walked down for his first official NFL interview.

All were ready and they watched and they waited. And waited some more. It seems Steve McNair was being announced as the third pick, so there was no time for Boselli, they had to get McNair on the air.

It wasn’t until two hours later, after several lower-drafted players had been interviewed, that ESPN found time to get him on camera.

Boselli’s group went back to its assigned seats while he went off to do a conference call with the Jacksonville media.

Tagliabue then stepped to the microphone and announced--again--that Tony Boselli was the second pick and going to Jacksonville.

Deja voodoo?

“My heart jumped,” said Angi Aylor, who in two months is supposed to become Boselli’s wife. “I didn’t know what was going on.”

Apparently, the NFL had missed taping the historic proclamation and it had to be re-enacted for archival purposes.

“I’m glad it was nothing else,” Aylor said. “This (being drafted by Jacksonville) is just incredible and we finally know where we’re going to live. Being picked second is just unreal.”

Actually, it was quite real, and Boselli then trudged off to the interview room where members of the print media and sports talk radio hosts get their fill of athlete musings.

Teams usually bring a helmet to place in front of the player while he’s talking. It makes for a good photograph.

But there was no helmet. In fact, sitting on an easel by the microphone when Boselli began to speak was a poster of McNair.

Maybe, as an offensive lineman, he was used to being overlooked. But by now, the slights didn’t seem to matter all that much. He was being introduced as Tony Boselli of the Jacksonville Jaguars.

He started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” he was asked.

“It sounds a little different (being introduced that way),” he said. “It used to be USC, now it’s Jacksonville.”

Boselli then said all the right things and winced at the comparison to Mandarich, a colossal flop after being drafted in 1989 by the Green Bay Packers.

“There is no comparison between us,” Boselli said. “I come from a pro offense. He came from a running offense. I proved I can pass block and move laterally. We have nothing in common besides a first name.”

Finished in the interview room, Boselli had to rush out to do the long-awaited ESPN interview. The entourage followed.

“I can’t believe it was 22 years ago that I was bringing him home from the hospital,” said Candy Hodgkins, Boselli’s mother.

Suddenly, Boselli stopped, wheeled the other way and started going in a new direction. A public relations person had been leading him down the wrong hallway.

It figures.