April Fool’s Day.

You know what that means.

It’s time for the annual Fool of the Year award presentation in our wonderful world of sports and, as usual, there are plenty of worthy candidates.

Todd Graham must be considered near the top of the list. The only high octane in his offense at Pitt was his offensive bolt to Arizona after spending all of one year on the job.

The guy didn’t even stick around for his team’s bowl game before he left town.

Actually, Graham made fools of us all.

Speaking of Pitt, it paid for a spot in the 16-team CBI Tournament, then charged a minimum of $20 for its first-round home game with Wofford, which attracted all of 1,500 fans to the Petersen Events Center.

Hmmm ... foolish.

Let’s not forget the NBA Players Association, which went on strike all through training camp and the first month-plus of the regular season, only to settle just before Christmas and set themselves up for a shortened, yet extremely busy game schedule for four months.

And this strike accomplished ... well, er ... nothing, really.

This one is rather painful, but the Steelers defense must warrant consideration. They coughed up 300-plus passing yards to Tim Tebow — eek! — in a wild-card playoff game and Tebow needed all of one play to take the Steelers down in overtime.

The Broncos were so convinced by Tebow’s performance that they signed Peyton Manning and pawned Tebow off on the forever-foolish Jets.

The Oakland A’s are on the list for signing the suspended Manny Ramirez after he’s been out of baseball for a year. What in the world are they thinking?

Let’s not forget the Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves, both of which coughed up virtually locked up wild-card playoff spots last September.

Right down to the last innings of the season’s last day — and these fools were left on the outside looking in.

All of the above are solid contenders for Fool of the Year. But they’ve been beaten out by a late entry, a couple of guys who snuck in under the wire.

Gregg Williams and Sean Payton.

Offering extra money for knocking opposing players out of the game, even more if they’re carted off the field?

Really, guys?

Trying to cover up the act on top of it, while facing a league commissioner who has made it his life mission to get undue violence out of the NFL, clinched the deal for Williams and Payton.

Williams is suspended indefinitely, possibly forever. Payton cost himself a year on the job and $7 million in salary.

Now there go a couple of fools.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle