2011 NFL First-round Projection and Arizona Cardinals Draft.

1.  Carolina Panthers – Cam Newton, QB, Auburn.  Marty Hurney needs to hit a home-run with this selection.  The best players in the draft class are on defense, but that’s where the Panthers have the most talent already.  Newton has weapons to support him and leadership qualities that could galvanize the franchise.
2. Denver Broncos – Marcel Dareus, DT, Alabama.  Denver needs help on its interior defense, where they play in a division chock full of quality running backs.  The offense has enough firepower to win games, but John Fox needs to build a defense that will allow his offense to take the field more frequently.
3. Buffalo Bills – Von Miller, OLB, Texas A&M.  The Bills’ problems are on the defensive side of the ball.  They’d like to take an interior lineman here, but there will be value at the position later in the draft.  The Bills need to find a way to frustrate Mark Sanchez and Tom Brady if they’re going to return to relevance in the AFC East.
4. Cincinnati Bengals – A.J. Green, WR, Georgia.  The Bengals aren’t willing to invest in another quarterback when they’re on the hook for Carson Palmer, and a rookie QB couldn’t succeed with the present tools in the Bengals’ arsenal.  A.J. Green will be an immediate contributor and playmaker who can open holes for Chad Johnson.
5. Arizona Cardinals – Patrick Peterson, CB, LSU.  Very, very quietly the Arizona Cardinals have cleared the deck at the CB position, with no legitimate players following Dominique Rogers-Cromartie and Greg Toler.  Peterson will challenge for the punt return job behind shaky second-year player Andre Roberts and be an immediate contributor in nickel and dime packages in the secondary.  Peterson is also insurance if DRC fails to embrace more zone concepts in the future.
6. Cleveland Browns – Nick Fairley, DT, Auburn.  Reports are the Fairley is falling down draft boards, but GM Mike Holmgren remembers have to prepare for John Randall and Warren Sapp and knows the challenges that a great three-technique DT can present.  The draft class at this position is thin, and the Browns get an immediate contributor as they transition to a 4-3 defense.
7. San Francisco 49ers – Blaine Gabbert, QB, Missouri.  San Francisco has done a good job of picking up sliding prospects in the first round.  The cupboard is shockingly bare at the QB position in the North Bay, and Gabbert possesses the qualities that new head coach John Harbaugh likes in a player.  The offensive line in San Francisco may be able to keep a clean pocket around Gabbert and allow him to succeed.
8. Tennessee Titans – Robert Quinn, DE, North Carolina.  Current DEs Jason Babin and Jacob Ford are not long-term solutions to the pass rush, but they will be starters while Quinn adjusts to the NFL after a year away from football.
9. Dallas Cowboys – J.J. Watt, DE, Wisconsin.  This isn’t a flashy pick, and the Cowboys may want to trade down to get some value at the offensive line.  Watt is an excellent prospect at the five-technique DE spot and could pair with Igor Olshansky for the best 3-4 DE tandem in the NFL.
10. Washington Redskins – Julio Jones, WR, Alabama.  The Redskins get great value for this pick.  Their WR corps is solid right now, but it is aging.  Jones will be an excellent West Coast wideout for Mike Shanahan.
11. Houston Texans – Prince Amukamra, CB, Nebraska.  The Texans are terrible in the secondary.  They get a player that will be good for them in Wade Phillips’s 3-4 defense. 
12. Minnesota Vikings – Da’Quan Bowers, DE, Clemson.  Minnesota can’t believe their luck that a player who was widely expected to be drafted in the Top 5 falls to them all the way at #12 overall.  Bowers can learn behind Jared Allen or immediately contribute on the strong side.  Bowers is not a speed rusher in the mold of Julius Peppers, but he is a good technician who can contribute quickly.
13. Detroit Lions – Jimmy Smith, CB, Colorado.  The character concerns about Jimmy Smith are overstated, and frankly the Lions defense could use some attitude.  Jimmy Smith is an elite athlete who can be a cover corner in the mold of Darelle Revis.
14. St. Louis Rams – Cameron Jordan, DE, Cal.  The Rams are in a position to trade down from this spot without great value at a position of need.  Instead Steve Spagnolo goes back to his Philadelphia roots and drafts the best lineman on the board and will plug him in wherever he’s needed.
15. Miami Dolphins – Tyron Smith, OT, Southern Cal.  Smith will be able to stay at right tackle for the Dolphins, where Miami has a gaping hole currently occupied by Lydon Murtha.
16. Jacksonville Jaguars – Aldon Smith, DE, Missouri.  Smith presents good value here for a team that needs to protect its secondary with a productive pass rush in a division that features Peyton Manning and Matt Schaub.
17. New England Patriots – Corey Luiget, DL, Illinois.  Quietly, the Patriots have been transitioning to more and more 4-3 defensive looks.  Luiget presents great positional versatility for Bill Belicheck.
18.  San Diego Chargers – Anthony Castonzo, OT, Boston College.  Castonzo will help protect Philip Rivers as he ages and solves an offensive line problem across from Marcus McNeill.
19. New York Giants – Mike Pouncey, OG, Florida.  The Giants need to add fresh bodies to their aging offensive line.  Pouncey is a better story than he is a talent in this draft, but he’ll be a solid contributor who will have time to learn from the veterans ahead of him.
20. Tampa Bay Buccaneers – Ryan Kerrigan, DE, Purdue.  Kerrigan presents the best value to a Tampa-2 team, and ends up in a position where he can be the most successful.
21. Kansas City Chiefs – Gabe Carimi, OT, Wisconsin.  Carimi can play the right or the left side for the Chiefs, and will open holes in the run game that made the Chiefs a playoff team in 2010.
22. Indianapolis Colts – Nate Solder, OT, Colorado.  The Colts have an offensive line problem, and they have to protect their franchise player in Peyton Manning.  Solder will give them more opportunities to protect Manning and open holes in the run game. 
23. Philadelphia Eagles – Adrian Clayborn, DE, Iowa.  The Eagles keep getting better by drafting good athletes for their offensive and defensive lines.  If there is a run on offensive linemen, don’t be surprised to see the Eagles move up a little.
24. New Orleans Saints – Akeem Ayers, LB, UCLA.  Ayers give Gregg Williams a nice versatile athlete to play the strong side of his defense.
25. Seattle Seahawks – Aaron Williams, CB, Texas.  At this point in the draft, and without a third-round pick, the Seattle Seahawks would probably like to trade down.  Lacking that option, they take Williams, who will help out a secondary in need. 
26. Baltimore Ravens – Derek Sherrod, OT, Mississippi.  The Ravens need help on the offensive line, and Sherrod will give them an able replacement at the RT position and allow them to move Marshall Yanda back to the inside where he was a dominant player. 
27. Atlanta Falcons – Justin Houston, DE, Georgia.  The Falcons need to find a future replacement for John Abraham.  It might seem like the Falcons are reaching here, but if Houston develops, it won’t matter two years from now.
28. New England Patriots – Mark Ingram, RB, Arkansas.  New England would love to trade out of this spot to the team that feels like Jake Locker will be the answer and pick up some 2012 picks.  Ingram is a productive player who should be able to excel in the elements and have a quick transition to the pro game.
29. Chicago Bears – Danny Watkins, OG, Baylor.  The Bears have to do something about their offensive line to protect the investment they’ve made in Jay Cutler. 
30.  New York Jets – Jabaal Sheard, DE/OLB, Pittsburgh.  The Jets need to manufacture a pass rush somehow.  Sheard is a prospect who will give them a chance to do that.
31. Pittsburgh Steelers – Muhammad Wilkerson, DT, Temple.  Wilkerson can play DE in the Steelers 3-4 defense and gives them great depth at the position.  Excellent value selection as two-gap DTs always fall in the draft.
32. Green Bay Packers – Cameron Heyward, DE, Ohio State.  The Packers have had terrible luck selecting two-gap defensive linemen before hitting a home run with B.J. Raji.  Heyward will be able to keep the Packers’ excellent LB corps clean.
33.  New England Patriots – Jake Locker, QB, Washington.  The likelihood that New England exercises this pick is extremely low.  Teams will have some 16 hours to make inquiries about the availability of this selection.  Whoever ends up at this spot will take Locker.
34. 34.   Buffalo Bills – Phil Taylor, DT, Baylor.  After addressing the pass rush at the top of Round 1, Buffalo comes back and addresses the run defense at the top of Round 2.  Taylor will eat space in the middle of the line and become a poor man’s John Henderson.
35. Cincinnati Bengals – Mikel LeShoure, RB, Illiniois.  Cedric Benson was showing some wear on his tires last season.  LeShoure will help continue the remaking of the Bengals’ offense.
36. Denver Broncos – Kyle Rudolph, TE, Notre Dame.  Rudolph is a risk/reward pick here, but both Kyle Orton and Tim Tebow are used to operating with playmaking tight ends..
37. Cleveland Browns – Torrey Smith, WR, Maryland.  There’s a lot of pent-up demand for wideouts at this point in the draft.  Smith will provide depth to a relatively talentless WR corps.
38. Arizona Cardinals - Brooks Reed, DE/OLB, Arizona.  The Cards lose out when there’s a string of pass rushers taken toward the end of the first round, but Reed is a passionate player who will do whatever is asked of him.

69 – Kendrick Ellis, DT, Hampton. The Cards go to another small school in the third round.  Ignorant fans will project Ellis as a backup NT, but he should be successful as a two-gap DE in wave packages for Darnell Dockett or Calais Campbell.

103 – Austin Pettis, WR, Boise State.  Excellent value with this pick.  The Cards get s better version of Steve Breaston here, and will give Stephen Williams some competition.

136 – Alex Green, RB, Hawaii.  Green knows how to pass protect, run routes, and catch the ball from his experience in the spread offense at Hawaii. 

171 – Nick Bellore, LB, Central Michigan.  Should develop into the SILB that the Cards need to pair with Daryl Washington.

184 – Anthony Gray, NT, Southern Mississippi.  5’11”, 330 lbs.  He’s the definition of the kind of fire hydrant nose tackle that is needed for the 3-4 defense. 

249 – Jarriel King, OL, South Carolina.  The kind of developmental OT prospect with massive size that the Cards like to develop.

On the Mystery of the Female Orgasm

I finished reading D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterly's Lover...

She clung to him unconscious in passion, and he never quite slipped from her, and she felt the soft bud of him within her stirring, and strange rhythms flushing up into her with a strange rhythmic growing motion, swelling and swelling and swelling till it filled all her cleaving consciousness, and then began again the unspeakable motion that was not really motion, but pure deepening whirlpools of sensation swirling deeper and deeper through all her tissue and consciousness, till she was one perfect concentric fluid of feeling, and she lay there crying in unconscious inarticulate cries.  The voice out of the uttermost night, the life! 

Am I right, ladies?

Review: A Few Seconds of Panic, by Stephan Fatsis

Since we have a little time before football starts (indeed, before the NFL Draft guides come out), I thought I'd recommend some light reading for those who might be interested. In the past couple weeks, I finished reading Stefan Fatsis's A Few Seconds of Panic: A 5-foot-8, 170-pound, 43-year-old Sportswriter Plays in the NFL. It's worth a read, even for a Cardinals fan.

The Premise: 50 years after George Plimpton's Paper Lion, Fatsis gets permission from ownership and Mike Shanahan to attend Denver's 2006 training camp as a non-roster invitee kicker. Fatsis is a rec soccer player, but gets himself into shape as an NFL-kicker.

The Style: Fatsis is a newspaper reporter (for the Wall Street Journal) and works for NPR, so he has some illusions of grandeur, but his style is friendly and readable. He thinks he's funnier than he is at times, but it was worth spending time with him.

Cardinal Connections: 2006 was the year that the Broncos drafted Jay Cutler in the 1st round, and Jake Plummer's last year with Denver. Plummer gives a lot of access to Fatsis. Also, Fatsis befriends former Cardinals' #3 QB Preston Parsons. Finally, in 2006 current Cardinal long snapper Mike Leach is the long-snapper for Denver, and he works with Fatsis for most of the book.

What's interesting: If John Feinstein's Next Man Up is a look at the NFL from the coaches' and front office's point of view, A Few Seconds of Panic looks at the game from the players' side. Fatsis spends some time with Denver's stars, but most of the book is spent talking to the fringe players in the NFL who will be lucky to land a job. Fatsis discusses PEDs after punter Todd Sauerbrun gets a four-game suspension for taking ephedra, as well as examines why players play week to week. As we come into a period of labor unrest in the NFL, it may be useful to understand what training camp means to the average NFL player, or the guys on the roster from 50-85 who are trying to catch on to one. It's interesting to see the conflicted way that a lot of players view the game. Fatsis doesn't get into the nitty gritty of training camp drills and schemes, but his comments on the struggles of a Preston Parsons or Bradlee Van Pelt are worth the time.

On Million Dollar Money Drop and Game Show Culture

A few weeks ago, How I Met Your Mother did an amazing send-up of the "new" game shows in a parody called Million Dollar Coin Flip, with Alex Trebek as the host.  Even thinking about it today brings a smile to my face.  Then in December FOX debuted Million Dollar Money Drop, which returned last week after a Christmas hiatus. 

The premise of Million Dollar Money Drop is interesting.  A telegenic couple is brought out--usually a married couple but frequently two friends--and introduced as "America's newest millionaires."  They're presented with $1,000,000.00 in twenty dollar bills wrapped in $20,000.00 bundles.  They give their little story and are told that the million dollars is theirs, but in order to take it home, they have to answer a series of some eight multiple choice questions.  They must place all of their money on answers, and leave at least one answer, or "drop zone" empty.

After time has expired, tension is raised until the drop zones under incorrect answers are released, and the money falls down into fifteen-foot-deep chambers.  At the last question is either "A" or "B", and the contestants must risk all their money.

I love game shows.  I've been watching Jeopardy my entire life, and I religiously follow shows like Top Chef and So You Think You Can Dance.  Even shows like Cash Cab have their appeal.  But there's a difference between Million Dollar Money Drop and these other programs: contestants cannot win money, they can only lose it. 

It's an important distinction.  On a traditional game show, the viewer audience is always on the side of the contestant, or a contestant.  We are cheering for them to win the game.  At our worst moments, we may be cheering for an opponent to lose, but the viewer always has a champion.  What Million Dollar Money Drop has occasioned is the game show that's entirely voyeuristic.  The home viewer may have the answer to the question (or believe they do), but after the minute or 75 seconds for answering the question has elapsed, the audience is treated to an interminable amount of time watching the contestants squirm over their lack of knowledge on some general question.  America's newest millionaires never occupy that rarefied air for long.

Last night presented a common example: a young married couple, the husband a Marine who met his bride at a "Welcome Back from Iraq" party, were faced with the question of who appears on the U.S. dime: John F. Kennedy, Thomas Jefferson, Frankin Roosevelt, or Benjamin Franklin.  They decided to put all their money on Thomas Jefferson.  In the 60 seconds provided, the audience is treated to the frequently aimless ramblings of the contestants while they pile money on this or that drop zone.  This young couple (two kids at home who "miss their daddy very much when he's away on deployment") put all their money on Thomas Jefferson. 

Anyone who has a dime in their pocket already knows the answer.  But the producers throw the program to commercial while we consider their sealed fate.  The program's host then keeps the couple in suspense for two minutes or more after the return.  When their answer is revealed to be false, their new fortune--all of it--falls away from sight in the blink of an eye.  What the viewer is left with is the embrace of a couple who watched literally years of income disappear.

FOX has a reputation of course for game shows that push the edges of decency.  Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire was the beginning, but more insidious and loathsome was Moment of Truth, where a contestant was forced to answer uncomfortable questions about their past live in front of family, friends, and co-workers.  But this is different.

In a show like Deal or No Deal, there is always the opportunity for the contestant to win more than is available to her.  The offer from the "Banker" is always less than what's still available to them on the board.  Only in Million Dollar Money Drop can the contestants only lose. 

It's good that Million Dollar Money Drop isn't a hit, and likely to disappear from our television sets and consciousnesses as soon as the regular FOX schedule returns after the Super Bowl.  But it may present a threshold that Americans have crossed.  In this weak economy we are happy to watch others lose even more than we have in the blink of an eye.  That's entertainment