A lackluster Saturday of college football

National Football League
Draft King Analysis

Reader feedback is always welcomed here. Send your thoughts to Draft King at LouPickney@gmail.com.

This has been an odd day for college football fans, with the first few C-list bowl games happening and the Division II and III championship games taking place. There's not much scouting to be done for likely high NFL picks in any of those spots, though sometimes spectacular performances can draw the attention of viewers, such as the perfect coffin corner kick by Wisconsin-Whitewater punter Kris Rosholt in the fourth quarter of Whitewater's win over Mount Union. But between Eastern Washington's red turf on Friday night and the blue turf of the Humanitarian Bowl tonight, that has definitely been a strange weekend for college football.

In the NFL, the vultures are circling in a few areas where it appears there will be a change in guard with the coaching staff. John Fox's contract expires after the season and he looks unlikely to receive a new deal from Carolina in 2011. Ditto for Marvin Lewis in Cincinnati. There is plenty of speculation that Jeff Fisher won't be back with the Titans in 2011, as he also has an expiring contract and moreover his team has lost six games in a row.

It's like there was a Trading Places type switch that happened on Halloween when 5-2 Tennessee played at 2-5 San Diego. Vince Young and Kenny Britt both suffered injuries, the Titans lost (and haven't won since), whereas the perennially slow-starting Chargers began a turnaround that has them just a half-game out of first place in the AFC West after Thursday night's rout of the 49ers.

Speaking of the 49ers, Mike Singletary may be another head coach out of a job after the season. The curious move to reinstall Alex Smith at QB in place of former Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith I suspect was the move that will ultimately end up costing Singletary his job. Frank Gore's season-ending injury didn't help things any, but the 49ers were mired in mediocrity before Gore was hurt.

There is plenty of speculation that Carolina will draft Stanford QB Andrew Luck (a third-year sophomore) should they end up with the #1 pick in the 2011 Draft and Luck decide to leave Stanford early. I'm not sure that I believe that will happen; remember how many sports anchors and talk hosts presumed that the Rams would draft Nebraska DT Ndamukong Suh at #1 when their season ended in early January 2010? I didn't think it would happen that way (too much big money already invested on the defensive front seven in St. Louis), and ultimately it didn't.

It's not fair to write off Jimmy Clausen, who was a high second round pick and the first player selected by Carolina in this past April's draft. He has struggled, but he's a rookie. Anomalies like Matt Ryan and Sam Bradford can make people forget that, generally speaking, rookie quarterbacks in the NFL struggle. This is not to be read as an endorsement of Clausen as a long-term savior for the team per se, but more a reminder that it is way, way too early to write him off as a viable strong starter in the NFL.

The caveat with Carolina is if a new general manager is brought on board. All bets are off in that case; for evidence, look no further than the Miami Dolphins with their multiple second-round QBs drafted under multiple GMs. My opinion remains strong that the Panthers will look to fill the hole at defensive end left with Julius Peppers going to Chicago with their top first round pick, but it's hardly a lock with so many variables still in play.

As it is, there is debate about who the top quarterback prospect should be. Earlier this week on the Batchelor Pad show some of the guys on the show said that they believe Cam Newton will be the top quarterback taken, ahead of Luck and Ryan Mallett and any other potentially draft-eligible quarterbacks. I'm not sure that I believe it will happen, not with Luck showing so much precision throwing the ball, but Newton has willed his team to victories in ways I haven't seen since Vince Young was at Texas. And, if Newton leads Auburn to a win over Oregon in the BCS Title game, it's possible that he could parlay that into a climb all the way up the draft board. The fact that Newton wasn't rattled down 24-0 in Tuscaloosa and lead Auburn back to a victory was impressive as an indication of his mental toughness, and his 67+% completion percentage this year is evidence of his capacity to throw the ball with great accuracy in his own right.

Keep in mind that a good quarterback can make or break a team. To point, Peyton Manning has carried an injury-ridden Colts team to 7-6, which is impressive considering how many key players have missed substantial time this year for Indianapolis. Without Manning, the Colts might be 2-9 at this point. I'm not kidding; it's a realistic possibility. Meanwhile, the Cardinals without Kurt Warner this year have fallen to 4-9 despite playing an easy schedule in the NFL West. I'm aware that Arizona also parted ways with Anquan Boldin and Antrel Rolle and Karlos Dansby during the past off-season, but no single position can impact a team quite like the quarterback spot.

One important thing to remember when it comes to draft evaluation: the player who scouts or prognosticators or experts think *should* be the top quarterback taken is immaterial. The important thing is who the general manager and staff of whichever team will be the first to draft a quarterback decide to take. When I accurately projected the Raiders taking Maryland WR Darrius Heyward-Bey at #7 overall in 2009, it wasn't because I saw Heyward-Bey as a player worthy of being drafted in that spot. Scouts saw him as talented but raw, too raw to warrant being a top seven pick (let alone a first round selection in the opinion of some observers). But knowing Al Davis' tendencies helped me to accurately project what the Raiders would do, realizing that he often is wowed by physically impressive but inexperienced players.

	Ole Miss DT Jarrell Powe is likely to be drafted in either round two or three in 2011. (Icon SMI)

An important factor unique to this year is the potential work stoppage staring down the NFL for 2011. With the exception of Pitt WR Jonathan Baldwin, Ole Miss DT Jerrell Powe, and the guys who got caught in the John Blake/Gary Wichard agent scandal at North Carolina, it's possible that any number of the highly touted underclassmen who are projected as possible first round picks could instead return to college in 2011.

It's hard to think that Georgia WR A.J. Green or Alabama DE Marcell Dareus would return to the collegiate ranks in 2011 after each received multi-game suspensions from the NCAA this past summer, but there are a number of top prospects who haven't been in trouble with the NCAA who might decide that another year of seasoning at the college level would do them some good.

My guess: the increased pressure by the NCAA's AGA investigative arm looking into rule violations involving top players will, at worst, equalize the uncertainty of an NFL work stoppage. There is too much cash on the line for the NFL to have an extended work stoppage, and moreover even if a new deal means a tighter rookie salary cap (no more $50 million guaranteed payouts like Sam Bradford got), that same tight cap would be in place for 2012 and the intermediate future.

Perhaps the most important fact to remember at this point is that, not only do we not have anything more than a rough idea of where teams will be drafting in the 2011 NFL Draft, we don't know which players will be in the pool of individuals eligible to be drafted. This time next month we will know much more, though until the Super Bowl concludes we won't have the complete draft order. And, even then, if there are two or more teams with identical regular season records and identical strength of schedule percentages we might not know the exact order until March. The long wait is ridiculous (a coin flip could be done the very next day), but it's nonetheless how the NFL handles the situation.

Lou Pickney's 2026 NFL Mock Draft