B.J. Raji, the Green Bay Packers' first-round draft pick and No. 9 pick overall, confirmed yesterday that he did indeed test positive for marijuana while a student at Boston College -- but not, as SI.com and others reported some weeks ago, at the NFL scouting combine. From the Green Bay Press-Gazette:
The distinction between the tests is important for a practical reason because if Raji had tested positive at the combine, he'd automatically be in the NFL's substance-abuse program and subject to a four-game suspension if he tested positive again. But because his only positive test was in college, he enters the NFL with a clean slate.
The distinction is important for other reasons, too.
Yes, Abilene Christian running back Bernard Scott is a talented football player. However, it's worth noting that the Bengals seem to have once again ignored the rap sheet of a player before using a draft pick on him. As Ryan Wilson pointed out Sunday, Scott has been arrested on at least five separate occasions, and actually hit a coach during one of his college stops.
Every Monday during college football's endless offseason, The FanHouse Walk will put last week's stories to bed and deliver the essentials to bridge that agonizing space between now and September. The Obvious -- The 2009 NFL Draft is now in the books and what's emerged from countless hours of coverage is a recurring theme of late: USC and SEC dominance. The Trojans had 11 players chosen in this year's draft, including a kicker and eight total defensive players from one of the better collegiate defenses of this era.
Meanwhile, 37 SEC players were chosen, topping last year's 35 and besting the second-place ACC's 33. USC also tied a draft record with four linebackers selected in a single draft. Their 11 overall selections bested last year's 10-player performance and again paced all colleges in the draft.
NEW YORK -- The whole thing, start to finish, from pick No. 1 to pick No. 256 (minus the 10-hour break overnight Saturday), took 15 hours and 15 minutes. The NFL Draft is a complex, sprawling monster of an event that defies instant synthesis even as it demands it.
But demand it does, and so here we are, in the hours after South Carolina kicker Ryan Succop was crowned "Mr. Irrelevant" (in a bizarre pageant that found NFL employees boogieing on front of the stage to Donna Summer's "Last Dance"), trying to make it all make sense.
NEW YORK -- Mark Sanchez wasn't at USC's spring practice Saturday, but when Trojans coach Pete Carroll called that night to congratulate Sanchez on being the No. 5 pick in the NFL draft, he gleefully told his former quarterback the story of what went down.
"He said they had a live feed of the draft on the Megatron video board there at the Coliseum," Sanchez said Sunday at Radio City Music Hall. "And every time an SC guy got picked, they'd stop practice. And he said when they showed that Cleveland had traded the (fifth) pick and that the Jets picked me, he said 25,000 people just went nuts."
Sanchez also admitted that Carroll must have been stopping practice a lot.
NEW YORK -- The New England Patriots drafted UConn's Darius Butler thinking he could replace cornerback Ellis Hobbs at cornerback and in the kick-return game. Today, they accelerated that process, trading Hobbs to the Philadelphia Eagles for a pair of fifth-round picks. The wheeling-dealing Pats immediately flipped both picks, trading up in the fourth round to take Penn State offensive lineman Richard Ohrnberger.
The Eagles, who actually had five fifth-round picks before this deal, sent New England the No. 137 and 141 overall picks in exchange for Hobbs. New England immediately traded both of those picks to Baltimore for the 123rd and 198th picks, and selected Ohrnberger at 123.
NEW YORK -- Malcolm Jenkins might have been a higher pick a year ago. Might have made more money. But he decided to stay one more year at Ohio State, and he went No. 14 overall to the New Orleans Saints in this year's draft.
He has no regrets.
"That's one of the best decisions I ever made, to stay in school and enjoy my senior year," Jenkins said at a press conference moments ago at Radio City Music Hall. "I'll graduate in June, I won the (Jim) Thorpe Award (for nation's best defensive back), I got to have Senior Day and all that went with that. I'm so glad I made that decision, because it's something I'm going to remember for the rest of my life."
Ever since Ted Thompson took over as the Packers' general manager in 2005, he has developed quite the reputation. In four drafts since he got the job, Thompson became known as the master of the trade-down.
In his defense, Mike Sherman didn't exactly leave a loaded roster behind when he got canned. Because of that, Thompson felt the need to stock up on extra picks to build depth. Now that Thompson has built some depth with the Packers, he appears to be more comfortable being aggressive in the draft.
NEW YORK -- A strange scene unfolded here at Radio City Music Hall this morning. Jets fans were brought into a room and offered the chance to ask questions (via teleconference) of Jets coach Rex Ryan at 10 a.m. The fans showed up early, wrote their questions on white cards, got the questions approved by the event's organizers and ... waited.
Ryan would be about 20 minutes late, because at that very time the Jets were trading their third, fourth and seventh-round picks to Detroit for the No. 65 pick and starting the day by taking Iowa running back Shonn Greene. The fans, assembled in a downstairs room where there's no cell phone reception, were totally unaware of the deal (and had already submitted their questions), so they couldn't ask Ryan about the move.
NEW YORK -- Just arrived back at Radio City Music Hall for the second day of the NFL Draft, and let's just say there's a little more room to spread out today. The NFL says nearly 750 members of the media showed up to cover Day 1, but looking around this room now I think we'd struggle to get near 75. Maybe everybody's sleeping in. Or maybe people don't actually come and cover Day 2, and I'm in the wrong place. Hey, we're learning.
Regardless, there are a couple of things worth mentioning here in the moments before the third round begins. The Jets need somebody for Mark Sanchez to throw to. The Lions need people who can stop the other team from scoring and get Matt Stafford and Brandon Pettigrew on the field. And a number of folks seem to have the wrong idea about the way I feel about the Patriots. So let's look ahead and clear a couple of things up with four Day 2 Questions.
B.J. Raji, the Green Bay Packers' first-round draft pick and No. 9 pick overall, confirmed yesterday that he did indeed test positive for marijuana while a student at Boston College -- but not, as SI.com and others reported some weeks ago, at the NFL scouting combine. From the Green Bay Press-Gazette:
I doubt anyone was truly surprised on Sunday when the Cincinnati Bengals 
Every Monday during college football's endless offseason, 
NEW YORK -- The whole thing, start to finish, from pick No. 1 to pick No. 256 (minus the 10-hour break overnight Saturday), took 15 hours and 15 minutes. The NFL Draft is a complex, sprawling monster of an event that defies instant synthesis even as it
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NEW YORK -- A strange scene unfolded here at Radio City Music Hall this morning. Jets fans were brought into a room and offered the chance to ask questions (via teleconference) of Jets coach 
NEW YORK -- Just arrived back at Radio City Music Hall for the second day of the NFL Draft, and let's just say there's a little more room to spread out today. The NFL says nearly 750 members of the media showed up to cover Day 1, but looking around this room now I think we'd struggle to get near 75. Maybe everybody's sleeping in. Or maybe people don't actually come and cover Day 2, and I'm in the wrong place. Hey, we're learning.
