FanHouse Kelvin Hayden

There's never a good time to have half of your defensive backfield hurt, but having it happen immediately before facing the Houston Texans' powerful passing attack is close to the worst possible situation during the regular season. But that is exactly what's happening in Indianapolis.

News broke Thursday that Marlin Jackson would be out for the season with a torn ACL -- for the second consecutive year. Friday, the Colts learned that Bob Sanders needs surgery to repair his injured elbow -- which will end his season, according to Adam Shefter of ESPN -- and that starting cornerback Kelvin Hayden has been definitively ruled out for Sunday's game as well.

After looking through some Average Draft Position lists as well as my rankings, it's proven difficult to come up with a list of five underrated defenses. In my opinion, the top ten drafted defenses are the right ones to draft. Some may be a spot high or low, but there are no surefire starters out there that are underrated.

What I want to talk to you about today, class, is the ill-conceived strategy of drafting defenses in the middle rounds. In the eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh rounds, you need to concentrate on adding quality value picks before turning to your defensive selection. All it takes is one injury to turn your supposedly-great draft into a mess, so use these middle-round picks to fortify your QB, RB and WR starters. Because in the end, you don't even need to draft a good defense. It's much more cost-effective to cycle through defenses playing at home against inferior offenses.

But leaving you with that would eliminate the fun, so here are a couple of defenses that you should consider adding at the end of the draft.

Last Sunday during the CBS pregame show, the handsomely coiffed Charley Casserly informed us that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell was turning his attention away from dogfighting and spying to focus on a much more sinister crime: cheerleaders. Yep, no more warming up in front of the visiting teams' locker room because, well, grown men can't control themselves, apparently. Surprising, I know.

Count the Colts as one of the teams in favor of the rules change. During their Week 2 game in Tennessee, some of the players complained of the very distraction Casserly described.

"...it was like something from a movie," said Indianapolis Colts cornerback Marlin Jackson. "You come into the locker room and they're lined up stretching. I was like, 'What's going on here?' It's like something from 'The Longest Yard.' They're in here stretching. We're trying to get warmed up. I think that's a good rule to have."

"The Longest Yard"? Really? Is Jackson saying that the Titans' cheerleaders looked like Tracy Morgan, or is he just confusing his movies?

Whatever, SBM and Colts cornerback Kelvin Hayden said he's not affected:"You might (do a double-take) but you're more focused on the task at hand." And the married guys are even less affected: "I don't know anything about it. If I did, I probably wouldn't care to comment on it," said Colts linebacker Rob Morris, with a laugh. "I didn't even know there were cheerleaders in the NFL." At least cheerleaders that resembled Tracy Morgan, anyway.