The NFL draft is coming up, as ESPN has hammered into your skull a thousand times you might have heard, and all eyes have been focused on what Detroit will do with the first pick in the draft. They really only have their choice of about three players; select anyone outside of QB Matthew Stafford, LB Aaron Curry, or OT Jason Smith, someone they regard higher than those three, and they’ll be widely derided as “reaching.” This despite the fact that it’d be their only shot at getting that player short of a trade, and nobody’s willing to trade for the #1 spot in a draft lacking surefire stars like this. So it goes in a hive-mind society like the NFL scouts.

Luckily, Detroit has no such plans to stray from the big three, as according to MLIVE.COM, the team just announced this afternoon that they’ve got a deal in place with Curry, terms agreed to and everything, and they’re ready to get this guy signed before the draft begins. That way there’s no contract drama to worry about; he can just get into camp and go. Yep, they’re selecting Curry with the #1 pick … unless they sign Stafford first.

Wait, what?
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One of the oddest stories leading up to the this year’s NFL Draft has been the possible positive drug tests of former Boston College DT B.J. Raji and several other high-profile NFL prospects, as reported earlier by SI.COM and NFLDRAFTBIBLE.COM. While coverage of the story has been muted from, say, the front page of ESPN.COM, it’s been the cause of intense speculation on the part of columnists, bloggers, and NFL draftniks. Could it really be that such high-profile players screwed up so monumentally as to test positive for performance-enhancing or other drugs, so close to the NFL Draft?

Well, no. Mike Florio of PRO FOOTBALL TALK reports that the list of positive drug tests is out, and none of the players whose names have been thrown around in recent weeks — Raji, Vontae Davis, Clay Matthews, or Brian Cushing — are on it. How did so many media outlets, including and especially the august SI.COM, get it wrong? Read more…

Can we all agree that NFL mock drafts are ridiculous? And that Clever Hans has as good a chance at accurately predicting the first round as Mel Kiper, Jr.? Here’s more evidence, in the form of a 19-year-old kid who claims that his mock draft beat Kiper’s last year, and was in fact “the best in the country.”

(Tweety Bird and a young Seth Rogen discuss Matthew Stafford.)

Let’s leave aside the fact that this is completely unverifiable, as fantasy mock draft leagues have yet to catch fire. What’s Shawn Zobel’s secret that makes his projections so accurate compared to real football writers who have inside sources? He watches a lot of TV.

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Today our thoughts and prayers are with former LSU wide receiver Demetrius Byrd who, according to USA TODAY, is in intensive care at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami after an auto accident on Sunday. Byrd was expected to be a mid-to-late round pick in this weekend’s NFL Draft, but all of that takes a back seat to the young man’s health. Byrd, who caught 37 passes for 513 yards and 4 touchdowns in 2008 for the Tigers, was traveling to church of all places yesterday when the accident occurred.

Thankfully, PROFOOTBALLTALK.COM is reporting that Byrd’s condition has stabilized and he is expected to make a full recovery. The NFL could use a player like Byrd, who is known as something of a free spirit and fun-loving personality, as seen after the jump. Read more…

We like to stay timely here at SbB, so we’re bringing you something wholly date-appropriate. A University of Delaware standout and NFL draft hopeful got busted over the weekend for a late night fridge raid — on other people’s fridges. He got away with $82 worth of food, most of that in Hot Pockets. Happy 4/20.

Julian James, a senior DT for UDel’s Blue Hens, got a craving for quick, easy and filling food last month. At 3 a.m., James allegedly entered an apartment complex where he did not live, with a taste for mischief, and a taste for hot steamy gooey cheesy flaky pastries. But his night was just beginning.

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I used to get the ESPN Sports Almanac every year, usually for Christmas. And I’d go through all the records and stats for every sport, and then the whole thing would be completely obsolete like a month later. In fact, almanacs in general have had a rough run ever since Wikipedia took over as the most convenient (if not always accurate) go-to source for information about anything and everything.

(Two of these three guys are already completely irrelevant)

Well, now ESPN is going after Wikipedia with its own massive sports database called ESPNDB. The main difference will be that ESPN’s version is actually fact-checked. It will also serve as an encyclopedia of ESPN information. So, in other words, about 2/3 of the content will be about the Yankees and Red Sox.

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Remember when the Texans drafted Drew Henson as a safety plan, then held his rights hostage when he decided he was ready to give up being the Yankees’ third baseman and wanted to come back to football? Well, there’s a PRO FOOTBALL TALK rumor that the Packers have worked out Duke point guard Greg Paulus at quarterback, despite the fact that Paulus hasn’t thrown a competitive pass since high school. If that sounds surprising, well, this may be even more shocking: The Packers may be dead serious about drafting him, too.

(Yes, this really could be Aaron Rodgers’ new backup in Green Bay.)

While Paulus was never going to set the world ablaze as Duke’s point guard, he still insisted on playing for Coach K because Greg’s just a hoopster at heart. That’s never taken away from his overwhelming talent behind center, where he was the starting quarterback in the U.S. Army All-American game and was also a Parade Magazine All-American. How good was Paulus in high school? Good enough that, if he decided to take a scholarship offer to play quarterback and point guard at Notre Dame, Miami or Syracuse, he easily would have been not just the top quarterback recruit on Rivals.com’s list of national prospects, he would have been the top ranked recruit overall.

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The 49ers are desperate — desperate! — for a starting quarterback. So when it comes to Matthew Stafford, perhaps the closest thing to can’t miss QB in this year’s draft, why does it seem like they’re doing everything they can to come up with an excuse to not take him?

From SPORTS ILLUSTRATED comes a look inside the combine, and San Francisco’s team psychologist’s meeting with Stafford. The word out of 49er camp is that he was too reticent to talk about his parents’ divorce. But can you really blame a 21-year-old kid for not wanting to discuss his personal issues with someone he’s known for a matter of minutes?

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Don’t believe anything about that hottie who just tried to friend you on Facebook. I’ve watched enough sensationalist TV to know it could really be Chris Hansen on the other end. Or, even worse, Scott Pioli.

(”It’s a trap!”)

YAHOO SPORTS, which is pretty much leaving CBSSPORTS.COM in the dust these days, talked to a source in NFL personnel who confirmed that it’s actually pretty common for teams to create fake accounts to get access to potential draft picks’ personal lives. Thorny legal issues aside, this isn’t a bad idea. It’s not as if Facebook hasn’t gotten athletes in trouble before.

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With the NFL Draft approaching, the Detroit Lions are still looking to trade the first pick but aren’t finding any takers, and aren’t likely to. It’s not that they aren’t interested in Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford, it’s just that they would rather trade down and take him because quarterbacks are expensive enough, but when you take them number one overall they get really expensive.

Considering that the position is the hardest to predict success for in the NFL, it’s a lot of money to invest in a player that’s more likely to be a bust than a success. So what can they do? Do they just pass on Stafford and take a safer pick? They could, but that would be a bit of a cop out. No, if the Lions have balls they’ll just opt not to pick anybody.

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