DRAFT BUSINESS:Falcons mockery from Pride of Detroit (Brandon Graham of Ann Arbor, 40 minutes west), Mile High Report (Taylor Mays, allowing us to finally trot out an entire outfield worth of starting safeties all at once), and my new favorite purple-related blog of all time the Daily Norseman (Atlanta's own pride and joy Derrick Morgan. If Ramblin' 'Rick somehow falls all the way to 19, we must all wear red bow ties while posting up like this).
NFL.com: This webthing purports to be measuring the pre-draft emotions of the league's fanbases. On the spectrum of Bummed - Excited, Falcons fans clock in at Hopeful, and from eyeballing the doodad it appears we're right near the top five most amped out of our skulls fanbases. But who's the grumpiest bunch of wet blankets in all the land? Charlotte Panthers fans! Not sure who pooped in their DRAFT CAT SNACKS -- there's plenty of value at pick #48! -- but their misery only makes our joymeter continue to trend rightward.
J. Mike: When we heard that two Falcons draft picks made the NFL's list of most valuable picks ever, obviously the names Aundray Bruce and T.J. Duckett came to mind. But we were mistaken. SIDE NOTE this list is kind of wack -- how could potential Hall-of-Famer Randy Moss, a first-rounder, be a better draft pick than for-realsies Hall-of-Famer Raymond Berry, a 20th-rounder? No offensive linem... oh, nevermind. "Fan voting."
AJC: Comrade delivers lusty and gregarious speech to enraptured citizen newspaperman! On topic of imminent collegiate athlete harvest! Nestles long strings of prepositional phrases and gerunds within each other -- matryoshka doll sentences! Never actually says anything revelatory, is nevertheless fun to listen to! SIDE NOTE why are AJC photos always so poorly formatted? Got John Abraham looking like the actual Predator.
ESPN: Yasinkas, having lurked our Jason Campbell discussion from the other day, decided to screw with us by suggesting Campbell could become a North Carolina Panther. We would be in favor of this event not taking place, as it would threaten to raise their happiness.
ESPN: Yasinkas made further headway by jotting some notes from Tony Gonzalez' appearance on Mad Dog Radio. Gonzo says the Falcons will make "a lot of noise this year, some big time noise, more noise than I’ve ever made in my whole career," which is saying something as TG played trombone in a punk-ska band back in early '97, and things got racuous.
