TODAYS NEWS AND NOTES

Despite a game effort in New England, Detroit lost to the Patriots and with Arizona winning in St. Louis the Lions, who dropped to 2-10, would have the first pick were the 2007 draft held today. Oakland, which lost to Houston to also drop to 2-10, moves up to the second pick, while Arizona drops to #3 with Tampa Bay and Green Bay rounding out the top 5 with the 4th and 5th picks respectively.


1 Detroit
2 Oakland
3 Arizona
4 Tampa Bay
5 Green Bay
6 Washington
7 Houston
8 Cleveland
9 Minnesota
10 St. Louis
11 San Francisco
12 Miami
13 Pittsburgh
14 Buffalo
15 Tennessee
16 Atlanta
17 Carolina
18 Philadelphia
19 New York Giants
20 New York Jets
21 Kansas City
22 Jacksonville
23 (1)Denver
24 Cincinnati
25 New England (from Seattle)
26 Dallas
27 New Orleans
28 Baltimore
29 New England
30 San Diego
31 Chicago
32 Indianapolis

(1) Denver and Washington could flip-flop picks depending on how far they are apart to complete multi-player deal with Atlanta.

ROOKIE OF THE WEEK

There are no ugly wins in the NFL! Just ask Houston which knocked off Oakland 23-14 on Sunday despite the fact that the Texans managed only 10 first downs and 124 yards of total offense all day. Indeed, the Texans had minus 5 yards passing as David Carr’s 32 passing yards were negated by 37 lost sack yards. As bad as the Texans offense was, though, the Houston defense was outstanding. The unit was led by rookie MLB DeMeco Ryans who brought new meaning to the term “made plays all over the field”. Ryans, the first player taken in the second round of the 2006 draft, had 15 tackles against the Raiders including a sack. Plus he intercepted a pass, broke up two other passes, forced a fumble and recovered two others fumbles in what may have been the most dominating defensive performance by any player in the NFL this season. In fact, Ryans is currently second in the entire NFL in tackles, just two behind Miami veteran Zach Thomas. As well, Ryans has quietly pulled ahead of the pack in the race for defensive rookie of the year honors and, with New Orleans star rookie WR Marques Colston currently on the shelf with an ankle injury, is making a strong case for consideration as the top newcomer in the league period. All that was plenty to make Ryans this week’s‘Rookie of the Week’.....

Further to yesterday's report that Florida DT Marcus Thomas will reportedly not be playing in any of this year’s all-star games, several sources indicated that it is still possible that Thomas, who rates as one of the top 4-5 DTs in the 2007 draft class, could still be invited to one of the top all-star games as the school is considering given his particiaption in a game such as the Senior Bowl its blessing. Thomas was kicked off the team after failing several drug tests earlire this year....


Mississippi junior LB Rory Johnson will pass up his senior season and enter the NFL draft according to team officials. Johnson, who played just one year for the Rebels after transferring from a junior college, finished the season second on the team to star LB Patrick Willis, a first round prospect for the 2007 draft, with 94 tackles despite seeing limited action at the start of the year. Johnson is listed at 6-1, 235 and as a former state 100M runner up has good speed.....

Joe Gibbs said yesterday he plans to return next year for a fourth season as coach of the Washington Redskins and does not foresee any major changes on his staff.....


Owner Wayne Huizenga's disappointment that the Dolphins will miss the playoffs for the fifth consecutive season should not be misunderstood to mean he's unhappy with coach Nick Saban.....