My gut feeling from my five-day stay at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis is that the Lions will look hard at a cornerback who's under the radar and could be available for them in the second round.
That would be after Patrick Peterson of LSU, Prince Amukamara of Nebraska and Jimmy Smith of Colorado.
Brendon Harris of Miami of Florida, Davin House of New Mexico State, Brandon Burton of Utah, and two cornerbacks from Texas -- Aaron Williams and Curtis Brown -- all are in the second tier.
They all measured out at 6 feet or a shade taller.
Getting GM Martin Mayhew to open up on his draft plans is harder than getting the head of the Federal Reserve to talk about interest rates, but Mayhew offered some enlightenment about what he looks for in a cornerback in his annual state of the franchise session with the media in Indy.
"The most important thing that I see as a former cornerback is competitiveness," he said.
Based on nothing but my gut feeling, nobody in the second group faced tougher competition week to week than the cornerbacks from Texas.
Warning. My gut does flip-flops, just like my draft projections.
Rip city
It's hard to get all gooey about Rip Hamilton making nice with Pistons coach John Kuester on Monday. They've had a sit-down to clear the air, and Kuester threw passes to Hamilton during practice.
Hamilton has been benched for 23 of the last 24 games, going into tonight's game at Milwaukee. The benching came after Hamilton reportedly went off on Kuester in practice.
Before that, Hamilton wasn't much of a factor. He got himself tossed with two technical fouls five minutes into a loss to the Lakers. His action was as close to quitting as a player can get without walking off the court when his team has the ball with the clock running.
"Q is the coach, and our relationship is better," Hamilton told reporters Monday. "Everybody is making a big deal about everything."
It would have been better to clear the air before the Pistons' record descended to 22-39.
Buyers beware
There is a cautionary tale -- another one, really -- about the risk factor in using stop watches and tape measures to predict future success in the NFL for college prospects.
This said tale hits close to home.
As the NFL's annual Scouting Combine winds down,, there are reports out of New York that the Jets plan to release four players.
The moves are expected in the next day or two -- perhaps today -- and the Jets could re-sign any or all of the four to reduced contracts.
One of the four on the whack list is defensive end Vernon Gholston.
Just three years ago, Gholston left the Combine as one of the best and brightest prospects in a draft class deep in defensive linemen. Five of the top eight draft picks were defensive linemen.
Gholston was taken sixth overall by the Jets. Two linemen went ahead of him. Chris Long, a defensive end from Virginia, went to the Chiefs with the second pick. Glenn Dorsey, a tackle from LSU, went to the Rams with the fifth pick.
Next off the board, at No. 6, was Gholston, a superior athlete from Ohio State and Cass Tech in Detroit.
Gholston was 6-3, 266 pounds. He ran faster (4.65 seconds in the 40), hoisted more metal (37 reps of 225 pounds) and jumped farther (10-5 in the standing broad, 35-5 vertical) than any of the other top prospects on the defensive line.
Going into the draft two months later, Gholston looked like the perfect fit for the Jets' 3-4 defense as an end or outside linebacker, his eventual position.
And after three seasons, Gholston is the perfect example of how the testing process and college production guarantee nothing.
Gholston has started just five of 45 games and has yet to produce a sack. He has just 42 tackles.
Personnel evaluators get a bad rap from the belief that they rely on workouts to set up their draft boards and don't put enough emphasis on game production.
That could not be more inaccurate.
Pro scouts hit the road in August to watch practices and games, and by the time they get to the draft, they've watched enough tapes on every player to tell you from memory which lineman has the most freckles on his left forearm.
The Combine is a piece of the puzzle, and it's fun to project from it.
Just don't count on it.
Film study
I grew up when a bunch of talented, young performers roughly my age gave Detroit an international identity with the Motown sound. Music, sweet music, could be heard in every corner of the world that had radios and record players.
It was our sound -- Detroit.
Decades later, we've gotten a lesser identity from the film industry shooting movies in Metro Detroit because of the incentives.
I'll leave the politics to someone else, but on a personal level, the most distressing aspect of the battle is how a small media faction has lined up against it purely because personal animus to some supporters with a higher media profile.
It's petty and cheap.
