Hey folks, good afternoon. A little late with this today due to some work stuff today but we've still got the goods here with another glance around the league.

Since we're late, let's skip the jibber jabbering and get right to it.

Mockety Mock Mock  Mock

There's not a ton new this week - Rang & Reuter (This Fall on FOX) are still betting defense for the Pack which is the most likely scenario and still have DT Marvin Austin and OLB Akeem Ayers still there.

Aside from that, most mocks I see are continuing to remain lockstepped into Cam Newton at one. It's plausible, I certainly can see it. I still think Gabbert remains a safer choice but the current smoke signals have him slipping. Of course, all the smoke signals a week or so ago were that Newton's smile was fake so.....

The Knees The Thing...

(all apologies to Bill Shakespeare)

Listen, as we've detailed here, it's hard to believe most of what you hear right now. Even trusted sources like Mike Lombardi could get played. Coaches and scouts manipulate. It's difficult to know what is trustworthy and what isn't.

Take Da'Quan Bowers and his knee. By now you have heard everything from 'it's fine' to 'it's arthritic' to 'microfracture surgery is imminent' to 'he has had his knee replaced with cybernetics'.

The last one I made up, but would you be shocked if Profootballtalk was reporting that today? Meanwhile, I'm hearing from two sources close to the situation that the whole thing is - and has been - overblown. That he's 100% fine.

Now I trust my sources but let's be honest - I can get played too. But my feeling is, we're somewhere in between. That Bowers' knee may still be healing but is not needing the dreaded microfracture surgery.

I think a tremendous amount of this is jockeying and with twitter as big as it is, it's easier than ever to hook a journalist and start a rumor.

I feel the same way about Alabama's Mark Ingram and his knee. Hell, I feel pretty ok with Cam Newton's smile.

So whatever you hear - take it with a grain of salt. Unless it's me because I am never wrong.

Buzzkill

Speaking of smile analysis, the guy who brought that term into the Draft lexicon has written a good article on the buzz around several athletes.

Like Pro Football Weekly's Nolan Nawrocki's style, he knows what he's doing and it's worth a read. I disagree with some of his take on Mikel LeShoure. The criticism is on target for the most part but I am a bit incredulous that teams have him rated as a '3rd or 4th round back'. That sounds like smoke.

He could be right (and he's more connected than I, for what it's worth) but it sounds like he feels like LeShoure's issues are hard to correct and I disagree.

Marcus Cannon, OT, TCU

Everybody's favorite sprinter, Doug Farrar, also has a good piece up at Yahoo! Sports on Marcus Cannon who might be on the board when the Packers pick and I think is worth a look.

So take a gander in case he ends up in a Packers jersey so when your friends say 'who?' you can look smart.

This Week's Draft Winds

As you know from the last column, I'm a fan of the work that the UniversalDraft.com guys have been doing in David Hyde's column at the Sun Sentinel.

This week is a position by position breakdown of players they like, don't like and are sleepers. Check it out.

So that's it for this week. Before I leave you, I wanted to let you know that if you're looking for something to listen to during the Draft, I will be co-hosting a radio show with Cecil Lammey of footballguys.com and (more importantly) 102.3 The Ticket in Denver. We will be covering the Draft live from Radio City all three days. You can listen here. While it's a Denver station, we'll be talking about all the picks and have a ton of guests lined up including CHTV's own Aaron Nagler.

So besides Carriveau's chat and post-Packer pick shows, head over to our little streaming show and listen in.