There’s a Great Draft Pick Born Every Five Minutes

Tick, tick, tick, Second Thoughts is still on the clock, desperately trying to trade down to stockpile items for use in later columns.

News item: NFL concludes 67th annual draft.

Second thought: Best first-round pick: Jimmy Johnson (ESPN). It’s not fair. The former Dallas Cowboy and Miami Dolphin coach walks off his yacht, dabs a little 30-weight through his hair and dominates draft day with his spot-on analysis and anecdotal insight. Johnson even had a better hair weekend than Mel Kiper Jr.

Worst first-round pick: Levi Jones (Cincinnati). The Bengals remain on the cutting edge. Too bad that’s where most of their draft picks end up.

For the 67th year, all NFL teams nabbed just the player they wanted.

Buffalo was thrilled to get Texas tackle Mike Williams with the fourth pick (“No way he has a knee injury”).

San Diego was ecstatic to land Texas cornerback Quentin Jammer (“It worked out perfectly for us”).

Dallas says Roy Williams is a “difference maker,” Jacksonville thinks John Henderson is “a heck of a player,” ESPN’s Chris Berman tells the New York Giants, “You got your man” in tight end Jeremy Shockey and adds, “You did the right thing there” when Cleveland Coach Butch Davis takes tailback William Green. Atlanta Coach Dan Reeves says running back T.J. Duckett was “definitely a guy we couldn’t pass up,” and tight end Daniel Graham, the New England selection, was described as “one of the slam dunks of this draft.”

All of which makes us wonder: Whatever happened to Tony Mandarich?

At least the NFL draft provided a welcome respite from minute-to-minute updates concerning Robert Horry’s abdomen.

News item: NBA playoffs begin.

Second thought: I confess to having drifted away from the pro game in recent years, but when push comes to shove I like the New Orleans Jazz, Philadelphia Warriors, Kansas City Kings and Buffalo Braves, also the Phoenix Suns if the Van Arsdale brothers can avoid injuries.

News item: ESPN broadcaster Stuart “Boo-Yaa” Scott injures eye while working out with the New York Jets.

Second thought: This just in from broadcaster fantasy camp: John Madden cancels his annual “bear-crawl” session with the New York Giants while venerable Verne Lundquist announces he will no longer do “gassers” during two-a-days with the St. Louis Rams.

News item: Giant, mountain-size asteroid threatens to hit Earth in 800 years.

Second thought: Based on what we’ve seen lately on Fox’s “Best Damn Sports Show Period,” it can’t get here soon enough.

News item: AT&T; withdraws Rose Bowl sponsorship.

Second thought: Industry pundits are blaming this on the “The Rose Bowl, presented by Nebraska.”

News item: College football officials mull changes to dreaded bowl championship series.

Second thought: What’s to mull? The powers that be ought to tear into this formula like Tony Siragusa into a roast beef on rye.

At meetings in Phoenix last week, the six BCS conference commissioners failed to pull the trigger on changing the controversial formula.

Our one-step remedy: remove the computer component from the BCS standings and keep the remaining three components in the formula: poll average, schedule strength and losses (one point assessed for each). You also can 86 the quality-win brain cramp.

Had there been no computer component the last two years, justice would have prevailed. Oklahoma would have played Miami in the 2001 Orange Bowl and Miami and Oregon would have met in the 2002 Rose Bowl.

Final 2000 BCS standings without computers? 1) Oklahoma (1.44), 2) Miami (3.12), 3) Florida State (4.08).

Final 2001 BCS standings without computers? 1) Miami (2.62), 2) Oregon (4.24), 3) Colorado (5.08), 4) Nebraska (5.56).

Let the computer geeks go back to doing what they do best: letting us look over their shoulders on history exams and burning bugs with magnifying glasses.

News item: Fifty-one percent of people in survey say they’d be willing to have their pinkie toe amputated for a chance to play at Augusta National Golf Course.

Second thought: I’d almost give my right arm never to have stumbled upon this item in USA Today.

News item: USA Today reports wrestler Rulon Gardner keeps in a plastic container the toe he had amputated because of frostbite.

Second thought: What is it with USA Today and toes?

News item: Tiger Woods wins third Masters championship.

Second thought: Proposed changes for next year’s tournament: Woods required to start play in Augusta, Maine.

Woods hits off back tees, all other golfers use reds. OK if Fuzzy Zoeller hits off a mat.

No golfers allowed to wear red Sunday.

No spectators allowed within 100 yards of Sam Snead’s ceremonial drive.

“Course management” specialists allowed to accompany Vijay Singh and Ernie Els.

News item: Phil Mickelson’s sister, Tina, wonders how much greater her golf-star brother would be had Tiger Woods been born in another era.

Second thought: A fascinating hypothetical, although the data suggest had Tiger Woods become an accountant, Phil still would be 0 for 39 in the major tournaments--Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship. Mickelson did not finish second in any of the seven majors won by Woods. Mickelson’s only second-place posting in a major came at the 1999 U.S. Open, at which he finished one shot behind winner Payne Stewart.

That settled, we return to ponder how many more NBA titles the Lakers might have won had Bill Russell become a dentist.

News item: MTV cable show “The Osbournes” getting rave reviews.

Second thought: Thinking this was a wholesome family show about the former Nebraska football coach and current U.S. congressman (“Honey, I’ll be home as soon as we pass the soy bean subsidy bill”), I was shocked to discover the MTV series is based on rock star Ozzy Osbourne, the former Black Sabbath singer who has done a extraordinary 180-degree turn on a career whose lowlights include biting the head off a live dove and relieving himself publicly in San Antonio ... on the Alamo.

Only in America, eh, Don King?