There are some awesome names in this year's NFL draft, but at the very top of our draft board are: Bobby Blizzard (TE, North Carolina); Khreem Smith (DE, Oklahoma State) and Tai Tupai (DT, Washington State). Congrats, fellas, you're the best of the class ... this year.

Free throws, free money

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram did a story this week on Dallas Mavericks head coach Don Nelson's extensive staff. The paper reported the Mavs have four assistants, two developmental coaches, a performance enhancement coach and a free throw coach.

Yes, a FREE THROW coach. What a gig. OK guys, we're gonna shoot 200 today. Bend your knees, follow through. I'll be in the trainer's room getting a rubdown. Amazing. In fact, that's gotta be neck-and-neck with bullpen coach in the Best Job in Sports derby.

Never had a friend like ...

The New York Times reported last week that at the heavyweight championship fight between Lamon Brewster and Wladimir Klitschko in Las Vegas, promoter Don King greeted Mike Tyson with a hearty "We welcome you home." Tyson is suing King for $100 million.

Toe hold

The New York Times reported this week that Olympic gold medalist wrestler Rulon Gardner, who lost a toe two years ago to frostbite, keeps said toe "in formaldehyde in a jar next to the salad dressing in his refrigerator, a reminder of his fragility and his fortitude."

Even for a wrestler, that's a little too odd and smelly.

Bad, bad Bernard Hopkins

According to the Philadelphia Daily News, an interview with Bernard "The Executioner" Hopkins on "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" this week focused mainly on the middleweight champion's checkered past. When asked how he survived 56 months in prison in his late teens, Hopkins, in something out of a Jim Croce song, said he found the "toughest guy" in the joint. Then, "I knocked all his teeth out." Prison logic is scary.

Cameroon soccer in hot water over ... something

Bloomberg News reported this week that FIFA, soccer's governing body, fined Cameroon $155,000 and deducted six points from its national team in qualifying for the 2006 World Cup after its players wore "one-piece kits" during the African Nations Cup. Don't know. Don't even want to know.