Pick Fairley at No.1 -- or else trade the pick

I read with interest Joseph Person’s excellent story in Sunday's Charlotte Observer on former Auburn defensive tackle Nick Fairley, who is one of the Panthers’ candidates for the No.1 overall pick in April.

Are there questions about Fairley? Sure. Always have been, it sounded like. The guy has a couple of major red flags – a grade-changing scandal (which he says he wasn’t aware of) in high school, and a reputation as a dirty player in college (based on the highlights, this one has some merit). Plus, he really only had one big-time season in college – in 2010, when he was thoroughly dominant. In 2009, he really didn’t do much at Auburn.

Is all that enough to pass on Fairley?

Absolutely not.

The Panthers no longer have a great option at No.1 since Stanford QB Andrew Luck decided to stay in school. But to me, Fairley has the slight lead at the moment to be the “best-available” option at No.1 – if the Panthers can’t find a good deal to trade the pick, which to me should be a very viable option at this point considering that the team’s depth is too far down at several positions.

But if no trade works out, right now I’d pick Fairley. Remember Kris Jenkins in his best years at Carolina, before he got too fat and his knees could no longer support that enormous body? He could be an ornery teammate, but he made life so much easier for everyone else, because he either took up two blockers on every play or he disrupted things.

Fairley reminds me of Jenkins, who had his own baggage but was so important to the Panthers’ Super Bowl run in 2003. I’d pick him over Clemson’s Da’Quan Bowers. I’d do that in part because the Panthers need DT help more than DE help and partly because unless you’re just a great DE, you can be taken out of a game a little easier than a DT (who is right in the middle of the defense) can.

So I’d say right now, about three months before the draft and noting that stuff can always happen in those three months, here’s where I am on No.1: Either pick Fairley or trade it.

More from Dale Jr (including his Super Bowl pick)

I wrote a lengthy column today on Dale Earnhardt Jr., concentrating on his race for relevance in 2011 (and also about the 10-year anniversary of his father's death, which came at the Daytona 500 in 2001). Here's the link.

I couldn't get quite all I wanted into the column, so here are 3 odds and ends I picked up and wanted to share:

1) Earnhardt, a diehard NFL fan, picked the Packers and Steelers to make the Super Bowl at the beginning of the playoffs in some sort of contest. He now picks Green Bay to win it all and says he is a great admirer of Packer QB Aaron Rodgers.

2) Earnhardt was quite adamant about the fact that the races at Pocono are too long. I got into this only briefly in the column, but here's the full quote from Dale Jr. "Then you go to Pocono, and it's entirely too long, obviously," Dale Jr. said. "It's an obvious, glaring issue with everyone that's there -- but it's like this huge, pink elephant that nobody wants to talk about. Obviously, maybe there was some kind of a guarantee or promise made in the deal years ago, and it's something they won't change."

On the same subject, Earnhardt also said he thought shorter races were far more likely than a shorter season.
"It's so challenging [to cut the NASCAR season]," Earnhardt said. "There is tons of money involved and tons of livelihoods involved -- and people's careers and opportunities are involved. So I don't believe we'll ever see a shorter season. But I do believe that in my lifetime I will see the shorter races across the board at 80 or 75 percent of the events."

3) Earnhardt's friend Tony Stewart said earlier in the week that his friend Dale Jr. "has always been under pressure. It’s just a matter of him delivering. Every time you add a different crew chief and it doesn’t work out, it’s that much more pressure on him." Earnhardt has another new crew chief this year -- Steve Letarte -- as he tries to improve on last season's 21st-place overall finish.

NASCAR doesn't do enough with points system

I was afraid of this, and sure enough it has happened: NASCAR's new points system looks way too much like the old one.

The scoring is simplified, yes -- the base points will be awarded on a 43-to-1 basis, giving 43 points to the winner in the field, 42 to second place and so on, down until 1 point for the 43rd (and last)-place finisher.

But as I wrote last week in The Charlotte Observer, you have to have a serious number of bonus points attached to first place to ensure drivers risk everything to get there in the final laps.

I suggested 25 extra bonus points for the winner.

NASCAR went with three.

It's just not enough, even though NASCAR will award a bonus point to anyone who leads a lap and one more to whomever leads the most laps. With a maximum of 48 points per race, that's just not enough separation between first and second and third and on down the line. It values consistency more than winning, which has always been the problem.

On the other hand, NASCAR made a positive move by allowing the final two spots in the 12-driver Chase for the Championship to go to the drivers with the most wins who weren't already in the Top 10. So that mitigates this a little, given that those drivers who win but have more up-and-down results can still make the Chase.

Still, it's not enough. If you're going to change the points system, you really need to change the points system, and not just make it simpler to deal with but still with the same inherent problem that winning doesn't count for enough.

On Panthers, Oscars and "Smoke"

A couple of notes on another gray January day:

1) Looks like the Panthers are getting busy vetting Auburn DT Nick Fairley, according to our own Joe Person who is on the Senior Bowl scene in Mobile, Ala. I know Fairley has a rep as a dirty player, but it will be hard to not pick him at No.1 (if Carolina keeps the pick, that is) after that unbelievable performance in the national title-game win over Oregon. Fairley was ridiculously good in that game. Check out the "Inside the Panthers" blog for more of Joe's reports from Mobile.

With a No.1 pick, though, I really prefer in general terms a QB or RB -- someone you can give the ball to a whole lot without the other team dictating anything. Not sure anyone on the board is worth No.1 money, though, now that Stanford's Andrew Luck has decided to stay in school.

2) My column today was about NASCAR driver Tony "Smoke" Stewart, who had his latest altercation in Australia but still seems to be carving out a bit of a role as an elder statesman in the sport these days. Stewart turns 40 in May -- does that make you feel old? It does me.

3) How many of the best-picture nominees of 2010 have you seen? They were announced today. I'm also wondering which of them you would put on a "can't-miss" list.

I'm just looking for personal recommendations here, as I've only seen 3 of the 10("Inception," "The Kids Are all Right" and "Toy Story 3".) Here's the full list of the 10 best-picture nominees for 2010. I know I'm going to see "The Fighter," but does anyone else have thoughts on this list as to whether the movies have generally been overrated or underrated?

Best Picture Nominees
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone

An early Super Bowl prediction

That was a fine Sunday of football, if you didn't have a rooting interest and are talking strictly about the game played at a high level by four very good teams.

I don't have a rooting interest, so I was free to watch "Championship Sunday" objectively and came away believing that the two teams that were clearly the best won the NFC and AFC title contests. Neither Green Bay nor Pittsburgh ever trailed in their respective championship games, and both of them earned the right to play in the Super Bowl Feb.6 in Texas -- Green Bay beating Chicago 21-14, and Pittsburgh holding off the Jets, 24-19, after nearly losing all of a 24-0 lead.

My pick for the 45th Super Bowl? Pittsburgh, 20-16.

I think the teams are close to even, but to me the Steelers' version of the blitz-happy, in-your-face, 3-4 defense is slightly better than the Packers' version of the same thing.

And despite how well Green Bay QB Aaron Rodgers has been playing throughout most of these playoffs, there's not much sense in picking against Big Ben Roethlisberger in big games.

Big Ben's stats were thoroughly unimpressive Sunday (only 10 completions and two interceptions) but he still made the biggest play of that game with the third-and-6 rollout completion late that kept the Jets, trailing by only five, from getting the ball one last time.

If it turns out the other way, I'll be happy for Dom Capers. The Panthers' first coach is now Green Bay's defensive coordinator and has done a terrific job there. Would be glad to see him get the ring, for Capers is a great guy.

But I think the Steelers (6-for-7 in previous Super Bowl appearances) will win the big game for the third time in Roethlisberger's tenure as starting QB. You can understand why Panthers owner Jerry Richardson says he tries hard to model his franchise after the one the Rooneys run in Pittsburgh -- although the Panthers have been nothing more than a pale imitation of the Steelers for the past couple of years -- because the Steelers have done it the right way for a long, long time.

Incidentally, the ticket scalpers have to be really happy about this one. Pittsburgh and Green Bay are two of the NFL's most storied franchises and boast incredibly rabid fan bases. Even in this economy, I can't imagine the markup the seats in Texas are going to get.

A Bobcats-Miami playoff series??

We're only halfway through the season, but if it ended today, guess what the playoff matchups in the Eastern Conference would include:

No.7 seed Charlotte (17-24) vs. No.2 seed Miami (30-13)

Here are the current NBA standings if you want to take a closer look.

By virtue of last night's home win over Philadelphia fueled by point guard D.J. Augustin's 31 points, Charlotte leapfrogged a couple of teams and currently holds the No.7 spot in the East. That's exactly where the Bobcats ended up last season, when No.2 seed Orlando swept them right out of the playoffs in four straight games.

Facing the LeBron-D.Wade-Bosh trio in a first-round series would end up as another first-round exit out of the playoffs almost certainly, but it sure would be entertaining. (The two teams also play Feb.4th here in Charlotte).

Looking at these standings also reminds me that as many problems as the Bobcats have had this season -- and there have been a ton, from the firing of Larry Brown to last night's announcement that Tyrus Thomas will be out 8 weeks with a knee injury -- they are still very much in the playoff picture.

The Eastern Conference has divided itself into 5 teams with 27 or more wins at the season's approximate halfway mark (Boston, Miami, Chicago, Atlanta and Orlando).

The other 11 teams are scrabbling around, well below those numbers, hoping to make something happen. Charlotte remains in that mix, but as I wrote in my blog yesterday (see the item after this one), only a big-time move like a trade for Carmelo Anthony or a major draft-pick coup will get this Bobcats' team to move from the "have-not" category to the "haves." These guys may well make the playoffs, but they will be very hard-pressed to win more than one game when and if they get there.

On Shula, Carmelo and Silas

3 mid-week thoughts:

1) The Panthers would pull off a minor coup if they hire Mike Shula for an assistant coaching job, which they are considering doing. I've been around Shula a number of times -- I covered three of his father Don's teams as a beat writer for the Miami Herald in the early 1990s -- and Mike is smart and tough and one of the most likable guys you'll ever meet. The guy was a quarterback at Alabama and later the head coach at Alabama. And although he ultimately got fired from that job, he has since had a productive NFL career as an assistant. This is a move that should be made.

2) So the Nets' multi-billionaire Russian owner suddenly called off talks with Carmelo Anthony Tuesday, then announced that decision in a rather surreal and bilingual news conference.

You know what I'd do if I'm Bobcats owner Michael Jordan? Try to swoop in.
I know it's a longshot -- and there have been reports that MJ has already tried this before and been rejected by Carmelo's people -- but maybe the dynamics have changed. Carmelo is one of the league's purest scorers, and he'd be worth giving up a whole, whole lot to get. And until the Bobcats make some sort of move like this, they're never going to get beyond being a No.7 or No.8 seed in the playoffs (if that, this year). Go for Carmelo. Make the call to Denver. And then make the call again -- because with the Nets out, and even though Carmelo's preferred destination is New York, just maybe there's a sliver of possibility there.

3) I totally agree with Paul Silas telling his players that they've simply got to stop complaining about the officiating in Rick Bonnell's excellent blog on the topic. While Stephen Jackson has toned it down a little over the past month, and that's a good thing, his teammates seem to have more than made up for that with their own complaining judging by the Bobcats' dubious number of technical fouls. This was a longtime Larry Brown complaint -- that his players complained too much -- and now Silas is realizing how deep-seated this problem really is.