FootballNation.com is your home for NFL Draft coverage

By Craig Ellenport

With the 2012 NFL Draft set to kick off Thursday, here are some recent draft-related items I wrote this week for FootballNation.com:

* The biggest linebacker busts in NFL history -- I actually felt bad including Quentin Coryatt and Brian Bosworth on this list because neither would have been considered had it not been for major injuries. That's right, Bosworth had an excuse. Meanwhile, I was tickled to see Big Ten bully Ohio State land four players on this list.

* The 10 best draft picks in Jets history -- It would have been much more fun to write about the biggest busts in Jets history, but there are some good picks here. FYI, with all the scrutiny prospects face these days, do you think a wide receiver who is blind in one eye would ever be a second-round draft pick? That was the case with Wesley Walker, who turned out just fine.

* The 10 best draft picks in Giants history -- LT and Simms have to be at the top of the list. No questions asked. After that, the order could easily have been jumbled. I had no problem putting Jason Pierre-Paul on this list after just two seasons. In this day and age, where winning now is the mantra, GM Jerry Reese was gutsy enough to use the 15th overall pick on a guy everyone said was a project. And JPP  showed return on investment sooner than anyone expected.

By the way, for more outstanding draft coverage, check out all the good stuff from FootballNation.com.

NFL schedule: Piecing together a Thursday night puzzle

By Craig Ellenport

After six years with a half-season of Thursday night games, the NFL awarded its own network a full slate of Thursday games for the first time this year – and it created a giant headache for the folks at 345 Park Avenue charged with creating that schedule. As one of the league’s schedule-makers put it, “They took a really hard problem and made it exponentially harder.”

For the record, this person wasn’t complaining – putting the schedule together is a rewarding challenge. He’s used to hearing complaints from owners about short weeks, long road trips and December games at Lambeau Field. It’s all a learning process, and – let’s face it – there’s no such thing as a bad NFL schedule.

So what makes it so difficult to schedule 13 games for NFL Network’s Thursday night package? Let’s take a look at some of the intricacies of the process…

For starters, the NFL adopted a policy that no team will be forced to play more than one “short week.” That means the six teams scheduled to play on Thanksgiving -- the Texans, Lions, Redskins, Cowboys, Patriots and Jets – are all out of the picture. And since this is the first year that NBC will be airing the Thanksgiving night game, that means arguably the best Thursday night matchup of the year – Patriots at Jets – is not on the NFL Network schedule.

That leaves 26 teams to fill 26 spots. And some pretty good teams playing on Thanksgiving that cannot be part of the NFLN package. In fact, it’s the first time since the network began its Thursday night package that the Cowboys are not on the slate.

Another new policy the league implemented after the Competition Committee weighed in: No TNF games in which a team has to travel more than one time zone. If that were in place last year, you wouldn’t have had Jets-Broncos, Eagles-Seahawks or the Harbaugh Bowl, 49ers-Ravens. (Note: This is not a hard-and-fast rule, and so there is one such game this season – Kansas City at San Diego.)

Between the short week and time zone limitations, it’s no wonder that none of the 12 games that NFL.com’s Elliot Harrison cited as the most intriguing matchups of 2012 are on the TNF schedule. Five are multiple time zone trips; six feature teams playing on Thanksgiving. The 12^th game is Green Bay at Chicago, which isn’t a TNF game – but Chicago at Green Bay is on the slate. Which should not be a big surprise given the limitations.

With so few choices to fill out 13 games, there’s really only one way to make them compelling: make them division games. Thus, nine of the 13 NFL Network TNF games are division games. (I heard Mike Mayock say this week that he “can’t wait” for the Cleveland-Baltimore game in Week 4. Okay, sure.)

A couple of other considerations when piecing this puzzle together:

* We’re not saying there aren’t some terrific TNF matchups. Bears-Packers, Giants-Panthers, Broncos-Raiders. Here’s what those games have in common: They are all scheduled for non-bye weeks. Why? Because if you’re going to pull those good matchups off the board for FOX and CBS, networks that are paying billions to air NFL games, then you at least want to give them a full complement of remaining games.

* Of the four non-divisional games, only one can really be considered a clunker: Buccaneers at Vikings in Week 8. Well, that one is going up against the World Series, so it’s essentially a sacrificial lamb.

Then again, would you be surprised if the least anticipated Thursday night NFL game outdrew a World Series game?

Packers fans unafraid to put Rodgers on Madden cover

Ah, the joys of fan interaction…

In today’s fun-filled media landscape, you can’t go wrong with a top 10 list or a top 50 list or a top 100 list. Or maybe a bracket tournament, perhaps spread out over a few weeks to keep the readers coming back for more. And it clearly doesn’t matter who the so-called “experts” are creating these lists. Then again, who needs experts? Let the fans decide!

EA Sports didn’t get the ball rolling, but it did up the ante last year by letting fans vote for who should be on the cover of Madden ’12. And logic immediately went out the window when the fans voted for Cleveland Browns RB Peyton Hillis, who promptly proved the Madden Curse was not a myth.

This year’s voting for the Madden ’13 cover is down to fourfinalists, and it is a surprisingly representative quartet: Cam Newton, Patrick Willis, Aaron Rodgers and Calvin Johnson. 

What’s interesting is that Willis, easily the biggest longshot on this list given that he’s a soft-spoken defensive player, knocked off New York Giants receiver Victor Cruz in last week’s voting to advance to the quarterfinals. Is that a ringing endorsement of the 49ers’ Pro Bowl linebacker, or just a matter of more 49ers fans taking part in the vote?

Neither.

Clearly, this was a case of smart Giants fans protecting their young star from the curse.

The fact that Willis has made it this far might even be the result of fantasy football players wanting to keep any and all offensive stars away from the Madden cover. Willis takes on Newton this week in the semifinals – does anyone really want to see the Panthers’ iconic and entertaining QB suffer? Adding a potential Madden Curse to a potential sophomore slump could be devastating.

Rodgers faces Megatron in the other semifinal matchup – a classic battle between the reigning NFL MVP, Rodgers, whose rabid Packers fan base should be enough to put him over the top, and Johnson, who probably makes the nmost sense to be on the Madden cover.

After all, we’re talking about a guy nicknamed for a cartoon robot. Who better to be the face of a video game? It’s a match made in CG heaven!

Still, he will have a hard time holding off Packers Nation. And the fantasy vote will not be enough to help Willis defeat the popular Newton. I’m predicting it will be Newton vs. Rodgers in the finals, with A-Rod taking home the belt (get it?) and donning the Madden ’13 cover.

Then again, what good are predictions in any kind of fan vote? When NFL.com launched its bracket tournament last month to determine the best team of all time, could anyone have dreamed of a final pitting the 1976 Oakland Raiders against the 2000 Baltimore Ravens? Not even close, but that’s what we got.

Ridiculous? In retrospect, that Raiders team – which narrowly defeated the Ravens in the voting – was pretty damn good. It featured a plethora of Hall of Famers and guys who are still being strongly considered for Canton. But logic wasn’t part of the equation. Raider Nation came out in force and made it happen.

The biggest learning experience here is that the Ravens fan base is far more passionate than we ever imagined. Not only did they get the 2000 Ravens to the finals, but they helped current Ravens RB Ray Rice put up a good showing in the EA Sports vote. Rice actually knocked off the ever-popular Drew Brees in Round 2 of the Madden ’13 vote, and he gave Rodgers all he could handle one round later.

Who knew?

Too bad the Ravens aren’t represented in this new fan voting platform. The Pro Football Hall of Fame’s site is running a bracket tourney in which fans will vote for the best old-time jerseys. Today’s matchup pits the1936 Giants jersey against the 1971 49ers jersey. The Giants jersey is hideous. But guess what? As a Giants fan, I happily cast my vote for it.

Ignorant fan…

Carmelo Anthony in drug rehab (sorta)

By Craig Ellenport

Thanks to Showtime’s awesome PR folks, my wife and I have gotten a jump on Season 4 of “Nurse Jackie” – easily one of the best shows on TV. The season doesn’t officially launch until this Sunday, April 8, but we were already on Episode 2 the other night when we noticed a familiar face -- in a decided unfamiliar place…

BREAKING NEWS: Carmelo Anthony is in drug rehab!

Okay, well it was a fictional character being portrayed by Carmelo Anthony. That’s right, the New York Knicks star shows up at the drug rehab facility that Jackie – Edie Falco of “Sopranos” fame, for the uninitiated – checks herself into at the start of this season.

So next Sunday, April 15, is a big day for ‘Melo. He and the Knicks are in Miami that afternoon to play LeBron and the Heat. And that night he makes his Jackie appearance on Showtime.

It’s not Anthony’s first TV gig – he made the most of the NBA lockout last fall when he filmed both the “Nurse Jackie” appearance and a cameo on “Law & Order: SVU.”

The difference is that on “SVU” he had a simple cameo playing himself – a role he literally was born to play. The “Nurse Jackie” role is a slightly bigger challenge – not only because he must play a drug addict. While his character is a professional athlete… he’s a baseball player.

Perhaps the writers were afraid to make him a basketball player because, at the time they wrote the episode, they didn’t know if there would be an NBA season when the show aired.

FYI, it’s shaping up to be a star-filled season of “Nurse Jackie,” and I’ve only seen the first five episodes. In Sunday’s season premiere, Billy Joe of Green Day spends some quality time with Jackie. Anthony is in Episode 2; in Episode 5, Rosie Perez makes an appearance.

And if you haven’t seen “Nurse Jackie,” it’s not too late to get into it. The regular cast so good that they really don’t need big-name guests to spice it up, is terrific, so ‘Melo and company are just a bonus for one of the more underrated, underappreciated show on TV.