THE WATERCOOLER

QUESTION: Things may change depending on what the team does in free agency, but if you were drafting for the Rams today whom would you take with the No. 2 overall pick?

JIM THOMAS
Orlando Pace is nearing the end of his great career. Alex Barron has been an underachiever and is entering the last year of his contract. You’ve got to go tackle. Of the top three prospects, Eugene Monroe of Virginia is the safest pick.

BERNIE MIKLASZ
Wow, this is a tough one, and the circumstances will change many times between now and the draft. But as we sit here today, my thought would be to spend money on a good free-agent offensive tackle instead of drafting one. And with the 2nd pick, I would take Texas Tech wideout Michael Crabtree. Torry Holt has slowed down. And the kids, Donnie Avery and Keenan Burton, aren’t big, physical receivers. The Rams have a real need in that area, a receiver who can win the tough battles for the football down in the red zone. Crabtree has that ability. I reserve the right to change my mind, but right now I’d go with Crabtree.

BILL COATS
The Rams have plenty of needs, with the offensive line at the top of the list. So, my pick is Virginia tackle Eugene Monroe. He would give new coach Steve Spagnuolo some nice flexibility in a most vital area.

KATHLEEN NELSON
Eugene Monroe, OT, Virginia: OK, so he lost the Outland Trophy to Andre Smith. Scouts seem to think Monroe’s a bit more seasoned. Smith is skipping his senior year, so I wonder about his maturity, especially since he or his people had improper contact with an agent. The Rams need a lot of help on the offensive line, and they won’t want to wait for a tackle to grow up. Monroe seems likely to be ready sooner.

JEFF GORDON
Perhaps the best strategy is trading down to take a tackle later in the first round — perhaps Eugene Monroe of Virginia. Of course, many teams are looking to deal down in this draft. Other teams are looking to sacrifice quality for quantity of picks because the top of this draft looks iffy. If a trade-down is impossible, then Alabama tackle Andre Smith looks like a nice building block for a power running game.

GERRY FRALEY
In the NFL, the name of the game is get to the other guy’s quarterback. Of the top 12 teams for sacks during the regular season, nine reached the playoffs. The Super Bowl teams, Arizona and Pittsburgh, each have seven sacks in the post-season. Arizona did it in three games, one more than Pittsburgh.

New Rams coach Steve Spagnuolo learned that approach when he worked with Philadelphia defensive coordinator Jim Johnson and took it with him to the New York Giants. In the last two seasons, with Spagnuolo as defensive coordinator, the Giants had the second-highest sacks total in the NFL with 95. Dallas led with 105. The Giants’ sacks total does not reflect the mind-sapping beating Spagnoalo’s defense put on quarterbacks. (The Rams had 61 sacks in that span and rarely made life difficult on an opposing quarterback.)

There are several defensive front-seven players with strong pass-rushing skills: Florida State’s Everette Brown, Georgia Tech’s Michael Johnson and Texas’ Brian Orakpo. The Rams will be tempted to go with an offensive lineman such as Alabama tackle Andre Smith, but they would be better served with a pass rusher.

****

MIDDAY NEWS AND THOUGHTS

THINKING OUT LOUD: Last season the St. Louis Cardinals were able to pick up starting pitcher Kyle Lohse on the cheap late in the spring, and the gamble paid off as Lohse went on to post career bests in wins (15) and ERA (3.78), while also logging 200 innings pitched (second-highest innings in his career.) Lohse now is cited as a prime example for why the Cardinals should wait on this year’s free agent market, with the assumption being the team can find a similar arm later.

What hasn’t been discussed is this: With so many teams this year (teams not named Yankees, Red Sox or Angels) saying they are going to wait a while for the free agent market to establish itself, doesn’t that mean there is likely going to be more competition to gobble up free agent pitchers come springtime? And if you’ve got the vast majority of teams sitting and waiting, isn’t that going to push the prices up for these pitchers once the feedy frenzy starts? Who’s going to be caught without a chair when the music stops? Just seems like a gamble.

Perhaps now is the ideal time to strike … the eye of the storm so to speak. Big dollars have been ponied-up for the top-tier guys and a couple of quality arms like Brad Penny and John Smoltz have been claimed on the cheap. It seems the first wave has passed. Why wait until there’s blood in the water in March as team’s scramble to fill out rotations … move now while prices for guys like Penny and Smoltz have been suppressed … don’t wait until the dollars start jumping again.

That’s my two cents.

TROUBLE IN PARADISE: Say it ain’t so, Joe? Apparently it is. According to the New York Daily News, former Yankees manager Joe Torre takes a number of his former colleagues and players with the Yankees to task in a new book to be released next month. This from the Daily News: “Torre describes general manager Brian Cashman as a less than supportive ally who betrayed him on several fronts, and says that his star player, Alex Rodriguez, was often referred to by his teammates as “A-Fraud” and was obsessed with his perceived rival, shortstop Derek Jeter.”

Ouch. I guess Torre is still irked about the “incentives-laden” deal the Yanks offered him to return as manager last year. I can’t wait until Torre’s tenure as Dodgers manager comes to an end so we can hear what he has to say about Manny Ramirez.

****

THINGS TO PONDER

GETTING THE WARNER TREATMENT: Prior to this season, Chargers’ RB LaDainian Tomlinson had been the best RB in the game the last three or four years, hands down. This season, at age 29, Tomlinson battled injuries and put up the lowest numbers since his rookie season — rushing for 1,135 yards and 12 TDs (he tacked on another 426 yards receiving with 1 TD).

I know that LT will turn 30 in June and that’s a flashpoint for many RBs, but we’re talking about a guy that just put up 1,500 total yards and 13 TDs … while playing through injuries. And now there is a major rift between Tomlinson and Chargers’ GM A.J. Smith concerning Tomlinson’s future in San Diego. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, players have expressed consternation over comments made by Smith in which he was interpreted as mocking the star running back.

Sound familiar St. Louis? Let’s see if the Chargers end up running LT out of town … and how much they regret it later if they do.

IS IT SAFE ANYWHERE? It was tragic news Friday night when a 17-year-old boy was shot and killed outside a girls’ basketball game at Cahokia High School. “I think it should be a wake-up call for people in the area who have children in high school that this is not a game,” Maj. John Lakin of the Madison County Sheriff’s Department told the Post-Dispatch. “Kids are losing their lives over senseless things, and we need to warn our children.”

The city of Chicago is dealing with such dangers in a drastic way. New rules will keep the doors to the gyms shut for many in an effort to reduce violence within the Chicago Public League. Rick Morrissey of the Chicago Tribune writes, “It’s hard to be hopeful about the future when fights break out in the stands or a player gets shot after a game. … But emptying the gyms is not the answer, unless we’d prefer to teach kids that the only way to deal with problems is by running from them.”

Senseless violence leaves us all scratching our heads. If you are fortunate enough to live in an area where high school sports are still all popcorn and pom-poms, consider yourself lucky. Imagine having to worrry about your child competing in, or attending, a high school sporting event where by merely showing up they are put in harm’s way.

****

STAT OF THE DAY

551 — Most consecutive games played by an NHL goalie (including playoffs). The feat was accomplished by Blachawks netminder Glenn Hall from the 1955-56 season through the 1962-63 season. More astounding, Hall accomplished the feat in an era when goalies did not wear masks. Many consider this to be hockey’s most unbreakable record. (SOURCE: Hockey’s Top 100: The game’s greatest records)

* Hall was left unprotected for the 1967 NHL expansion draft, despite the fact he had won the Vezina Trophy earlier that season. He was snatched up by the St. Louis Blues and led them to the Stanley Cup finals in their expansion season, where they were swept 4-0 by the Montreal Canadiens. Despite being swept, Hall’s play still led to him being selected as the Stanley Cup MVP for the series. (The Blues returned to the Finals the following two seasons, losing 4-0 to Montreal in 1969 and 4-0 to Boston in 1970.)