Looking for an 'Everyman' lineman? Gino Gradkowski passes the eye test. (Getty Images)Now that the 2012 NFL draft is in the can, it's time to take the Shutdown 50 scouting format forward and get a closer look at some of the surprising and fascinating selections from this year's draft -- the guys we missed in the original 50, but who could be impact players now or down the road. Our next entry: Delaware guard Gino Gradkowski, selected with the third pick of the fourth round (98th overall) by the Baltimore Ravens.

Overview: Gradkowski did not expect to be selected so early in the draft. According to a profile at DelawareOnLine, he had just settled down in front of the video game console when the phone rang. "I just got done playing a game of NHL PlayStation against my cousin Carmen … I didn't even have time to get anxious about the draft because I was still mad about losing in that game."

You have to love a lineman who is so competitive that he cannot let go of his rage over losing a video hockey game until Ozzie Newsome's office calls with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

If Gradkowski is anything like older brother Bruce Gradkowski, then competitive fire will never be an issue. Bruce, now Andy Dalton's backup with the Bengals, has built a seven-year NFL career out of determination and little else. "The whole family has the underdog mentality," the older Gradkowski once said. "We're going to work hard to get the job done. We're disciplined. We're going to know what to do. We might not be the fastest, strongest or the biggest, but we get the job done. That's it. It's in the blood."

Gino was certainly an underdog heading into the draft. He transferred from West Virginia to Delaware early in his college career so he could earn a starting job, played center and guard for three seasons, and earned All America status at the I-AA level. But Gradkowski was expected to enter the NFL as a seventh-round pick or rookie free agent. Now, he is the heir apparent to Matt Birk, and may someday be snapping to another player who took the Big Program-to-Delaware-to-Ravens path to success: Joe Flacco.

Strengths: Gradkowski has fine foot quickness and lateral quickness. Delaware's offensive line took extremely wide splits, and the centers and guards pulled, trapped, and blocked on the move. Gradkowski was effective when shuffling to the side on a rollout or peeling behind the center on a trap. He appears to be very football smart and generally finds the right person to block when on the move or picking up blitzes.

Gradkowski performed well at his Pro Day, benching 225 pounds 29 times and posting respectable results in agility drills. His strength is generally evident on tape, though you must take what you see with a grain of salt when what you see is a blurry image of someone nailing a Towson State defender.

By all accounts, Gradkowski has a great work ethic and the right mentality for his position.

Weaknesses: Gradkowski is too small to be a guard in most systems, particularly the Ravens' drive-blocking offense, and at 300 pounds he is a little small to be a starting center. He played guard in his senior season at Delaware and will have to be developed at center, his likely pro position.

(SCP Auctions)Lawrence Taylor's Super Bowl XXV ring was sold at auction for more than $230,000 to a buyer who wasn't New York Giants star Osi Umenyiora.

The Giants defensive end had vowed to buy LT's ring and return it to him if he was able to reach 500,000 followers on Twitter. Umenyiora fell far short of his goal. His account, @osiumenyiora, had just over 55,000 followers by the Saturday night deadline.

When Umenyiora saw the final sale price, he tweeted out a good-natured expression of relief. "Yikes! I guess the 450,000 let me off the hook!"

Why didn't he buy the ring in the first place? Umenyiora said it was because he didn't know Taylor personally. "If im going to spend that kind of money, it will be because people love him and show it," he tweeted.

The ring was put up for auction by Taylor's son, TJ. The Hall of Fame linebacker said he had no prior knowledge of the sale but supported his son's decision. "He's fine with whatever TJ decided," a Taylor rep said in a statement.

For Todd Haley, it's always a dark and stormy night. (Getty Images)

Any website can post "offseason grades" for NFL teams, mixing the draft and free agency into transaction soup, then straining it through the mind of some sportswriter who doesn't know who half the players are. Only the Shutdown Corner has the resources to get actual players, coaches, and executives from each team to evaluate their own offseasons! That's right: over the next few weeks, you will get transaction evaluations straight from the horse's mouths: straight talk about who was signed, who was lost, who was drafted, and why.

(For the satirically challenged: all player, coach, and executive remarks are made by an impersonator).

In this segment, former Chiefs coach Todd Haley breaks down the offseason moves of the team that fired him at the end of last season. We have a bad feeling about this.

TODD HALEY: Wash your windshield, mister?

I don't scrub windshields for the money. I have a coaching job now as offensive coordinator for the Steelers. I carry this slop bucket because I like it. It's comforting to wash windows while the mad clown stares at me with his dead, gray eyes, whispering razor truths mortals dare not speak aloud, truths that pierce flesh and cut an inky scarlet line against the throat of the he-goat …

Sorry, my thoughts meander sometimes. The Chiefs had a productive offseason. At the skill positions, they added Peyton Hillis to a running back committee that already includes Dexter McCluster and Jamaal Charles, who is ahead of schedule rehabbing his knee injury. Kevin Boss joins Tony Moeaki, also on schedule to return from a knee injury, to give the Chiefs two tight ends who can block and catch. Two rookie wide receivers, Devon Wylie and Junior Hemingway, will provide extra depth behind Dwayne Bowe, Steve Breaston and last year's top pick Jonathan Baldwin, who started to come on late in the season. Matt Cassel, yet another player who missed much of last season with injuries, won't have to worry about throwing to the likes of Keary Colbert or Anthony Becht.

That's right, everyone gets to come back to Kansas City but me, the guy who got blamed for not being able to build an offense around Tyler Palko and Terrance Copper, while the dead-eyed clown stares back at me from the mirror and cackles. "You ever played cornhole with the devil, son?" he asks, his raspy voice a rusty hypodermic needle scraping gutter concrete. "He don't use no beanbags, boy." And that he-goat just brays and brays like he sees the end coming and don't know whether to fight it or welcome it.

Moving on to the defense, Dontari Poe was one of the most physically gifted specimens in this year's draft class. The Chiefs have a bad habit of striking out with big defensive tackles, from Ryan Sims to Glenn Dorsey, so my former assistant Romeo Crennel will have to be careful about Poe's development and role if he doesn't want Poe to become an overpriced space-eater the greasepaint smears and the sharpened steel glints in the pickup truck headlights behind the barnyard. The loss of Brandon Carr is going to hurt at cornerback, because Stanford Routt is an adequate No. 2 corner behind Brandon Flowers. But the defense will be better if it is not  on the field as often, and when the muffled brays fade to pitch-black silence, vengeful darkness sated all-too-briefly by the still-quivering sacrifice.

Friday was a pretty good day for the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park. Not only did Justin Verlander come within two outs of his third career no-hitter in a 6-0 shutout of the Pittsburgh Pirates, but Detroit Lions receiver Calvin Johnson provided some interesting fireworks for the home crowd before the game even started.

Johnson warms up with a couple hacks, the third swing provides a blooper not unlike the Josh Harrison single that ended Verlander's potential gem, and then ... wham! Swing No. 5 heads out to the bullpen.

Two-sport star: Megatron throws out Friday's first pitch for the Tigers. (AP)Not surprisingly, Johnson has been a baseball guy for a long time. The former center fielder grew up in Tyrone, Ga., with a love for the game and didn't play football for the first time until the seventh grade. "My mom wouldn't let me play," Johnson told the Lions' official website just one day before his BP dinger. "I always wanted to play, but she wouldn't let me when I was little. She was afraid I'd get hurt."

Baseball was something Johnson did from a much earlier age. "I know more baseball history than I know football history," he said. "I've always been a Ken Griffey fan ... [Fred] McGriff was my dude. He had long arms and used to have his own baseball camp — I remember all of that."

Johnson was contacted by the Tigers and asked to throw out the first pitch of the Pirates game, with the added perk that he could grab a bat as well. He did the same in 2007, and he's the second Lions player to do so this season -- quarterback Matthew Stafford (a pitcher in high school) had the honor on April 22.

Johnson remembers pitching as well ("My best pitches were slider and cut fastball — cut fastball was my best"), but he really wanted to knock one out of there.

(Getty Images)

(Note: The sheer number of people wanting to send thoughts, prayers, & messages of hope to Brian Price has been overwhelming. You can do so at Rajiv@Prestigefootball.com. Thanks.)

I remember interviewing then-UCLA defensive lineman Brian Price before the 2010 NFL draft, where he was taken in the second round by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I remember thinking that this kid from the mean streets of Los Angeles had everything it took to succeed in the NFL -- talent, work ethic and great intangibles.

What Price hasn't had through his NFL career is good luck of any kind. He's suffered many different injuries in the last three seasons, had a revolutionary surgery in which both of his hamstrings were re-attached to his pelvis, and has played in just 20 of a possible 32 games. But last season, he played 15 games, starting 14, and racked up three quarterback sacks.

Price's personal life has been even more difficult. He had previously lost two brothers to shootings, and last week, his 30-year-old sister Bridget was killed in an auto accident in Inglewood, Calif. Price was so distressed, he eventually had to be hospitalized for dehydration.

"He physically broke down," his agent, Chuck Price (no relation), told the Los Angeles Times. "He had a high fever, was dehydrated, and couldn't hold anything down. That stress just plays a wicked role."

Price, who took his sister's 7- and 9-year-old children to a Dodgers game the night before their mother was killed, now plans to adopt the children.

Through all the difficulties of his life, Price has persisted and tried his best to get back in the game -- now, he has even more inspiration to do so.

"This guy has been in pain for literally a year," Buccaneers trainer Todd Toriscelli said in September of 2011, as Price tried to find his way back after injuries so severe, he couldn't put on his shoes by himself. "I'm not talking about just mild discomfort. I'm talking about driving home he's got to sit on those bones, laying in bed, you just can't get away from it. Certainly trying to play professional football … it's just an absolutely remarkable thing, and a compliment to his drive and motivation. He is a very special person, I can tell you that."

When I talked to Brian Price, I thought he was pretty special, as well. If you have a few extra thoughts and prayers to send his way, I'm sure he'd appreciate it.

(AP)

With the draft over and all wrapped up, we thought it would be a good idea to get back on the phone with our buddy Greg Cosell of NFL Films and ESPN's "NFL Matchup," and talk about the NFL by division. Who did themselves the most favors in the draft, and who came up short when addressing their roster deficits?

The Shutdown Corner Podcast Greg Cosell on the NFC West draft

We started off with the NFC West last week, and we now move to the hyper-competitive AFC North. Appropriate, given Greg's recent post on the NFL Films Blog praising the Cincinnati Bengals' draft strategy. With that in mind, we asked Greg what he thought the Bengals, Baltimore Ravens, Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers did to bolster their teams.

Related: [Cosell on quarterbacks, running backs/wide receivers, tight ends/offensive line, OLB/DE/DT stars, the ILB/DB class, and overall draft review]

Baltimore Ravens OLB Courtney Upshaw, and how he'll be tasked to replace Terrell Suggs: "The Ravens are very versatile with their fronts. Suggs would line up in two-point and three-point stances. He played a number of different positions and alignments -- that's what the Ravens do, and Upshaw fits that role. I don't think anybody's going to say that he's going to do what Suggs has done for a number of years -- Suggs is a pretty damned good player -- but the way Upshaw plays, I think he could eventually become similar to that guy."

Cincinnati Bengals OG Kevin Zeitler: "I seem to be in the minority here, and we'll never know how the Bengals felt because David DeCastro was gone when they picked, but I thought Zeitler was a little more complete than DeCastro -- I thought he was a better athlete. I thought he had more scheme-versatility, and he fits very well in a zone run game. I'm not sure DeCastro does. Now, DeCastro fits in the power run game better; that's what he did at Stanford. But given what the Bengals want their guards to do, I think Zeitler was the better choice, and would have been the better choice had DeCastro been available."

The Shutdown Corner Podcast: Greg Cosell on the 2012 AFC North Draft

The Cleveland Browns' first-round selections of Trent Richardson and Brandon Weeden: "Theoretically, you could look at it this way -- they ended up with Richardson and Weeden instead of Ryan Tannehill and Doug Martin. And I think Richardson/Weeden is the better combination ... in fact, I don't think, I know. Richardson, we don't need to discuss ... I thought he was the best player in this draft. Weeden has some concerns. He was the best pure pocket passer in this draft, but he's got meaningful and troublesome issues with pressure. That's a serious red flag when you transition to the NFL."

Getty ImagesThursday on Sirius XM NFL Radio, legendary Ravens safety Ed Reed said he wasn't "100 percent committed" to playing football this coming season. It's not about money, he says. It's about other things happening in his life.

"I know that time is kind of inching away at me. We do have a mandatory camp coming up that I'm still in deep thought about because other things are important to me now. I still know I can play at a high level. I can still go for another couple years physically. But other things is kind of taking place in my life right now and making me think about things differently."

If it's truly not about money ‒ Reed is scheduled to make $7.2 million in the last year of his current contract ‒ that's not necessarily a good thing for the Ravens, because back in April, it was about the money.

"For what I offer on the football field, for what I give on the football field and for what they know they're going to get, it's much more than these young guys out here today and what they're getting. And I'm talking at any every defensive back position right now, not just safety."

So now maybe it's about two things.

Robert Griffin III was at ease in a Thursday appearance on "The Tonight Show," riffing with host Jay Leno, playfully teasing guest Hugh Laurie ("House") and revealing that two massage chairs will be his first big purchase with his NFL money.

In the first clip, Griffin talks about his marriage proposal and gives Leno and Laurie a gift. I don't know whether Griffin was fed the line about House's tie or whether he ad-libbed it, but it was impeccably timed and perfectly delivered either way. /swoon

Yes, his adidas shirt says "Don't be Trippin."

In the next clip (which is actually the first clip chronologically), Griffin talks about his socks, his biggest game and gives a shout out to military families.