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The NFL Draft starts tonight, and for the second straight year in a row, Husker fans will be waiting to see where a Nebraska player goes in the first round. Cornerback Prince Amukamara, last season's Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year, is slated to be picked within the top ten of the first round.
Amukamara is not the highest rated cornerback in the draft. That honor goes to LSU's Chris Peterson. Nonetheless, Amukamara, otherwise known as HRH Royal Cover Cornerback of the Most Noble Order Of The Blackshirts, will be doing fine with whatever amount of dollars the NFL can throw at a first-round pick.
Many of the NFL Mock Drafts have Amukamara going seventh overall to the San Francisco 49ers. Out of 384 (or so) Mock Drafts, the majority see Chris Peterson sliding to seventh with Amukamara sliding past the eighth position.
Some examples:
National Football Post has our Prince going 13th overall to the Detroit Lions. If you thought last year's selection of Ndamukong Suh lead to Nebraskans becoming Lions fans, what do you think would happen if Detroit got two hot Huskers?
Shutdown Corner has the same pick - Amukamara to the Lions at 13. They also have two quarterbacks, Cam Newton and Blaine Gabbert, respectively, going #1 and #2 overall.
SB Nation Minnesota has Amukamara going ninth to the Dallas Cowboys. This would make me sad.
National Football Authority (impressive sounding name, eh?) sees him at seventh to the San Francisco 49ers.
Amukamara's highest position comes at fifth from NFL News & Rumors - going to the St. Louis Cardinals (or what I'd like to call "hell") and sixth from Josher Zah Nostramus (?) to the Houston Texans. Also at sixth isNFLMockDrafts.org, with Amukamara going to the Cleveland Browns (or Hell, Part Deaux).
What do Mel Kiper and Todd McShay think? Who the hell cares, their stuff is hidden behind a pay wall (did I mention there's around 382 other Mock Drafts to take a look at that aren't?). The worst part of watching the NFL Draft is having those two try to act like they don't hate each other while blathering on as if they really know what they're talking about.
The most exciting thing about all of this? Amukamara is running a proximity contest on his Facebook page, promising:
Post on here the NFL team you live closest to. not your favorite, but the closest one. Wherever I get drafted, I'll take those in the city and do something special for you. deal?
So head over to Prince's FB page and join in the contest!
The first round of the 2011 NFL Draft starts at 8 p.m. (ET) on Thursday, April 28th and SB Nation has everything you need to prepare for it - NFL mock drafts, draft projections, scouting reports, the full NFL draft schedule and more. Check it all out at SB Nation's 2011 NFL Draft Hub and our NFL Draft blog Mocking the Draft.
New Era Scouting has released their 2011 NFL Draft Guide, which you can download here (It's a PDF).