American Football Spectacular: Meet Your 49ers' 2006 Draft Picks, "Fall In, Recruit!"
Madden's in the Hall Of Fame. The Raiders have committed their first false start penalties. The NFL's 2006 Preseason is underway. Let's move with all due speed to present the members of your San Francisco 49ers' 2006 Draft class.
* Picked round 7, pick 46; 254 overall / Vickiel Vaughn / S / Arkansas / 5'11" / 208 / "The Fallen Man"
Story: Things've been tough for Vickiel Vaughn. While in high school, he was rated amongst the top 25 players in the country by The Sporting News. USA Today had him within their top 125 high school players. Big-bodied and big-hitting, it was projected that he'd become an NFL difference-maker. At Arkansas he played some linebacker, some safety and never quite lived up to whatever he was supposed to become.
Tangentially, the Victor Vaughn project albums recorded by the erudite nerd rapper known as MF DOOM are fantastic blasts of casual braggadocio, and tales of day-to-day super-villainy. High-level musical skill is displayed, and the mainstream of "hip-hop" is put to shame. A column regular, MC Fried Chicken deserves the credit for bringing this artist's work to the attention of AFS.
The opening track(s) of the second Vaughn LP, Venomous Villain, begin with one of the incendiary first stanzas ever spat through a mic. Yeah, it's right up there with The Jesus Lizard's "Boilermaker," and Pearl Jam's "Last Exit." Snapping his laconic voice clean through a haze of static, Vic speaks clearly: "Dub it off your man, don't spend that ten bucks / I did it for the advance, the back end sucks." Painting broadly with a learned vocabulary and clipped tones, Vic (DOOM) casts forth his tales of paranoia and badness. Brilliant work.
By SFist Christopher Rogers, contributing
And how do they fit?: The Niners have a logjam at DB. Beyond a couple proven guys like Tony Parrish and Shawntae Spencer, there's a whole bunch of guys just trying to make the team. Former first round draft picks Sammy Davis and Mike Rumph fall under this category. Vaughn's got to separate himself from the pack to win a spot on the squad.
Outlook: There's no telling from before the preseason. Vaughn could make the team, make the practice squad or be cut. It'd be nice if he fulfilled his potential and made the team. We would like to see him pull himself up the ladder and have a happy ending written into his Wikipedia entry.
Next up on your American Football Spectacular: AFS soldiers on to bring you more stories of your Niners' 2006 Draft picks.