OAKLAND--The NFL draft is rapidly approaching, and a handful of teams with top five picks are busy jockeying for position, making deals, and sending out “smokescreens” to obscure their real intentions. The Raiders, owner of the top pick in the draft, will throw up the ultimate smokescreen on draft day when they select kicker Mason Crosby of Colorado University.

A league source with knowledge of the Raiders plans say the idea to draft a kicker came straight from owner Al Davis.

“This is the time of year for smokescreens and trickery and everything else,” said the source. “And the Raiders are really going to befuddle the competition by selecting this Mason Crosby kid with their top pick. It’s an interesting move that’s bound to mess up a lot of team’s plans. Of course the downside is that you’re wasting your top pick on a kicker. But as the Raiders, you have to understand that whatever choice you make is probably going to be wrong, so you might as well make the cheapest one.”

The source speculated that once the Raiders flushed their top pick down the toilet, the rest of the draft would be thrown into a tailspin.

“It’s hard to predict what will happen after number one,” he said. “With Russell available, the Lions might be tempted to take him. Then again, they could take Calvin Johnson or even Joe Thomas. The Bucs have a hard-on for Johnson so they could make a trade with the Lions. The Browns could end up with Russell, Johnson, Thomas, or Brady Quinn, depending on how things unfold. Man, I can just see Al Davis sitting back and laughing at all this confusion. What a wily bastard! The icing on the cake? If anybody wanted Mason Crosby, they’re shit out of luck.”

The Raiders would neither confirm nor deny their intentions for the draft, but the evidence is piling up that they are, indeed, planning to select a kicker. Crosby himself indicated that he spoke on the phone with Al Davis recently and said the conversation was “very cordial” and “very promising.”

“Al and I talked on the phone Sunday and we had a great conversation,” Crosby told the San Francisco Chronicle. “He said they may be in the market for a kicker and that since I was the top rated kicker on the chart, I could be a Raider soon. So I was thinking they were going to use a sixth round pick on me or something, but no, they’re going to select me at number one. I think. He didn’t give me a definitive answer. Oh, and he swore me to secrecy, so I’m not even supposed to be talking to you. I can trust you with this information, right?”

The selection of a kicker with the first pick would prompt a sigh of relief from some of the Raiders, particularly Andrew Walter, who is hoping for another shot at the starting quarterback job next year. Until now, Walter assumed Davis would select big-armed quarterback JaMarcus Russell.

“I can’t tell you how excited I would be if my team selected a kicker with the first pick,” said Walter. “It would be an extremely clever, savvy move on the part of Mr. Davis, because it would get us a fine, quality kicker, and it would also help alleviate any potential quarterback controversy. See, the last thing you want is to have a new guy coming in here and having the fans and media get into a big uproar over it just because he’s trying to take my job. That’s not fair to JaMarcus.”

Despite the persistent rumors, there are plenty of GM’s around the league who aren’t buying them.

“I’m sorry, but there is no way the Raiders are going to select a kicker with their top pick, just to throw up a smokescreen,” said the GM. “There are too many good players available. I’m sure they are having a tough time making their decision, but that’s a problem most teams would love to have. My best guess? Al will decide on a quarterback, but he won’t be 100 percent sold on Russell or Quinn, so he’ll trade down to see if there are any better quarterbacks available there. I mean, the guy’s not stupid.”

Copyright 2007, The Brushback - Do not reprint without permission. This article is satire and is not intended as actual news.