Vernon

Gholston

That’s over six inches more than his excellent Combine performance, which many players would have rested on. Gholston is making the case that he’s the most athletic player in the draft. Oakland will look at him hard with the fourth pick.

As usual, we’d hesitate to take any pre-draft talk too seriously, but Gholston would be more sensible for Oakland than Darren McFadden. The Raiders probably shouldn’t go into the season with Jay Richardson starting at RDE.

Gholston seems unlikely to go the Falcons, so that would likely leave the Raiders with a choice of Gholston, Chris Long, or Darren McFadden with the fourth overall pick.

“More than ever, not in Raider fashion, we may trade back,” coach Lane Kiffin said. “And that stems from the lack of picks and not having a fifth, a third or a second.” Kiffin added that the team has had “serious” discussions with a number of teams interested in the fourth pick.

It isn’t like McFadden has played lights out, but Gholston’s been invisible in five games. That said, Gholston’s transition from college end to NFL OLB is typically much tougher than McFadden’s. The bad news for their rookie is that the Jets have two star outside linebackers (Bryan Thomas, Calvin Pace) locked up long term and Gholston could be backing up for a while.

The Lions are deep along the defensive line, so they are likely just updating their emergency list. They also kicked the tires on fellow free agent defensive end Alex Brown. Gholston has garnered scant interest on the open market since the Bears gave up on him in late September.

Gholston ended up just being a body for the Rams’ fourth preseason game, where he made a tackle. Out of the league last season, the No. 6 pick of the 2008 draft is probably at the end of the line.

St. Louis is looking to upgrade its nickel package behind Robert Quinn and Chris Long, giving Gholston and Andre Carter a gander. Gholston’s early-career soft play and inability to pressure quarterbacks suggests he wouldn’t help much.

The No. 6 overall pick in the 2008 NFL draft, Gholston has appeared in 45 career games and has zero career sacks. The Rams will likely try him out as an edge rusher in sub-packages, where he simply tries to run around defensive ends. It’s perhaps a positive that Gholston is even still trying to play in the league at this point, but we’re not holding out hope for much 2012 contribution.

Teams are still kicking the tires on Gholston even though three different head coaches have given up on him in three seasons. We suspect the Texans were just updating their emergency list as they also worked out the likes of free agents Antwan Applewhite and David Vobora yesterday.