* 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, , 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

Venomous Villain