Roster Locks: How Did We Do – Offense
Monday, September 6th, 2010A while back I asked readers to submit their 40 players who were “locks” for the roster after the final cutdown — I look at who is there before waiver claims kick some of the bottom players off the roster. 8 brave souls left their “40 Locks” in the comments of the original story. So how did the collective knowledge of this blog fare?
First up: Offense
There was actually an amazing amount of agreement among the posters as to who would make the offense. For instance, here are the positions/players on offensive that received 100% vote of “yer good to go” from our posters:
OT: Jeff Backus, Gosder Cherilus and… Jon Jansen. Oops. Of the three OT that we all 8 picked to make the team, 1 (or 33%) did not. We all threw a pick-6 on that one!
OG: Rob Sims, Stephen Peterman. Both made the team, so we are still looking good there. Essentially, the coaches and everyone else knew pretty much who the starting offensive line was going to be.
QB: Matthew Stafford, Shaun Hill. Again, this one was a pretty clear cut 1-2 so its good we all caught the obvious. This will be a theme as we go through these results.
RB/FB: Kevin Smith, Jahvid Best, Jerome Felton. Despite some media calls/controversy I don’t believe the Lions were ever close to cutting Kevin Smith this ifseason. Go Team!!
WR: Calvin Johnson, Nate Burleson. ’Nuff said
TE: Brandon Pettigrew, Tony Scheffler. No surprises here either.
That’s all she wrote for the 100% column. Honorable mention goes to Bryant Johnson, who was picked by 6/8 posters. Is he finally the guy we thought we were getting last year?
Now onto “the rest”:
OL: LionFan73 and RIP both successfully pegged Gandy as the 2nd backup OG and Raiola’s backup at OC. Great job guys! Ron, RIP and the Chief all nailed down Fox earning a spot on the 53 man roster where he couldn’t be Lydon Murtha’d (picked up by another team) and could be developed. GM70, RIP and Chief also predicted Manny Ramierez holding on to the backup swing OG position for yet another season.
QB: Only three guys – Ron, RIP, and Chief had the guts to say Stanton was holding the clipboard again this season. Sparty is smiling down on him and his mad skillz at leading the scout team.
RB: 6/8 had Mo Morris returning for an encore as a Lions backup RB — lets hope he doesn’t need to see the field as much this season! Only Zav and LF73 didn’t feel strongly enough to put him as a lock — understandable, considering the true competition at RB this ifseason.
WR: New Practice Squad member Tim Toone got misplaced votes of confidence fromLF73 and Nubsnobber. Dennis Northcutt, meanwhile, was a great call by GM70 and Chief — even if he did get booted later with the addition of excellent return man Stefan Logan formerly of the Steelers. (He came close to winning me a fantasy football championship in a league that counts return yards at 10/point. I’m excited to see what he’ll do as a Lion)
TE: RIP and Nubsnobber weren’t concerned about Heller’s injuries in the preseason as they knew what he could do — apparently, the Lions coaches agreed. Meanwhile Chief was the only one who correctly called Gronk – Dan Gronkowski – making the final 53. He was only there until the trade for Alphonso Smith was finalized, but it still counts as he was on the cut-down day 53.
So that sums it up for offense! It seems enough starting spots are filled with talent that next year, we’ll have to try to make things more difficult! This broken finger of mine makes typing difficult, so I’ll be back with our defensive results tomorrow night. ’til then, keep watching as Mayhew tweaks the bottom of that roster — As Dan Orlovsky infamously knows, it only takes one key play by a backup to push the edge from 1-15 to 0-16 and the history books. Here’s hoping some of this year’s additions nudge the Lions in the other direction!!
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