Interesting how many Lions-Tampa connections keep popping up. Also, how seriously Rod is taking measures to ensure there are mentors available for each of the rookie/young players that he is trying to develop on the roster.
The latest example of this is Lomas Brown mentoring Gosder Cherilus -- a possibility that was brought up a couple weeks ago in Brown's interview with Philip Zaroo on Mlive.com -- an offer that Marinelli and Brown took seriously enough to implement. Lets not forget, that as a back-up Olineman with Tampa's SB team in 2002, he worked with Marinelli quite a bit since Marinelli -- as Assistant Head Coach-Defense in addition to Dline position coach -- would oversee the defense working against the scout team --- especially the Dline against the scout team Oline. What is obvious from Browns interview is something that appears again and again -- the respect that serious players and coaches who have worked with Marinelli show him.
It was interesting the Freep had one quote I didn't see in the other article -- which was still mostly positive; It is that quote which I have noticed "haters" -- being really the only way to explain them -- latching onto. To me, everything I got from Brown's comments is that he thinks Cherilus has the skills you can't teach, and is willing and able to work on refining those skills he needs to improve in order to be a pro-bowl NFL RT. Will he get there? How is he or anyone else supposed to know? They've only worked together a couple times with Cherilus in shorts in non-contact drills. I'm no expert, but as I've said before: You can't evaluate until the pads go on, and the whistle blows.
Moving more on the mentors-mentees, it is now prevalent throughout the roster.
DE: White is mentoring 50 and now Avril
DT: Darby is there to help Moore, Redding, and Fluellen
LB: Lenon can help Dizon learn the system; remember, it's not that Lenon doesn't know what he should be doing, but he is just not as talented nor does he have the instincts Dizon appears to have.
S: Dwight Smith is a savvy vet who will surely help continue and accelerate the development of Alexander and Bullocks; Pearson also knows the D and could be a factor as well (pending his legal troubles)
CB: Kelly is a great mentor not only for Keith Smith, who is showing continued development into a solid CB -- especially as a dime back covering the deep ball, and special teams contributor. Kelly can also help Bodden to pick up the T2 quicker, as well as Stanley Wilson who has often been the forgotten man this ifseason, even though he earned a starting role before losing it to injury last season.
QB: Just ask Carson Palmer. When it comes to talent, he may have more than Kitna, but he says that his mentorship form Kitna was and still is a big reason for his success. That kind of mentorship should hopefully be helping Orlovsky and Stanton especially
WR: Perhaps the most solid group on the team, CJ is the least experienced but Mike Furrey knows what it takes, and is a good mentor -- again, even if CJ can execute at a higher level at different aspects than Furrey can. Sometimes it's not about knowing what to do, but having the ability to do it.
Oline: Having Brown Mentor Cherilus is just the latest step.
I may have missed some instances, but you can see the obvious trend -- especially considering the number of knowledgeable, solid players on D that were brought in to help mentor the younger guys who will eventually supplant them.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
Blackout
Not the kind of blackout that comes with lack of ticket sales, but rather, lack of electricity. Your Lansing dwelling Lions Blogger finally got his power back just in time to head to the office this morning, after being without almost all weekend.
I will resume my regular blogging tomorrow night after catching up on sleep -- especially as you fellows can imagine how busy the agency is with all of the damage created by this storm. Please keep the 200,000 or so people who still do not have electricity, and those who lost their homes in your thoughts tonight.
I'll be back with more Lions thoughts tomorrow.
In the meantime, I'd love to see some more Lions Haiku's -- awesome!
I will resume my regular blogging tomorrow night after catching up on sleep -- especially as you fellows can imagine how busy the agency is with all of the damage created by this storm. Please keep the 200,000 or so people who still do not have electricity, and those who lost their homes in your thoughts tonight.
I'll be back with more Lions thoughts tomorrow.
In the meantime, I'd love to see some more Lions Haiku's -- awesome!
Friday, June 6, 2008
Missing Voluntary OTA's: Headline News
It's amazing the kind of tripe that is produced in the football ifseason. Yet -- the biggest piles of sh...aving cream are produced now -- when the news times are slow. Teams are closely guarding their OTA's, and no one can really tell anything concrete about the players until camp opens and the pads go on. That doesn't stop people from speculating like no tomorrow, and taking the smallest things to blow into the biggest stories. Apparently, every missed day by every players of Voluntary OTA's is now a major headline. They are also accompanied by more analysis than an Emily Dickensen Haiku would be (had she written one) into what the "meaning" is. How about, they have lives outside of football too? I read on a Denver site Bell missed OTA's because he got married. Now what kind of excuse is that? The nerve of a football player to schedule his wedding for June during the only time he isn't required by the team to be somewhere? I think a lot of writers should A. Lighten Up and B. Research and write the in-depth general analysis pieces that they seem to hint they would write during the season, but claim not to have the time to. How about now gentlemen??
Then there is Roy Williams and his inability to get a flight back into Detroit. I'm sure that the fact that thousands of flights in the last few months have been cancelled unexpectedly, happening again last week as airline companies ground planes to actually check them for safety issues instead of pretending to. Anyone looking for immediate flights last week had lots of competition from other travelers already pinched by reduced flights from all carriers that started earlier this year.
While it was a weak excuse, especially compounded by then scheduling his flight for the 2nd versus the 1st (which I have done before, sad to say.) However, it is obvious he doesn't want to make a big deal out of it, and neither do the coaches. He even indicated he called them to let them know what was up, and spoke with them about it. What did it end up doing in the grand scheme of things? With McDonald and Roy not there, it gave the coaching staff a chance to look at a couple of the young guys fighting for roster spots with the first team. Not quite sold on how it happened, but chances to evaluate talent are not a bad thing either.
Everyone else I can get a reasonable list of that missed OTA's seemed to have a reasonable excuse. Also, I've read that Bell showed up in shape and ready to compete (Would ask what his work-out regimen has been, but considering he just got married - I'll leave that one alone.) -- so that wide-open backfield competition just got even wilder; Especially after I'm catching hints that Cason is worried about his spot, and that Calhoun is going balls-out as well -- and is healthy for virtually the first time since he was drafted -- Ought to be interesting.
I was going to write about Jim Trotter's inane article about how the salaries of top rookies don't really hurt teams...but I'll save that for tomorrow. Bet you all know I'm looking forward to ripping apart that moronic article, and want to do it right.
After all, this is the slowest part of the ifseason -- the best time, in my opinion, to relax and contemplate. Unless of course you're competing for a Detriot Lions roster spot...then it is off to the races - gladiator style.
Then there is Roy Williams and his inability to get a flight back into Detroit. I'm sure that the fact that thousands of flights in the last few months have been cancelled unexpectedly, happening again last week as airline companies ground planes to actually check them for safety issues instead of pretending to. Anyone looking for immediate flights last week had lots of competition from other travelers already pinched by reduced flights from all carriers that started earlier this year.
While it was a weak excuse, especially compounded by then scheduling his flight for the 2nd versus the 1st (which I have done before, sad to say.) However, it is obvious he doesn't want to make a big deal out of it, and neither do the coaches. He even indicated he called them to let them know what was up, and spoke with them about it. What did it end up doing in the grand scheme of things? With McDonald and Roy not there, it gave the coaching staff a chance to look at a couple of the young guys fighting for roster spots with the first team. Not quite sold on how it happened, but chances to evaluate talent are not a bad thing either.
Everyone else I can get a reasonable list of that missed OTA's seemed to have a reasonable excuse. Also, I've read that Bell showed up in shape and ready to compete (Would ask what his work-out regimen has been, but considering he just got married - I'll leave that one alone.) -- so that wide-open backfield competition just got even wilder; Especially after I'm catching hints that Cason is worried about his spot, and that Calhoun is going balls-out as well -- and is healthy for virtually the first time since he was drafted -- Ought to be interesting.
I was going to write about Jim Trotter's inane article about how the salaries of top rookies don't really hurt teams...but I'll save that for tomorrow. Bet you all know I'm looking forward to ripping apart that moronic article, and want to do it right.
After all, this is the slowest part of the ifseason -- the best time, in my opinion, to relax and contemplate. Unless of course you're competing for a Detriot Lions roster spot...then it is off to the races - gladiator style.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Last CBA - I promise!
As you know, I often refer to NetRat's wonderful cap spreadsheet and numbers when writing about the Lions. As an addendum and clarification, from someone who has forgotten more about the cap and than I will ever know, regarding our discussion on the CBA, I highly suggest you check out this story that he wrote as it appeared on Hondo's blog regarding the changes in the CBA and how it affects the cap in 2009 as well. Great details, great read!
Love the back and forth on my somewhat hastily thrown together logic chain. Can't wait to see how many more angles we can find on it!
Love the back and forth on my somewhat hastily thrown together logic chain. Can't wait to see how many more angles we can find on it!
Monday, June 2, 2008
CBA: Parts 2-3-4
First off, great comments on the Otah and CBA pieces.
As I looked at this a bit closer I realized that I'd already said most of what needs to be said. Namely that I think the CBA will be done before the uncapped season, and that the Lions are in the same position they were before: improving, with a journey still before them -- but at least started on trail.
Looking again at Lombardi's article on SI.com -- it seems the Lions are, as far as from what we can see -- as close to doing that sort of plan as any other team out there is. So what does that really mean? It means we and the media really know very little about what teams really do and think behind the scenes. Look at all the conjecture (including my own) and come the end, at least 50% is total crap, about another 40% half wrong, and the other 10% gets most of it right. (I was likely being over-generous giving the media 1:10 statements being correct, but they do get people on the roster and coaches right about that often, so maybe that counts)
I like how it is written, but Lombardi's article really just made me, when I re-read it tonight, go "Well duh." All of the things he is talking about other than the draft being eliminated (which I doubt the league will let happen after this many years, I can assure you because I am knowledgeable *wink wink*) are EXACTLY what a team needs to do to succeed with a cap!
Get good young players
Find a QB
The Lines are important - need depth there
keep your ten guys on the roster in the tops of their position
try to keep younger backups where possible instead of investing big dollars in mediocre or aging FA
don't waste money on injury prone vets - spend less on a young guy with more upside.
Have great scouting
develop talent
Seriously folks, that is how you run a successful franchise. How are the Lions doing on those counts? We'll have to see how they do developing their newer draft picks (Marinelli's picks), and this year's draft will be a real bellwether on if the scouting department really has improved. As for FA, the older guys they were signing were not to big dollar contracts, and the Lions, for the most part, are moving to really cap-friendly contracts (assuming there will be a cap). They cut Jones and brought in Smith and Felton. We don't know about QB but they are at least making moves in that direction with Orlovsky and Stanton. As for keeping guys, what exactly do we think the Redding contract was? He'd have been paid Tommy Kelly money on the open market. I still need to see more from the Lions on keeping their players who are tops at their position -- the main reason we don't know is we haven't had anyone who is tops in their position (outside of Redding) have their contract come near to term recently. The Lions have been too busy offloading those injury prone vets and overpaid back-ups whose contracts were expiring...or made to expire. (snip snip)
So all in all, there are some definite progress areas (useful, again in either a capped or uncapped year) -- but that there are still a lot of areas where improvement needs to be seen, or how situations arising the near future (Roys contract, Raiola's Contract, Sims' s contract, Peterman's Contract) will show where they are at. Even in the improved areas, there is still a lot of room to move upwards. However, it does seem for the most part they are at least in the right forest, if not always on the right trail.
As for "that pinhead" (to quote nubsnobber) Clayton...
His article, when I re-read it, was a hack job from one end to the other. In the same paragraph that he bashes the Lions for not improving their running game (?), their oline (??) and says they don't have any future QB's on the roster after Kitna (????) he lost all credibility. Then topping it off by listing Smith, Lenon, Lewis and George Foster -- one of whom is the third safety this season, and at least two of whom I would bet won't be starting by September of 2008, much less 2010, just sent me into gales of laughter. I don't doubt the Lions could possibly draft someone to replace Lenon/Lewis at SLB next year.
Was he serious? Especially when he brushed off Tom Brady's contract potentially coming up during an uncapped season?? Or when he touts the rookies RB and T that Carolina picked up, dismissing that the Lions picked up same? Not only that, but of the "other" (assuming Otah starts at RT) 4 guys on the line -- 3 are playing in new positions, and the center was their backup last year. So in essence, they have an entirely new Oline. How do we know it's good? It is a bigger question mark than the Lions! Even basic logic follows the Lions to having at least a an above average line next year:
1. Lions Oline returns 4 starters
2. 2 of those starters (both G positions) have players pushing for playing time.
3. the LT has a young guy who started at RT taking reps behind him and breathing down his neck
4. Cherilus was considered 2nd best pure RT after Jake Long in the draft.
5. the Lions are moving to a more balanced offense from a 90% passing offense
6. the Lions are going to vary the QB drop so it is not always a 7 step drop, thus actually changing where a pass rusher will need to attempt to get to in order to sack the QB
7. This leads a logical person to believe that the Lions Oline has experience together as a unit, it's weakest point was improved, and the scheme is going to be Oline friendly
8. Thus, the Lions will have much improved Oline performance this season
See, that wasn't so hard John. You get paid to do this stuff -- why are you mailing it in? You even named a guy not on the Lions roster!! (although it was later removed, he named Kennedy at Safety with Smith the first time I read it. Couldn't find a cached version with it though) You checked the end of the season rosters instead of bothering to go to each team's site and check the roster there -- not for starters, but potential starters teams are grooming for two years from now...
I could go on about how the Lions drafted this year or last players to fill each of those positions he mentioned. He basically gave about the same arguments for his teams in the "good" and "bad" categories -- but for one set he put a positive spin saying they will get contracts done and find replacements, while he assumes the "bad" teams won't.
Final analysis on these stories and the CBA? Let the Unions and Owners negotiate and talk about it again when we know something concrete -- and 90% of all national sportswriters are hacks. The other 10% don't even bother pretending.
As I looked at this a bit closer I realized that I'd already said most of what needs to be said. Namely that I think the CBA will be done before the uncapped season, and that the Lions are in the same position they were before: improving, with a journey still before them -- but at least started on trail.
Looking again at Lombardi's article on SI.com -- it seems the Lions are, as far as from what we can see -- as close to doing that sort of plan as any other team out there is. So what does that really mean? It means we and the media really know very little about what teams really do and think behind the scenes. Look at all the conjecture (including my own) and come the end, at least 50% is total crap, about another 40% half wrong, and the other 10% gets most of it right. (I was likely being over-generous giving the media 1:10 statements being correct, but they do get people on the roster and coaches right about that often, so maybe that counts)
I like how it is written, but Lombardi's article really just made me, when I re-read it tonight, go "Well duh." All of the things he is talking about other than the draft being eliminated (which I doubt the league will let happen after this many years, I can assure you because I am knowledgeable *wink wink*) are EXACTLY what a team needs to do to succeed with a cap!
Get good young players
Find a QB
The Lines are important - need depth there
keep your ten guys on the roster in the tops of their position
try to keep younger backups where possible instead of investing big dollars in mediocre or aging FA
don't waste money on injury prone vets - spend less on a young guy with more upside.
Have great scouting
develop talent
Seriously folks, that is how you run a successful franchise. How are the Lions doing on those counts? We'll have to see how they do developing their newer draft picks (Marinelli's picks), and this year's draft will be a real bellwether on if the scouting department really has improved. As for FA, the older guys they were signing were not to big dollar contracts, and the Lions, for the most part, are moving to really cap-friendly contracts (assuming there will be a cap). They cut Jones and brought in Smith and Felton. We don't know about QB but they are at least making moves in that direction with Orlovsky and Stanton. As for keeping guys, what exactly do we think the Redding contract was? He'd have been paid Tommy Kelly money on the open market. I still need to see more from the Lions on keeping their players who are tops at their position -- the main reason we don't know is we haven't had anyone who is tops in their position (outside of Redding) have their contract come near to term recently. The Lions have been too busy offloading those injury prone vets and overpaid back-ups whose contracts were expiring...or made to expire. (snip snip)
So all in all, there are some definite progress areas (useful, again in either a capped or uncapped year) -- but that there are still a lot of areas where improvement needs to be seen, or how situations arising the near future (Roys contract, Raiola's Contract, Sims' s contract, Peterman's Contract) will show where they are at. Even in the improved areas, there is still a lot of room to move upwards. However, it does seem for the most part they are at least in the right forest, if not always on the right trail.
As for "that pinhead" (to quote nubsnobber) Clayton...
His article, when I re-read it, was a hack job from one end to the other. In the same paragraph that he bashes the Lions for not improving their running game (?), their oline (??) and says they don't have any future QB's on the roster after Kitna (????) he lost all credibility. Then topping it off by listing Smith, Lenon, Lewis and George Foster -- one of whom is the third safety this season, and at least two of whom I would bet won't be starting by September of 2008, much less 2010, just sent me into gales of laughter. I don't doubt the Lions could possibly draft someone to replace Lenon/Lewis at SLB next year.
Was he serious? Especially when he brushed off Tom Brady's contract potentially coming up during an uncapped season?? Or when he touts the rookies RB and T that Carolina picked up, dismissing that the Lions picked up same? Not only that, but of the "other" (assuming Otah starts at RT) 4 guys on the line -- 3 are playing in new positions, and the center was their backup last year. So in essence, they have an entirely new Oline. How do we know it's good? It is a bigger question mark than the Lions! Even basic logic follows the Lions to having at least a an above average line next year:
1. Lions Oline returns 4 starters
2. 2 of those starters (both G positions) have players pushing for playing time.
3. the LT has a young guy who started at RT taking reps behind him and breathing down his neck
4. Cherilus was considered 2nd best pure RT after Jake Long in the draft.
5. the Lions are moving to a more balanced offense from a 90% passing offense
6. the Lions are going to vary the QB drop so it is not always a 7 step drop, thus actually changing where a pass rusher will need to attempt to get to in order to sack the QB
7. This leads a logical person to believe that the Lions Oline has experience together as a unit, it's weakest point was improved, and the scheme is going to be Oline friendly
8. Thus, the Lions will have much improved Oline performance this season
See, that wasn't so hard John. You get paid to do this stuff -- why are you mailing it in? You even named a guy not on the Lions roster!! (although it was later removed, he named Kennedy at Safety with Smith the first time I read it. Couldn't find a cached version with it though) You checked the end of the season rosters instead of bothering to go to each team's site and check the roster there -- not for starters, but potential starters teams are grooming for two years from now...
I could go on about how the Lions drafted this year or last players to fill each of those positions he mentioned. He basically gave about the same arguments for his teams in the "good" and "bad" categories -- but for one set he put a positive spin saying they will get contracts done and find replacements, while he assumes the "bad" teams won't.
Final analysis on these stories and the CBA? Let the Unions and Owners negotiate and talk about it again when we know something concrete -- and 90% of all national sportswriters are hacks. The other 10% don't even bother pretending.
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