RedRamage

2022: Paschal - injured 2021: Onwuzurike - Did start any games in 21 but played in 16. Now injured 2020: Swift - Good player, but also had some injuries 2019: Tavai - Bust, Only two years with the team, just 6 starts 2018: Davis - Showed some promise, but never paned out. 3 years and off the team. 2017: Tabor - Bust, two years and gone. 2016: Robinson - Has some success, but never was a star player, 4 years with the team. Rams picked him up and he started 14 games for them last year in their super bowl drive. Probably worthy of a 2nd round pick for his career so far, but the Lions certainly didn't get 2nd round value for him. 2015: Abdullah - Another promising player who was frequently injured and failed to accomplish much with the Lions. 2014: Van Noy - A bust for the Lions but made a decent name for himself away from Detroit. 2013: Slay - a bonafide good player, good value in 2nd round. 2012: Broyles - Bust, played 21 games across 3 season before leaving the game 2011: Young & Leshoure - Bust, and bust. Young played 26 games, Leshoure 17 2010: The Lions did not draft a bust in the second round this year... 2009: Delmas - Delmas wasn't exactly a star player, but I believe he was decent. Played 5 seasons for detroit. 2008: Dizon - Bust, 28 games over two season, zero starts. 2007: Stanton, Alama-Francis, Alexander - Stanton was a backup QB drafted way too high. Alama-Francis had injury issues, Alexander also had injury issues. 2006: Bullocks - Two seasons and he was out of the game. 2005: Cody - Played 4 season for the Lions, but only started 11 games. Not much for a 2nd round pick. 2004: Lehman - Decent first year, then injuries sidelined his career. Stuck around for 4 season with the Lions. 2003: Bailey - Decent enough player but I seem to remember he got injured frequently. Stuck around for 4 years. In the past two decades of drafting we had one star player come out of the second round.

This is supposed to be Brad Holmes specialty right? Finding late round gems? He's certainly looked good on Hard Knocks and the coaches seem to love him, so here's hoping!

Not that I believe it, but I would guess the argument would be that he's remorseful that his actions had the unintended consequence of damaging the NFLs public image. Everything he did he feels was fully consensual, but in hindsight he understands that it presents a poor look for a NFL QB and he should have been a better roll model. (Just to be clear: I'm saying that I don't believe that he's actually remorseful.)

This is not for the faint of heart. Lots of bad memories here... but interesting none the less. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aoJlztc_YA

My guess is the reality is somewhere in the middle. I expect the Lions to be improved, but I think people who are expecting/hoping for a division win or even the playoffs are being unrealistic. Obviously it could happen, but I just don't think it will. I think 6 to 7 wins will be a solid improvement and what we should reasonable expect.

Are you daring to criticize the Manager?!? Honestly I have some questions about AJ myself. Last season I felt like he didn't have a lot to work with, but was getting the best he could out of the players he had. This year I feel like he had a (slightly) better team but it's gotten much worse. To be fair, injuries have been a major issue this year, but it just doesn't feel like the players are trying as hard as they did last year. I don't get the feeling they are all pulling together. I'm not sure why this is, and I'm not ready to throw out AJ just yet, but I'm far less impressed and excited about the future now than I was last year around this time.

Because Stafford is the best player the Lions have had in a long time at the biggest position in football? I mean other than Calvin Johnson's number, I suspect Stafford's would be the closest to be worth of retirement (not saying it should be retired, just that of all the numbers out there, you could make a stronger case for '9' than just about any other number with the Lions). The fact that there are "Detroit Rams" shirts made prior to the super bowl kinda shows that Detroit still have a fondness for Stafford. Williams didn't need to do this of course, but honestly I think it's a pretty classy thing to do if true and shows that Williams understands that off the field stuff is important too.

That part I can totally understand... I dunno, I know I'm picking nits here a bit. I really like Campbell, but I wonder sometimes if we're falling too in love with a person that we just don't know enough about. I can foresee a situation 3-4 years down the line where he get fired for never getting about 5 or 6 wins a season and the next guy we bring in is a big cerebral guy and comments start coming out like: "Yeah, Campbell was a great cheerleader and all and he sure bonded with the guys, but we don't need a coach who can do burpees with the team... we need a coach who can understand the game and out plan the other coach. I don't care how many reps he can get... I care how many wins he can get over the other coach."

As much as Patricia was a failure, I don't think his weight was the reason. I think the fact that Campbell is a former player who can still "mix it up" his he players definitely helps him relate better and helps the players bond with him. But being able to work out with your players isn't the only way to bond and certainly not a requirement for success. One need look no further than Andy Reid who's coached his teams to the conference championship 9 times, winning it 3 times and winning a SB once in his 23 years as a coach. If Patricia did that with the Lions no one would care one bit that he was overweight.

I honestly hate that Watson settled with so many of the women. I mean, I know it was the right thing for him to do to get the legal issues out of the way. But it leaves so much uncertainty. I'm not sure what to believe. What we know is that he definitely made advances on the masseuses and some of the cases actions went further. Watson claims any action that happened was consensual. The accusing masseuses say it wasn't. The reality is probably somewhere in the middle, but we just don't know.

I think I could get on board with that. You're right that the local team would have a better insight into what's going on and would be the ones to have to defend their actions more. There are some risks involved in this for the whole league though. Silly example, but let's say a Dolphin player murdered someone but gets off on a technicality (just go with it... I know it's a silly example). The Dolphins say: "He wasn't found guilty by the court, so we're okay with getting him on the team." You could end up with a protest against the league as a whole, not just the Dolphins. Honestly, what might be the smartest thing to do is codify it in the CBA where certain classes of legal issues equal x-number of games automatically suspended, but have that number relatively low. Then (again codified in the CBA) allow the individual teams to punish above and beyond that at their sole discretion. If those are the rules and they are spelled out in the CBA the NFL could at least say something like: "Listen, if it were up to us we'd say blah, blah, blah... but by rule it's a team decision. We can recommend, but we can't force the action."

Yeah, I'd like to know how they are judging that. I'm sure this isn't new information to anyone here but I think football is one of the hardest sports to judge individual or unit performances on. Soooo much of your (or your units) performance relies on how the rest of the team does. An elusive RB makes your OL look better at run blocking... A QB with a quick trigger means sacks and pressures are reduced... A great receiving corps makes the QB able to have a quicker trigger... A great defense that limits opposing scoring means you're not reduced to just a big pass playbook... Makes it hard to just look at simple numbers of draw a conclusion. Presumably ESPN also knows this and is trying to evaluate on more than just raw numbers. But I'd agree that something isn't right with their equation if this is what the results are.

To me it often comes back to a matter of "crimes against the sport" vs. just "normal crimes." And I know that this won't sit well with a number of people, but the NFL's job isn't to police and punish for "normal crimes." If an NFL player goes out and drives drunk he should be held accountable for this crime the same way as if any ordinary joe drove drunk... the criminal justice system should punish that person. Now, "crimes against the sport" are another thing. These things (generally speaking) are completely legal outside of the the sport. Your average Joe and go and bet that his favorite team will lose its upcoming game... that's 100% legal (assuming he's doing it in a legal manner), no problems, no issues, no police, no court, no jail time or fines or anything. If Tom Brady goes to a casino and bets on his team to lose... well, that's a major issue. This is a "crime against the sport" and the league has to punish heavily because they are the only one who will. Watson's accusers had their day(s) in court. The grand jury (where the prosecution lays out their case without the defense being able to say anything) didn't find enough evidence to indict. Many of the civil cases are settled. That's the courts punishing Watson for his "normal crimes" against society. Anything the NFL does on top of that is more window dressing and for PR reasons than anything else.

Define "measurable." I think one could argue that the mere fact that you're taking the time to read/post in a thread about his absence means that it has at least effected your life to some level. Measurable? Probably not, but effected none-the-less.

However that would require ERod talking about it. I know that some people view suicide/mental issues as very taboo. I think it's becoming less so, but there certainly still stigma about mental issues and that stigma is stronger with some people than with others.

And to be fair, if you're in a bad situation you're not always thinking 100% clearly either. Silly case in point, I had a sever kidney stone attack once a few year back. My wife was teaching, I didn't want to disturb her. I couldn't think of anyone else to call except for my dad who was working part time then. I was hoping he wasn't working that day and could take me to the hospital, so I called him and asked: "Are you working today?" He said "Yes." So I said something like: "Okay, will that won't work, sorry." and hung up. What I should have said was: "What time are you working?" because he wasn't working until later in the evening and this was like 10am. But I obviously wasn't thinking 100% clearly at that point.

MY apologies... I guess I didn't read carefully enough. RE: different sports... what was your thinking? Would a University be assigned a tier on the whole or would there be a different tier setup for each sport?

I don't think this would be as easy as you think. I suspect you'd get a LOT of resistance from schools like Michigan who think they are top tier school always and forever (and may not without some merit). They would not want to be up for regulation. There's also the question of rivalries. I know you left one game for rivals, but if MSU, OSU... er, I mean tOSU, and UofM all end up on different tiers, then MSU would miss out on the rivalry game with UofM. Finally there's the whole big-fish, little pond vs. little-fish, big pond issue. I suspect that schools like Alabama or tOSU wouldn't like to have to face the top(ish) 11 schools every year. Then the other issue is which sport(s) are you judging this by? Or do you see a different tier set for each sport?

Maybe... but I hope that having two first round picks might be enough to move up if we need to. It's hard to say right now if any other QBs emerge as legit options. Logically I know it will make more sense to lose games this year to better our shot of a high pick. But in season I have a very hard time rooting for losses.

I found this very interesting... the 25 biggest lakes in the world put side-by-side: It comes from this page here: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/worlds-25-largest-lakes/ There's a bit of info about some of the lakes there, and also a few more very interesting pictures where they put the great lakes in other parts of the work to show the relative size: India, Europe, and Australia.

I dunno... I don't think he's an football idiot. Obviously he failed here in Detroit, no way to sugar coat that. But I wonder if he'd be decent enough as a coordinator. He obviously seemed to have enough success at it original in NE. And there's lots of guys who are good-to-great coordinators who fail as HC. Just looking at Detroit's history: 'Weg went on to coach in the NFL for 14 years after getting fired by the Lions in various roles from QB coach to OC to Assistant HC. Marinelli is still in the league and served 9 of the years after he was fire as a DC. Schwartz had 6 years as a DC. I think it's entirely possible to be a great coordinator, yet fail as a HC. HC is a different animal and some people just don't have the chops to be a the man in charge of it all. It's one reason why I think it's not always smart to assume the next great HC is someone's current great coordinator. Now having defending Patricia, I do find it very odd that he's being put in as the offensive coordinator. It almost feels like he's being groomed for Belichick's replacement, which would be odd. But again I don't think Patricia is a football idiot. With the right mentoring, maybe he could step into the role of HC again. However, I do question how good Belichick is as an HC mentor given the many notable failures in his "coaching tree."

And while I have the USFL thread open here... what's the deal with the times these games are being played?? This weeks Panther's game is on Saturday at 9:00pm. Why? The opponent is New Orleans so it's not like it's a west coast team. Why start so stinkin' late at night? Last week's game was really late too. I actually watched part of it but didn't stay up until it ended. To be fair they had a 30 minute weather delay which pushed the game back even further, but why play soooo late?

The NO Breakers picked up Patterson. Not that I think all the issues the Panthers have were because of Patterson, but I do think Lynch played better when he was in there as QB. I'm guessing that Lynch is the starter now... other QBs on the roster are Josh Love and Eric Barriere out of Eastern Washington.