2010 Post Draft Part I

Okay, this eating crow business is for the birds (yuk yuk yuk). Just in case anyone else needs the recipes here you go http://bertc.com/subfive/recipes/threecrows.htm

So how did I do on my predictions? Obviously only got some of it right. The Rams did indeed draft Bradford. The Lions did indeed draft Suh. I was 2 for 2 at this point. Berry not getting picked until after pick #6 didn’t pan out, he went at 5. The predicted first four Lions picks will consist of a DT, RB, CB, and LB was 3 for 4. The LB Misi didn’t drop, they took CB Spievey in round 3 and then to mess up my prediction they took Jason Fox a left tackle in round 4. Did they do that on purpose (to spite me)? Nope. Am I upset with the pick? Nope. I just got my prediction wrong, of course, at the time, I didn’t know they were going to bring back Caleb Campbell the Safety from Army that Millen drafted a couple of years ago in round 7 to try out at Linebacker either. Then my prediction the Lions would draft someone that no one had heard of was more or less solid. My last prediction that they would be very active in the undrafted free agency market was also spot on, not that this was that difficult to predict, but there you go. Four for Six.

I’ve been hearing a lot of calls for the Lions to sign PacMan Jones CB. There is something to remember about this “plan” though. The Lions do have a draft board on one wall, but on the opposite wall they have all the current players from all the teams ranked. An adjacent wall has all the current lion’s roster ranked, and opposite of that is all the free agents not on any team also ranked. If the Lions don’t sign someone it’s because they (the player and his agent) are demanding too much (more then the Lions deem they are worth), are injured, are not ranked highest of the available talent out there, or not ranked higher then the players already on the roster.

Just guessing here, but the Lions haven’t either exhausted all their better options yet or they don’t have PacMan ranked as high as some think they should.

I also hear that Jones wants only an incentive laden minimum contract. That sounds good, until you consider just how he will react every time he is benched for either poor play or just to get others their time on the field. After all, can’t make those incentives if you are on the bench. I actually think, that in this case, a non-incentive contract would be better, with penalties for misbehaving… I’m just not sure the wording would get approved by the league.

The Lions have 78 to 80 players on the roster plus the unsigned draft picks. They will bring in a player here or there and release some already signed if they can find someone ranked high enough. But for the most part, the players there right now are likely to be the ones fighting it out for the final 53 roster spots. Not to say that as summer camp begins that they won’t find guys to cut sooner rather then later in order to pick up players that other teams cut, it’s just that there won’t be more then a handful of these. As the draft picks sign they will have to make room by cutting some of the current guys anyway.

Right now the ranking of players on the roster, on other teams, and not on any team continues. This adjusting will continue for months. If I note any changes of any significance I will be back with that information. Meanwhile, I am going to work some more on my depth chart (trying to guess/duplicate what the Lions are doing) and will report back with my thinking over the next few months on each position group.

Perhaps I can lose the crow recipe before the season begins.