Lions rebuild without touching trenches

by | Apr 26, 2009 | NFL Draft

A new era in Detroit Lions football started Saturday afternoon with the selection of Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford, and as the old saying goes, the more things change the more they stay the same.

The Lions not only started the draft by selecting a skill player. They had three picks on day one of the draft and, despite the depth available on both the offensive and defensive lines, Detroit managed to emerge without helping themselves in the trenches one iota.

That’s not to trash on the guys the Lions did take. They must see Stafford as a potential franchise quarterback. I like Stafford, though I don’t see him being a top five NFL quarterback. I think Brandon Pettigrew has the potential to be a sneaky steal at tight end – and he is a solid, solid blocker as well, so perhaps they did gain SOME help. I don’t know a lot about safety Louis Delmas, whom the Lions snagged with the first pick in the second round. But he also doesn’t play in the trenches.

It’s not that any of these guys are bad players. Again, they all, especially Pettigrew, reportedly are decent value picks. It’s just been said here at Zoneblitz and in other places that teams like the Lions, off the only 0-16 team in history, need to rebuild in the trenches first.

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Vikings abdicating ‘culture of accountability’?

by | Apr 26, 2009 | NFL Draft

It’s been nearly four years since the “Love Boat” adventure several Minnesota Vikings players allegedly participated in on a Lake Minnetonka boat ride and nearly as long since the team instituted it’s “Culture of Accountability.”

The idea of this cleaned up culture exists to the degree that Rick Spielman, the team’s vice president of player personnel, told the Star Tribune two-plus weeks ago that the team eliminated 78 players from its draft board with “red dots” due to character and/or injury issues – a number he said could grow as the draft approached.

That’s all fine and good – but it makes me curious. If the guys the Vikings eliminated didn’t include Percy Harvin and Phil Loadholt, just exactly what did the 78 guys they took off the list have to do in order to earn the so-called “red dot?”

I’ve never met Percy Harvin. He is, reportedly and probably undoubtedly, incredibly talented.

But his alleged character issues are well reported, as well. He failed a drug test at the NFL Combine, a move many say – and I agree – proves that he is either heavily addicted to something or is too arrogant or unintelligent to lay off illegal substances for the roughly one-to-two months it would take to pass a test everyone at the Combine knows is coming.

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Jets S-T-E-A-L Sanchez; what are Raiders doing?

by | Apr 25, 2009 | 2009 Trades, NFL Draft

Wow.

Eight picks into the draft and the Zoneblitz mock draft is shot.

The New York Jets, as many expected, moved up to make a play at a quarterback. The shock to me is how little it took for them to move up from 17 to 5 in order to grab Mark Sanchez, the USC underclassman. The Jets give up the 17th pick, a 2nd round pick and three decent-at-best players – must’ve been guys Eric Mangini, former Jets and new Browns coach, liked while he was in the Big Apple.

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Multiple reports: Lions take Stafford

by | Apr 24, 2009 | NFL News, NFL Random Thoughts

It was probably inevitable – two disciples of the Matt Millen era in Detroit continued his legacy of building around skill-position players Friday night as multiple reports have come out indicating that the Lions have, in fact, inked quarterback Matthew Stafford to a six-year, $72 million deal with nearly $42 million of it guaranteed.

While drafting Stafford makes more sense than taking wide receivers in the first round three seasons in a row, we at Zoneblitz have long been on record believing Detroit should be waiting a year to grab a franchise QB while instead focusing on its long ignored issues on the offensive and defensive lines.

Experts’ opinions on Stafford are mixed. Some believe his strong arm and field-general skills make him the next great quarterback. Others question why, despite being surrounded by fantastic talent at Georgia, he couldn’t take the team further.

Detroit fans have to be hoping they won’t be asking themselves that same question 10 or 12 years down the road.

The signing leaves the St. Louis Rams on the clock.

Union chief working with no contract

by | Apr 23, 2009 | Business of Football

DeMaurice Smith, elected last month to head the NFL Players Association, has been working without a contract.

And if the dollars, cents and other terms thrown around by ESPN are accurate, he might be for awhile.

He wants five years and between $3.2 million and $3.7 million, according to the story. The NFLPA is pushing for, cough, $1.5 million to $2 million.

The late Gene Upshaw made $6.7 million his final year, $4.3 million of which was in salary. The remainder, according to ESPN, was in licensing fees.

Strangely, the Washington, D.C.-based Patton Boggs partner appears to have been elected originally to a three-year term – or at least that’s what the Washington Post thought the union announced when they said he’d been elected unanimously last month.

Smith might be confident that the league will keep playing football without a work stoppage in 2011, according to the USA Today, though we believe he’s  still espousing positions – that if the salary cap goes away the players won’t agree to bring it back – that would harm the genesis of what has made the league great.

He’s been working without a contract for several weeks. But if a significant salary gap can’t be bridged who knows if he even gets the chance to try and keep the league and the union working toward a new agreement.

I’m no expert on how this stuff works. But wouldn’t the players union have wanted to have at least some sort of framework for this position in place when they went and voted Smith in in the first place?