If You Smell What The Lions Are Cooking!

Howdy to all of you, who are the Lions faithful,

Do you know what the NFL needs? You might say a lot but something I feel this league needs is a minor equivalent like what Major League Baseball has. No, not something completely lame like the XFL or Arena League Football but a minor farm team system. The same number of players with practice squads, have the teams play in areas that want or could support a smaller team like Grand Rapids. Stadiums would complement about 30,000 people or so and play the game with the same intensity as the NFL. What I would like to see is teams building through the draft and their farm team, putting an end to high price free agency. You know how each team has seven picks in the draft one for each of the seven rounds? My system would still have the draft but in addition each team can bring up a handful of players from their farm team.

Wishful thinking I know but with the UFL forming who knows maybe a good sign of things to come.

Our draft count is now down to seven picks in the April draft after trading our 5th rounder to Seattle along with DT Cory Redding for five-time Pro Bowler LB Julian Peterson. We have our two picks from the first round, one pick from the second round, two picks from the third round and two picks from the sixth round. Now the Lions have been very active during this free-agency period but the thing that gets me is that the Lions front office said they would build through the draft and not through free-agency. They have signed quite a few, plugging critical holes but in my opinion trading draft picks should have been hands off with the only exceptions of trying to trade the first overall and our possible second to another team for a franchise QB like Jay Cutler.

We don’t have our 4th, 5th, or 7th round picks now although we did get the better of the deal with the Roy Williams trade with Dallas. There is still the possibility of getting a compensatory pick and getting an extra pick if we trade down for another team to snag the guy they want.

My amended wish list of draft picks are a Defensive Tackle, Defensive End, Line Backer, Tight End, Offensive Tackle, Kick Returner Wide Receiver, and a Free Safety. Those are positions I envision the Lions targeting but this is dependent on what happens with a possible Jay Cutler trade. If we trade our second first round pick or the second round pick to Denver we will have six picks which isn’t the best draft class especially when you are trying to clean house. But hey it could be worse we could be like the Redskins with only four draft picks coming in the draft.

For some of you who are unfamiliar with the Jay Cutler story let me give you the gist of it. About two weeks ago the Lions were talking to the Broncos and the Patriots to work out a three team deal. Now the Lions were trying to get Matt Cassel from the Patriots and trade him to the Broncos for Jay Cutler. When Jay Cutler learned of this he was fuming mad not with the Lions but with the Broncos Head Coach Josh McDaniels. So now Jay Cutler stated he wants to be traded and he has put his Denver area home on the market so I believe it is just a matter of time before he is gone from Denver and God willing into a Lions uniform.

Speaking of which there has been nothing said about the new Lions logo or colors being changed. I believe the jersey color will be unveiled with the number one draft pick. I think there will be a press conference soon for the new logo because they want people like me for example to buy Lions logo merchandise and the longer they wait the less money they make, so it should be coming soon.

We have signed Tight End Will Heller. Here is the article from MLive

http://www.mlive.com/lions/index.ssf/2009/03/lions_sign_free_agent_te_will.html

Here is a summary of things so far from Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Detroit_Lions_season

Our schedule won’t be out until later in the spring but based on the NFL Scheduling rotation here is the teams we will be playing.

We play our own NFC North Division naturally, home and away.
The NFC West Division playing the Cardinals and Rams at home and the Seahawks and 49s away.
The AFC North Division playing the Browns and Steelers at home and the Ravens and Bengals away.
And we play the Redskins at home and the Saints away.

Well my Lionettes I am letting you all off easy this time but don’t think you will be so lucky next time. I am just kidding. It has been sort of slow the past few days. If this Jay Cutler trade does come through I will have a lot to say about it in my next post. Until next time, keep the faith and GO LIONS!