The Lions In Winter: a Detroit Lions blog

Cliff Avril’s Contract Demands: is His Production Worth the Money?

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Fri, 25 May 2012 13:56:40 PDT

Cliff Avril is holding out. According to an NFL.com report, Avril is seeking about $42 million dollars over four years, with about half of that guaranteed. Per that same report, the Lions are looking to pay him closer to $8M per year, and there the two sides sit.

Is Avril worth that kind of money?

Allow me to quote the defensive end Old Mother Hubbard:

Bottom Line: Cliff Avril, in this system, plays like a top ten defensive end. If he is not re-signed, his production and playmaking ability will not be easily replaced—and his production and playmaking ability is essential to the success of the defense. His re-signing must be the Lions’ top priority.

The answer, for the Lions, is “yes.” Avril is (at this point in the offseason) irreplaceable, and they would need to replace him with a top-flight pass rusher in the 2013 offseason. But is he producing like the kind of ends already making that kind of cash? Let's look at some analytics:

	Overall	Rush	Cov.	Run	Pen.	PRP	+EPA	+WPA	SpY	SB	$M/PRP
Calais Campbell	34.1	23.5	7	1	2.6	6.6	54.4	2.17	$11.0	$15.0	$1.67
Jared Allen	35	18.9	3.5	12.6	0	9.8	80.5	2.06	$12.2	$15.5	$1.25
Cliff Avril	6.6	11	5.5	-2.5	-7.4	9.6	45.10	1.45	$10.0	-	$1.04
Julius Peppers	28.3	19.5	2	6.3	0.5	10.3	52.1	1.35	$14.0	$6.5	$1.36
Mario Williams ('10)	18.3	18.5	0	0.5	-0.7	10.8	29.8	1.13	$16.7	$19.0	$1.54
Trent Cole	40.4	35.2	0.5	10.3	-5.6	14.9	32.30	1.00	$9.9	$8.0	$0.66
Dwight Freeney	5.8	15.5	0	-7.5	-2.2	9.4	27.5	0.85	$12.0	$15.0	$1.28

The chart above is the usual set of Old Mother Hubbard data, with a few new additions:

Pro Football Focus Overall: The player’s overall grade, as measured by PFF.

Pro Football Focus Rush: The player’s PFF pass-rush grade.

Pro Football Focus Coverage: The player’s PFF coverage grade.

Pro Football Focus Run: The player’s PFF run-stopping grade.

Pro Football Focus Penalty: The player’s PFF grade for incurring penalties (snap count is accounted for).

Pro Football Focus PRP: PFF's pass-rush rate stat. Weighted amount of sacks, QB hits, and QB pressures divided by charted pass rush attempts.

Advanced NFL Stats +EPA: The amount of positive-impact production the player had, as measured by Advanced NFL Stats.

Advanced NFL Stats +WPA: The impact the player had on his team’s chances to win games. The table and chart are sorted by this stat.

SpY: Salary per Year. The player’s total contract value, divided by contract length. Data from Spotrac.com.

SB: The player’s signing bonus.

$M/PRP: The number of salary millions paid per year, per point of PRP.

First, a reminder: this is a selection of the highest-paid and most-productive defensive ends in football. The idea is to see if Avril’s production is in their elite company, not to see if he’s good or not—we know he’s very good.

Second, caveats: Calais Campbell is a 3-4 DE, so he gets a lot more tackles than a typical 4-3 pass rusher. This explains his lackluster PRP, but outstanding PFF grades and solid +EPA. Mario Williams’ data is from 2010, the last year he played as a 4-3 rush end.

The chart is a little helter-skelter but you should be able to see Cliff’s line quite clearly. As before, his PFF Overall grade is very low relative to the other DEs. He’s right at about the NFL average. This is mostly due to his 11 assessed penalties; Avril’s play is quite good but he was flagged constantly.

Avril’s pass rush grades were better, above average, but still well below NFL leader Trent Cole, and DEs like Jared Allen and Mario Williams. Remember, this PFF pass grade is an accumulated, normalized measure of “how good” every down’s performance was.

Avril led the 4-3 DEs in PFF Coverage grades, trailing only Calais Campbell (which, again, “good coverage” from a 3-4 DE is a different standard than “good coverage” from a 4-3 DE). Against the run, Avril was comparable to Williams and Campbell, but well behind Allen and Cole, both of whom were in the top ten run-stoppers.

Avril had the second-worst penalty grade of any 4-3 DE last year.

Here's where it gets interesting. Pass Rush Productivity is a much more refined version of what I've been doing, dividing snap counts by sacks-plus-hits-plus-pressures. PFF is putting together a weighted total of sacks, hits and pressure then dividing pass rush attempts by that figure. This gives a true picture of how often these pass rushers are getting to the quarterback.

Avril’s is a very respectable 9.6. That’s tied for 10th-best in the NFL with Baltimore’s Terrell Suggs and New England’s Andre Carter. In fact, it’s just behind Allen’s 9.8. Trent Cole led the NFL with a ridiculous 14.9. For the record, Kyle Vanden Bosch registered a 27th-best 7.3 . . . as I hinted before, that’s half as effective per-snap as Cole.

Ready to have your mind blown? When I drop the qualifying snap percentage from its default 50% to 25%, The Great Willie Young is 3rd in the NFL with 13.7. Lawrence Jackson comes in 26th with 8.8.

When it comes to +EPA, Jared Allen laps the field. His positive production was 2nd in the NFL with 80.5. Campbell and Julius Peppers nearly tie for second in this group, and Avril’s right behind them with 45.1. Cole, who’s been blowing all these metrics away so far, has only 32.3 +EPA.

In terms of +WPA, Avril’s 1.45 was 7th-best in the NFL. Campbell’s 2.17 was 2nd-best, and Allen’s 2.06 was 3rd-best. Again, Cole’s monster productivity only netted him 1.00 +WPA; either his massive pressure didn’t come when the Eagles needed it, or the Eagles were going to lose whether he got there or not. Maybe a little of both? Either way, Avril’s solidly above-average production clearly made a big difference in the Lions’ bottom line.

So we know Avril’s a very good defensive end, arguably one of the ten best 4-3 DEs in the NFL. We also know he’s worth more to the Lions specifically, right now, than he is in a “relative to the rest of the league” way. But look at those salary figures.

If the Lions gave Avril the $10M/year he’s asking for, they’d be paying less relative to his pass rush production than any of the measured DEs, save Trent Cole—who had the most productive year of anyone in the NFL while playing on a rookie contract.

To justify this money, Avril must cut down on the penalties without cutting down on his production. But unlike Corey Williams, whose production was partly due to snap timing, Avril's penalties are often post-play; the kind of thing he should be able to eliminate by keeping his head.

But outside of that, given his knowledge of the system, his production within the system, and that production’s importance to the system, Avril’s clearly worth $10 milion a year to the Lions.

A Very Serious Talk: The Offensive Line

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Mon, 21 May 2012 09:40:08 PDT

Okay, it's time to have a Very Serious Talk about the Lions' offensive line.

I've been reading a lot of stuff lately about the offensive line. Let's nail down some facts about last season, so we can move forward like grownups.

The Lions were bad at run blocking last year.

According to Football Outsiders' Adjusted Line Yards stat, the Lions had the 31st—2nd-worst—run-blocking unit in the NFL. This will not come as a shock to anyone who, you know, watched the Lions last year. Their 3.70 ALY was well off the league average of 4.08. Their Power Success rate (52%) was ranked 28th, and their Stuffed Percentage (21%) was 25th.

However, the raw YPC by by the Lions' running backs was 4.22; that's just off the NFL average of 4.31. That's the 19th-best pace in the league, packed tightly with a lot of other teams right around the average. Being mediocre at the second level (ranked 21st) and solid in the open field (ranked 14th) shows the Lions' motley crew of backs managed to make things happen on the rare occasions they had daylight.

The Lions weren't really trying to run block last year.

However, let's give that figure a little context. The Lions attempted passes more (666 times) and more often (62.9% of plays) than anyone else in the NFL. The Lions lined up in the shotgun 68% of the time, more than anyone else in the NFL. They carried the ball fewer times (356) than all but one team, and at the rarest rate (33.6) of any team. Though the Lions were undoubtedly going to be a pass-first team in 2011, they almost completely abandoned the traditional run game. Expecting them to be good at it doesn’t make sense.

Perhaps the Lions' interior line isn't comprised of mashers, and the Lions didn't change personnel address that in the offseason. But swapping Dominic Raiola out for a he-man road grader would be making the Lions better at what they did one-third of the time last year at the expense of what they did two-thirds of the time. That's just not smart.

Rob Sims will be better at run blocking this year.

As we saw in the guard Old Mother Hubbard, Rob Sims was one of the best pass-blocking guards in the NFL last season, but well below-average against the run. Sims intentionally added 20 pounds of quality weight from the end of the season to now, and he did it to shore up his anchoring against the run and interior pass rush:

“Last couple years, I’ve been playing really light -- a lot lighter than I’m used to playing, and I felt there were some parts of my game that were affected because of that,” he said. “Mainly, some of the stuff I do on the run and stuff like that, I just didn’t have that pop I was used to. It wasn’t I was just gorging myself and wanted to be 20 extra pounds out there, it’s just that we’ve been having some trouble keeping weight on me throughout the season ,so I wanted to start a little heavier and work my way down.”

Per Dave Birkett, Sims actually dropped below 300 pounds by the end of last season; that’s simply too light for today’s NFL, 68% shotgun notwithstanding. By getting back up to about 320, Sims should have much better luck cracking open seams for Leshoure and Best to pop through.

The Lions will run the ball more this year.

The Lions mostly abandoned the run once they lost Jahvid Best, had one glorious game of healthy Kevin Smith, and then abandoned the run again. Best, Smith, and Mikel Leshoure are all participating in OTAs, which is a fantastic sign. If all are healthy, expect the run game—and under-center snaps—to be a bigger part of the Lions’ playcalling. When you’re setting up to run block, you’ll be more successful at it.

Riley Reiff could provide an immediate boost, or not.

We know from the offensive tackle Old Mother Hubbard that Jeff Backus is an above-average left tackle. We know he began the season with a torn pectoral muscle, and played like it. We know that after the bye week, he played as well as any left tackle in the NFL. We know he tore a bicep against New Orleans in the playoffs; we know he’s supposed to be ready for training camp.

The question here isn’t whether Jeff Backus can play left tackle at a high level, it’s for how long he’ll be able. Ideally, Backus gets healthy and has a great season, and Riley Reiff beings to push him next offseason, or possibly the year after that. Maybe Reiff solidifies the right tackle spot for the second half of this season, and swings over to the left once

It doesn’t sound like that’s the plan, though. As Jim Schwartz said:

"He's a left tackle. He fits the criteria that you want at that position. He's big, tough, he's a former tight end and a three-time state wrestling champ (South Dakota). He comes from a great tradition of offensive linemen at Iowa. He's a good run blocker and a good pass protector. "Even though he is young and will still improve in certain areas, we're not drafting a guy that's a developmental player."

Wow, that sounds almost like he's planning on Reiff pushing Backus from Day One.

"We'll put them all out there and we'll play. Their play in training camp, in the OTAs and in the preseason, that will determine those things, not anything we are thinking right now."

Oh. So that right there is Jim Schwartz opening the competition for a spot Jeff Backus has had on lockdown for 176 consecutive games. Moreover, it’s him throwing a pretty big bucket of cold water on the notion that Reiff is short-term right tackle help. It’s not to say he won’t moonlight there, of course, but the Lions view Reiff as their left tackle for the medium-, long-, and possibly even short run.

The question is, even if Reiff supplants Backus, will Reiff play any better than Backus? Maybe, maybe not. I couldn’t think of a segue, but Holy Schwartz! regressed PFF blocking grades against offensive tackle arm length and oh man is it worth a click.

Per Football Outsiders, the Lions ran behind Backus 20% of the time. That’s the fourth-highest rate in the NFL; only the Cardinals, Seahawks, Bengals, and Rams ran behind their left tackle more. With an ALY of 3.65, they were only 24th-most effective at running behind the LT, but the Lions clearly trusted Backus much more than the interior or the right side.

Oddly, the Lions were most effective when running behind the right tackle. At 4.22 ALY, they were 20th-best in the NFL, close to the 4.26 league average. So if Riley Reiff is to improve either left tackle spot, he’ll have to be more trustworthy than Jeff Backus all-around, OR the best run-blocker on the line, OR so much better at pass protection than Cherilus that the run blocking doesn’t matter.

The Lions are actually really really good at pass blocking.

I know many Lions fans still freak out about that time Julius Peppers beat Jeff Backus and injured Matthew Stafford, but the Lions dropped back 702 times and allowed only 36 sacks in 2011; that's an Adjusted Sack Rate of 5.9%. That's 10th-best in the NFL. Pro Football Focus graded the Lions at +35.0 in pass protection, 3rd-best in the NFL.

I know for many people pass protection starts and stops with a 6’-4,” 360-pound He-Man Hall of Fame Left Tackle who never ever gives up a sack, ever. But those guys come once or twice in a generation, if at all—and there are four other guys on the line, protecting four pass-rush gaps the left tackle never gets to. The fact is, the Lions do a very good job of keeping Matthew Stafford clean—even though Stafford is exposed more often than any other quarterback in the NFL.

We clear now?

Big offensive line thing coming

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Sun, 20 May 2012 22:29:20 PDT

Been working on it for quite a while. Shooting for lunchtime Monday.

A Viking Funeral for Armchair Linebacker

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Thu, 10 May 2012 22:18:12 PDT

Neil and I are two sides of the same coin: I soar through my blue-sky optimism on patched and tattered wings, while he trudges through the marshes of the river Styx, protecting his blue-flame candle from the muck and the mire.

Armchair Linebacker is dead. This evening, on Twitter, Neil from Armchair Linebacker announced that there will be no more Armchair Linebacker.

I’ve written before about the discordance between what I do and what he does. I never use profanity on my site; he never doesn’t on his. I preach a pious brand of faithful fandom; he lead Lions fans though violent and terrible spiritual Crusade, slaying infidels and vampire apes in equal measure.

Neil started at Armchair Linebacker on the cusp of the 2008 season. Indeed, the 0-16 year. In possibly the most prescient blog post of all time, he titled it “Welcome to Hell:”

Why hello there. Welcome to hell, also known as being a fan of the Detroit Lions. My name is Neil and I will be your tour guide during this frightening journey that we will take together, the Virgil to your Dante if you will. It will not be easy, and along the way, there will no doubt be dead bodies left in our wake and drunken ramblings and threats of suicide. I assure you that this is all a normal part of following the Detroit Lions.

I started The Lions in Winter at that season’s conclusion, at rock bottom, when the only direction to go was up:

I'm a fan. I was born a fan, and I will die a fan. The hooting and derision of the American sports culture has set my resolve. I'm sick of getting snickers on the football-y corners of the Internet. I'm sick of getting reaction takes when I wear Lions gear around town. I've thought about starting this blog for years, but this morning I knew that today was the day. I've pulled my hood tight, I've loaded up the sled with wood, and I've got fuel and spark to spare. I'm going to reclaim my Lions pride. I'm going to fan that little blue flame into the great big bonfire it ought to be, and nobody's going to be prouder than me when thousands are once again carrying torches to rally behind this team.

Neil cited burnout, and said he’d “told the story [he’d] set out to tell;” along with some epic tales of The Great Willie Young, he absolutely did. But when the Lions have taken fifty years of perennial laughingstockery and set it on fire, and the Lions’ head coach tops a national columnist’s Coach Power Rankings . . . things have changed.

Nobody could, or did, chronicle the Lions’ descent into Hell in all its naked shock and horror. Nobody else could, or did, chronicle the Lions’ journey through those dark and unspeakable days as well. Nobody else could, or did, call for the mass pillaging and enslavement of the state of Ohio if that’s what it took to claw back to respectability.

I understand why he’s stopping.

The Lions in Winter's purpose is to keep the spirit of Lions fandom alive. To tend the little blue flame, to provide warmth and light and succor to the damned and hardy souls who never stopped cheering—and awareness and enlightenment to those who’d long since abandoned hope.

Now, the blue bonfire roars so high that all the world can see it; it hardly feels like I need bother chop the wood, or keg and tap the cider. I’m no longer filled with righteous vigor dozens of times a day by an unending stream of stupid Internet rage.

Countless Lions fans (and, *gasp*, admirers) now have many, many places on the Internet where they can find intelligent analysis of Detroit Lions football. They have many reasons to be thrilled. They have many reasons to be satisfied, waiting only for the Lions to take the field again.

Doesn’t leave a whole lot to write about.

Don't worry: The Lions in Winter isn't going anywhere. The Lions’ job is far from finished, and so is mine. I’ve spent three and a half years proving my hope, my faith, my knowledge of the glorious Lions time to come is real. Now, my job is prove it is real . . .

. . . and maybe keep the flame from burning too high, extinguishing itself by losing control.

It’s no secret that my posting on here has slowed. We’ve entered the hard offseason, now, with nothing of real import occurring. Every year, I’ve beat my head against the wall trying to come up with something original to say about the daily tidbits of totally-inconsequential news. The fact is, I’ve never done that well and now it seems like wasted time.

I’m going to keep posting stuff of originality and quality, with little of the filler so much of the Sports Internet is flooded with. I’m going to keep covering the NFL at Bleacher Report, which by God if you haven’t gotten the message about how good B/R is right now just go ahead and read up. I’m tremendously proud of the work I’ve done there, and of the nearly half-a-million eyeballs my my writing’s pulled since I started last September.

The fact is, I need this place. I need this outlet. I need you folks. It’s the payoff for all those long years huddling my jacket over a tiny lick of blue fire on a pile of snow-damp twigs. The pride and joy of being awarded a game ball by the Lions’ head coach for directly helping my team win? I need to share those emotions with people who understand the contrast between Heaven and Hell. Who know how long we’ve suffered. Who know the meaning of being a Lions fan.

People like Neil.

When I got the news, I was in the middle of a ceremonial Twitter speech about the Vikings, how I hate their purple dirty cheating Viking faces, and how thrilled I am they’re going to build a new stadium in Minnesota so we can renew our hatred over and over for decades hence.

I sat down to write this, and it hit me: there’s only one proper way for Armchair Linebacker to die. Not to die, but to pass on from this world into the next. To be immolated in a blue-flame funeral pyre and reduced to sacred ash. To be placed on its longboat with treasured belongings, intoxicating drinks and live sacrifices, set afire, and set adrift to journey to Valhalla, the legendary hall of the immortal dead.

The archives of Armchair Linebacker will serve as an immortal reminder of the brilliant madness of Neil, Raven Mack, and the other depraved, brilliant fans who wrote under their banner. Even as Neil joins us for mugs of cider around the bonfire, even as Neil plies his trade at Guyism.com, the savage and monstrous genius he spread out across an encyclopedia’s worth of words will live on forever, swigging mead and feasting upon beast and fowl alike.

As Armchair Linebacker burns off to that glorious horizon and the undying lands beyond, raise your flagon and drink.

Armchair Linebacker is dead. All hail Armchair Linebacker.

Meet the Cubs: Kellen Moore

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Mon, 07 May 2012 17:22:00 PDT

Kellen Moore is a walking contradiction. Worshipped by some, reviled by others. Hailed as one of the best quarterbacks as the country; left on every NFL team’s 2012 draft board come Saturday night. A player the Lions did not draft getting the Meet the Cubs treatment.

Moore is the latest flashpoint in the ongoing culture war between college football fans, pro football fans, and draftniks. Kellen Moore was—is—a great college quarterback. This is indisputable: He completed 1,157 of 1,658 passes (69.8%) for 14,667 yards (8.85 YpA), 142 TDs and 28 INTs. Moore does not have the physical tools to succeed at the NFL level—and this is as indisputable as such things get. The coexistence of these two indisputable facts generates a whole lot of dispute.

Kellen Moore is a coach’s son; you couldn’t possibly watch a Boise State game or absorb any pre-draft analysis without hearing that. Tom Moore, four-state-title-winning head football coach of Prosser (WA)’s high school for 22 years, stepped down in 2009 to support his sons Kellen and Kirby as they journeyed through Boise State’s college football program.

In Kellen Moore’s edition of Jon Gruden’s QB Camp, they talk about how his father instructed him on proper fundamentals from the beginning. At first blush, this sounds uncomfortably like the Todd Marinovich saga, but Tom Moore sounds like a much less militaristic, much more doting father.

Unfortunately, Moore isn't the prospect Marinovich was, either.

Moore was a two-sport star at Prosser, lettering three times in both football and basketball. He was rated a three-star recruit (No. 31 QB) by Rivals, and a four-star recruit (No. 26 QB) by Scout. He shattered Washington state passing records and was named to every conceivable “____ of the Year” list for Washington prep sports. Moore received three offers: Eastern Washington (a.k.a Jon Kitna’s alma mater), Idaho (offered during Dennis Erickson’s brief second stint there), and Boise State.

Moore redshirted his freshman year.

As a redshirt freshman, it began. He started from Day One and led the Broncos to a 12-1 record. He set the NCAA single-season record for completion percentage by a freshman, was second-team All-WAC, and on just about everybody’s All-Freshman team. He completed 281 of 405 passes (69.4%) for 3,486 yards (8.61 YpA) with 25 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.

His sophomore season was more of the same. Moore led the 2009 Broncos to a perfect 14-0 season, finished seventh in Heisman voting, and was first-team All-America according to ESPN.com, SI.com and CBSSports.com. He completed 277 of 431 passes (64.3 percent) for 3,536 yards(8.2 YpA), and a school-record 39 touchdowns. Moore set the NCAA single-season record for lowest interception percentage, with just three of his 431 attempts picked off.

His junior season was more of the same. Moore led the Broncos to a 13-1 record, finished fourth in Heisman voting, and was the first BSU Bronco to be invited to New York for the ceremony. He was also a finalist for the Davey O'Brien and Maxwell awards. He completed 273 of 383 passes (71.3%) for 3,845 yards (10.04 YpA), 35 touchdowns and 6 interceptions.

His senior season was more of the same. Moore led the Broncos to a 12-1 record, became the first college quarterback to notch 50 career wins, and was a finalist for the Maxwell award. He left BSU with an NCAA record for career winning percentage (50-3, .943) 2nd all-time in touchdowns (142) and 5th all-time in passing yards (14,667).

So you get it: he is a winner. He wins. He makes great decisions and he throws touchdown passes and he rarely throws incompletions and he doesn't throw interceptions.

Andy Benoit of the New York Times' Fifth Down Blog did a beautiful job of explaining why Moore's incredible college career doesn't traslate to a hill of beans in the NFL:

Arm strength, mobility, size, etc. – they’re all prerequisites. Many people in Boise don’t understand why Moore’s lack of size is such a problem to pro teams. There are many reasons it’s a problem – durability, pocket passing prowess and the sheer difficulty of designing an offense when the passer can’t see over his linemen, to name a few. It’s not a mere “fun fact” that the only two N.F.L. starting quarterbacks who are not over 6 feet are Michael Vick and Drew Brees. Vick compensates with otherworldly athleticism; Brees compensates with a strong arm and uncanny accuracy. Kellen Moore was accurate in college, but that accuracy won’t translate to the pros because the throwing windows close so quickly. The only quarterbacks who even have a chance at getting a ball through a quick-closing window are those with strong arms.

Kellen Moore's quarterbacking reminds me, intensely, of Kurt Warner's Blue Period. Warner—never blessed with overwhelming tools, an undrafted free agent himself—had much of his passes’ velocity and catchability robbed by a thumb injury. He compensated as best he could with his incredible field vision and understanding of the game.

He’d make lighting-fast reads and heave up wobbling knuckleballs to the middle of nowhere; they’d just so happen to fall right into the arms of wideouts flying to get underneath them. Sometimes it worked, but often it didn’t; Warner was 8-23 as a starter from 2002-2006.

Unfortunately, that seems like Moore’s upside. Perhaps the ceiling is higher than that; perhaps he will travel a road similar to Warner’s. Perhaps he’ll hold the clipboard here for a few years, as Warner did in Green Bay. Perhaps he’ll bounce around, get an opportunity and seize it. Moore has a huge advantage over Warner, or even Tom Brady in this regard: he was an unquestioned four-year starting quarterback at a power program and made the absolute most of his opportunity there. His college resumé will get him a camp invite somewhere until he proves he can't compete at the pro level.

As Jim Schwartz told WZAM’s Dan Miller, signing Kellen Moore is an “absolute no-risk opportunity.” The Lions have an opening for a quarterback to hold a clipboard and learn; Moore will have every opportunity to be that quarterback. Bring him in for an invite, let him try to prove he has potential, and let him grow.

The one thing I’ve heard over and over about Moore is that he’s almost certainly going to have a long post-playing career as a coach. Michael Schottey, on Twitter and elsewhere, has said this repeatedly (and he’s far from the only one). Perhaps the Lions have drafted their future QB coach?

Okay, speculation time is over. Let's hear from the experts about what Kellen Moore's current reality looks like:

ESPN.com's Scouts, Inc. grades Moore a 42 of 100:

"Height-weight-speed: Vastly undersized in terms of overall measurables for the position. However, possesses prototypical hand size (9 1/2). Top-end speed is average."

"Intangibles: A football junkie. Intelligent individual and a well-spoken representative of the program. Possesses a high football IQ Has developed into the unquestioned leader of the team . . . Thrives under pressure and wants the ball in his hand late in the fourth quarter with the game on the line."

"Throws a catchable ball. Displays excellent anticipation and touch with his throws. Very accurate with short-throws and rarely forces targets to adjust to the ball. However, too often falls away with throws which can lead to him missing the mark especially high. Accuracy can also dip when having to drive the ball in tight window down field."

"Arm strength is average at best. Will have issues driving the ball down field and ball can hang in the air with deeper out routes allowing defenders extra time to recover. Bottom line will have to rely on above-average anticipation and timing to be successful at the next level."

CBS Sports.com graded Moore as the 12th-best QB, a 6th/7th-round pick:

Positives: Highly intelligent and has been extremely productive, making very few mental mistakes. Very smart and plays like an offensive coordinator on the field. Extremely accurate with above average ball placement. Puts the ball where he wants and understands where it needs to be. Plays with infectious confidence, allowing his teammates to feed off of his poise and fearlessness. Always keeps his eyes downfield and works through his progressions very quickly, making snap decisions . . . Good short-to-intermediate arm strength with beautiful touch . . . Works hard to prepare and lives in the film room; student of the game and works hard at what he does.

Negatives: Lack of height, measureables and overall size are huge red flags. Looks diminutive in the huddle. Lacks the arm strength to drive the ball downfield to keep defenses honest; throws too many rainbows/soft-tosses and lacks the cannon to zip the ball all over the field and threaten secondaries deep. Only an average athlete and has limited mobility; doesn't have the legs to consistently evade pressure. Funky mechanics, making too many passes off his back foot with his momentum going backwards . . . Gets lazy with his footwork and balance. Gets himself in trouble at times when he rushes his throws and tries to force things; appears to pre-determine a lot of his throws, staring down his targets. Accuracy on passes over 20 yards is very streaky; finesses passer with too much air in his deep throws . . . NFL Comparison: Chase Daniel, New Orleans Saints

SI.com grades Moore at 2.36, at the bottom edge of "FENCE PLAYER"; just 0.02 above "PRACTICE SQUAD":

Positives: Productive high-percentage thrower on the college level who lacks the physical skills for the NFL. Patient in the pocket, buys as much time as necessary for receivers and waits until the last moment before releasing the ball. Displays a terrific feel for the game, effectively leads the offense and knows where his receivers are on the field. Senses pressure, steps up to avoid it and always finds the open wideout on the field. Possesses a sense of timing on throws, accurate with passes and always gives receivers a chance to make the reception. Throws a catchable ball putting short and intermediate passes where only his receivers can make the reception.

Negatives: Has a short throwing motion and looks like he's pushing the ball. Passes have minimal speed. Lacks a quick release and the ability to immediately get the ball out of his hands. Takes chances on occasion trying to get the ball through tight spots, yet lacks the arm strength to do as much.

Analysis: Moore was a winner on the college level and a tremendous leader on the field who did the little things well. He lacks the size, arm strength and physical skills to start in the NFL yet could effectively be a backup in a West Coast offense.

Projection: 6th

New Era Scouting, via their media guide, ranks Moore as the 15th-best QB prospect and No. 301 overall:

Strengths: Moore has been incredibly productive in a system in college. He throws an accurate ball and has pretty solid touch on it as well. He throws the ball well to open spaces and can lead his receivers well.

Weaknesses: Looking at Moore you would wonder how he throws a football at all. He has to use his entire body to coil up and release a throw to have anything on the throw. He has poor arm strength and when trying to avoid contact it makes his arm strength appear worse than it really is.

Overall: Moore is a developmental quarterback that has to go play in the right system for him and even then it would be hard to see him being anything other than a backup. Currently he is carrying a free agent grade.

Right, so, Kellen Moore is a fantastic quarterback who does everything that points to unfettered success at the NFL level, except OMG LOL HA HA HA WTF HE SUCKS.

There’s only one way to sort this out. Only one authority to whom we can listen. Only one source we can trust to know whether Kellen Moore is a quarterbacking Promethus unbound or, you know, Chase Daniel: YOUTUBE HIGHLIGHT REELS.

This one’s pretty straightforward: just Moore doing his thing against top-level competition. Stands (somewhat) tall against the Oregon pass rush and finds this open man. This is Moore in his element.

Here's a little treat for Lions fans: Moore letting Titus Young do his thing. Moore may not be able to put the hot sauce on a 30-yard out, but he lofted this one a solid fifty yards downfield. No wonder the Lions jumped on Titus last season.

Now, when I talk about YouTube Highlight Reels, this right here is what I am talking about:

This just has it all: killer intro, outstanding graphics, solid music selection, some Xs and Os, PLENTY of hyperbole, and a smorgasbord of clips showing every conceivable strength without getting repetitive. Also, hilarious.

Overall, I agree with Schwartz’s assessment: this is a no-brainer great pick. I wanted the Lions to go for a boom-or-bust guy with protypical physical tools and big question marks, such as Ryan Lindley. But signing a UDFA with flawless mental tools and big physical question marks is a coup.

Kellen Moore may indeed join Chase Daniel, Ken Dorsey, Jason White, and Danny Wuerffel in the parade of college "winners" with major flaws that couldn't get it done in the NFL. Indeed, Moore may not make it out of traning camp.

Had the Lions been the team who bit and spent a mid-round pick, I'd be wailing and gnashing my teeth. But given the Lions were going to bring in a UDFA quarterback as a purely developmental flier, I'm glad they brought in Moore.

Meet the Cubs begins.

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Sun, 06 May 2012 21:11:23 PDT

Kellen Moore will be up first, even though he didn’t get drafted. Look for it by Monday afternoon.

Post-Draft Fireside Chat Podcast, Feat. Jason Hanson

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Tue, 01 May 2012 09:35:08 PDT

UPDATE: some are struggling with the Ustream embedded Flash. Here’s the direct link to the .mp3.

It's the post-draft Fireside Chat, featuring an interview with legendary Detroit Lions kicker Jason Hanson! Arguably the Lions' greatest second-round pick of all time, Hanson talks about his own draft day experience, and what it's like outlasting everyone but the owner.

Also, we talk draft. Here's part one, before the network drop:

. . . and here's part 2:

Jason Hanson Signing/Giveaway!

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 13:08:53 PDT

Once again, I'll be teaming up with Legends Sports & Games to bring you a Lions signing/giveaway opportunity. Tomorrow (Saturday) at the Woodland Mall in Grand Rapids, Jason Hanson will be signing from 11:00 am - 12:30 pm.

I'll be there too, giving away a sweet Lions mini-helmet--which you can get autographed--and maybe one of those cool Lions DirecTV remotes. Comment on this post if you're coming!

Great Barrier Reiff: Lions Draft Their Tackle

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 09:25:12 PDT

The Detroit Lions did not trade their first-round pick, as I said they must. They stood pat and took mighty Iowa offensive tackle Riley Reiff, brilliantly named the “Great Barrier Reiff” by Lions Tweeter @crino22.

I said the Lions must trade their first-round pick for two reasons: 1) the players who could provide an immediate upgrade to the starting lineup would come off the board well before No. 23, and 2) the Lions would have quite a few decent options at 23, and therefore should try to trade back.

I wasn’t wrong about 1). Reiff addresses what I thought was the Lions’ most pressing need: a backup for, and heir apparent to, Jeff Backus. He’ll also have the opportunity to back up, push and/or supplant either Stephen Peterman or Gosder Cherilus until his time at left tackle comes. But Reiff doesn’t make the Lions’ starting 22 any better.

Depth and youth and the future are critically important. I pushed for the Lions to draft tackle Nate Solder last season, for this very reason; the Lions couldn’t afford to wait until Backus was irrevocably broken to search for his replacement. But we must understand taking Reiff at this spot means a team trying to win the Super Bowl this season passed up their last, best opportunity to make this season’s team better.

What I was wrong about was 2). It simply did not occur to me that Riley Reiff and David DeCastro would both be sitting there for the Lions at No. 23. I thought both of them would go in the 10-20 range, and closer to 10 than 20. With either of those players on the board, let alone both, trading down would not have been the right move. Matt Miller of Bleacher Report and New Era Scouting had Reiff and DeCastro as his 13th- and 6th-rated prospects, and Miller graded the Lions’ pick of Reiff as an A+.

What has been the fans' reaction? This was the scene at the Lions' official draft party at the Fillmore Theatre:

Appreciation for a pick well picked; excitement for a bright future. Not unbridled exultation, as when the Lions drafted Ndamukong Suh. Not the dawning of a glorious new era in Lions football. Just a good football player who addresses a great need coming at a fantastic value spot.

Now, the second and third rounds: Draftsmas Eve all over again. Will the Lions trade up? Trade back? Stand pat? Draft one of the risky corners? All the same questions, ready to be answered again. Tonight is the last chance the Lions have to add impact talent to this season’s roster without giving something up . . . will they take it?

Draftsmas Eve

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 00:48:26 PDT

I can’t sleep.

I made my list, I checked it twice, and I have no doubt this draft will be nice.

The Lions are picking late in the first round—and as I discussed earlier, the board makes it unlikely they’ll get good value there. Will a fantastic prospect fall? Will the Lions move up? Will they trade back, picking quality over quantity? Will they trade draft picks for a veteran who can help right away—or will they trade a veteran like Cliff Avril for draft picks?

I don't know! Any, none, or all of the above could happen. It’s going to be a surprise—a present. This draft is going to be an exercise in sitting around in our bathrobe eating candy out of our stocking while the losing teams claw and fight and scrap their way through a hurricane of tape, ribbon, bows and shredded gift wrap.

Here are some of the presents on my wish list:

Peter Konz, Wisconsin OC. A perfect medium- and long-term replacement for Dominic Raiola, he’s got the size and grit to back up both guard positions.
Nick Perry, USC DE. He's an edge rusher with speed, and originally from Detroit. He's got Avrilesque tools—and while he may need Avrilesque time to learn and develop, the part you can’t teach is there?
Zach Brown, UNC OLB. Kind of a mini-Kevin Durant, Brown’s athleticism is a perfect fit for the Lions’ scheme—and ended up on the Lions in all four instances of the #MockOne series of drafts. Remember, Durant and Deandre Levy are both on one-year deals.
Josh Norman, Coastal Carolina CB. Norman knocked the socks off Michael Schottey at the East-West Shrine Game, and displayed a combination of good run defense, solid coverage, and a ballhawking knack most Lions DBs lack.
LaMichael James, Oregon RB. His game is much like Jahvid Best’s, and therefore is perfect backup for him. James doesn’t have quite the size or strength of Best; a definite specialist rather than an undersized every-down back. But he’s got the important bit: the open-field home-run ability.
Ryan Lindley, San Diego State QB. Dude has some severe holes in his game, but he’s got all the tools. Total boom-or-bust prospect, perfect fit for the late-round developmental role.
Seriously Every Michigan State Spartan. Kirk Cousins. Edwin Baker. Trenton Robinson. Brian Linthicum. Even if Cousins won’t fall to a low enough slot for the Lions to consider, they could seriously use any one—or possibly several—of the Spartans up for consideration. Heck, they could vote a straight party ticket. Would a draft class of Worthy/Cousins/Robinson/Baker/Linthicum /B.J. Cunningham be so horrible? I'm kidding on that point, but I'll be surpised if the Lions don't end up with at least one Spartan.

I’m going to try to make it out to the Lions’ draft event at the Fillmore; I won’t be able to get there until late, but the Lions won’t be picking until late! Keep an eye on this space for updates; I may live-blog from my phone as I did for last year’s Hard Rock event.

Detroit Lions Must Trade Their 2012 1st-Round Pick

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 10:07:18 PDT

After three full drafts by Martin Mayhew, with Tom Lewand, Shack Harris and the scouts, and Jim Schwartz and the coaches providing input, we’d like to think we understand the Lions’ approach. BATFAN, a term first coined by Josh at Roar of the Lions, seems to encapsulate it: “Best Available that Fits a Need.”

This strategy can be seen at work in the selections of players like Brandon Pettigrew: Tight End was a need at the time, if not nearly the most pressing one, and Pettigrew a special talent. Pettigrew was derided as a “luxury pick,” but it became apparent that locking down the tight end position with a dynamic two-way player was a luxury the Lions couldn’t have afforded to pass up.

We see BATFAN at work in the selection of Titus Young; he perfectly fit a need we were barely aware the Lions had. Was he the “best available player”? It didn’t seem so at the time, but quick flip through the players drafted after him reveals many walked into camp as starters and ended the season on the bench. Few made the impact Young did, or have as clear of a long-term future.

But with the Lions’ draft slot lower, and roster better-stocked, than it’s been since I was but a fanling, BATFAN is being twisted around to mean “whoever I like the best.”

Who are the best prospects that could fall to the Lions’ spot at 1.23? What are the Lions’ “needs”? These are murky concepts. Martin Mayhew said last week there are “about 4-7” prospects the Lions would feel ‘very comfortable’ taking there. When I heard that, I knew the one thing the Lions absolutely should not do: draft a player at 1.23.

Let’s look over our (as yet incomplete) Old Mother Hubbard needs list, sorted in my own opinion of most-pressing to least-pressing:

Dominic Raiola's heir at starting OC, possibly backing up or pushing starters at OG.
A CB who can immediately contribute in nickel and dime packages, and push to start in 2013.
Jeff Backus' heir at starting LT, possibly pushing Gosder Cherilus at RT.
A pass-rushing DE to compete with Cliff Avril, Lawrence Jackson, and Willie Young for a long-term starter's role.
An OLB who can stop the run and cover the pass, ready to start in 2013.
A S who can rotate/compete with Amari Spievey.
A developmental TE.

Note that I haven't completed the RB, WR, or QB OMHs yet. Something like "Home-run threat RB to compete with Jahvid Best, Mikel Leshoure, and Kevin Smith" will likely be added, as will "Boom-or-bust developmental quarterback."

This puts our list of positions that have a need at: QB, RB, TE, OT, OG/C, DE, OLB, CB and S . . . basically, the whole team. Outside of QB and probably TE, the Lions could justify spending a late first-round pick on almost any position on the roster—yet, don't NEED to spend a first-round pick anywhere on the roster.

If the Lions get on the clock at 1.23, and have seven players they’d be equally happy with, they must trade down. They’d ideally slide down six slots, add a pick or move up in another round, while still nabbing one of the players they’d have been “very comfortable” taking at their original position.

That sounds great, but the window of opportunity a late-first-round rookie has to contribute to this team is small. Nickel corner, situational runner or situational pass rusher . . . that's about it. If the Lions stand pat at 1.23, it's likely they'll be drafting a developmental player who'll help the team in very specific, limited ways—much like Young’s role last season.

BATFAN, by definition, is a passive strategy. It’s one thing to take the “best available player” when you’re drafting 2nd, or 13th. You can let the draft board come to you. But at the 23rd pick, how other teams draft has a huge say in who the Lions will end up with. If the Lions are going to get a player that has a major impact on how many games the Lions win this year, they must trade up.

Don’t be scared. As I wrote for Bleacher Report, Trading Up is the New Trading Down. Don’t forget, the Lions traded up from the second round into the first for Jahvid Best in 2010—then in 2011, traded up from the third into the second to get Mikel Leshoure. In both cases, the Lions saw a player of great value, the last of a tier, sitting high atop the remaining prospects on their draft board. In both cases, they saw the value of getting an impact player at a position of need, and went and got them.

For years, the going thought has been that the Lions should add value by adding draft picks; by trading down and fleshing out the middle of the roster they’ll get better. But now the strategy must change. It’s no longer about accepting the best of what falls to them, because their needs are so vast almost anything will do. It’s about getting the best possible player to fill their very specific needs.

The Lions cannot risk being left with no immediate-impact prospects, not unless they’ve been compensated for a slide down the draft board. They must aggressively target the player they believe will help them win the most games in 2012, and go get him.

Completely Useless Waste of Time: 2012 Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 09:51:40 PDT

Ahh, the magic of the Completely Useless Waste of Time. The CUWoT, for the uninitiated, is my pet name for the masturbatory practice of predicting YOUR FAVORITE TEAM’S RECORD right after the NFL releases its schedule for the year. Last night, at 7:00 EDT, the NFL released its 2012 schedule.

The Lions have 5 games on national television: Thanksgiving against the Texans, two Sunday Night Football games at San Francisco and at Green Bay, a Saturday night game hosting the Falcons, and a Monday Night Football game at Chicago. This is news.

What is not news is everyone going through the schedule, presuming the Lions to be slightly better than last year, then going through the schedule and picking the Lions to lose to every team perceived to be as good or better than whatever "slightly better than last year" means for the Lions. That, my friends, is a completely useless waste of time.

For starters, unlike previous years, the draft hasn’t even happened yet. All 32 teams are going to fill major roster needs—or not—in a week. To pretend we know the relative strengths of these teams in the spring is goofy enough; to pretend we know the relative strengths of these teams when we don’t even know their starting lineups is criminally insane.

But, "slightly better than last year" means 11-5, and so everybody on the planet is picking 11-5. Last season, everyone was picking between seven and nine wins for the Lions, but I stated that the Lions would make the playoffs as fact on May 27th. Because, duh:

Nick Fairley doesn’t need to be a stud. The Lions don’t need to sign Nnamdi Asomugha, or add more backup tackles. The Bears don’t need to implode (though they will), and the Vikings won’t need to keep backsliding (though they will). The Lions don’t need to “learn how to finish,” they just need Matthew Stafford healthy for 16 games. If they get that, the Lions will win ten of those games, at least—and they’ll make the playoffs.

. . . not to put too fine a point on it, but that was as arrogantly definitive of a paragraph as I’ve written—and that’s saying something—and I batted 1.000.

Don’t forget, the NFL is all about variance. As I wrote about in “Detroit Lions, NFL, and Luck,” the correlation between actual team goodness and wins is about 75%. Per point differential and strength of schedule, the Lions were almost spookily in sync with how good they “really” were in 2011. The 2011 Lions expected W-L, based on point differential, was 9.9-6.1. That the record shook out exactly as I predicted was more or less sheer luck. If the Lions are slightly better in 2012 than they were in 2011, variance alone dictates they could finish anywhere from 8-8 to 15-1.

Don't believe me?

In 2010, the Green Bay Packers scored 24.2 points per game, 10th-best in the NFL. They allowed 15.0 points per game, 2nd-best in the NFL. They outscored opponents by 9.2 points per game, 2nd-best in the NFL. With their point differential, they should have won 12.1 games and lost 3.9. They actually went 10-6, snuck into the playoffs as a six seed, and won the Super Bowl.

In 2011, the Packers scored 35.0 points per game, best in the NFL, but allowed 22.4; 19th. Their differential was again second-best at 12.6 points per game, and their expected W-L was 11.9-4.1. They went 15-1, secured a bye, and promptly lost to the Giants (9-7, expected 7.9-8.1).

This method of calculating expected wins, often called Pythagorean wins, indicates something I'd suspected from the eyeball test: the Packers were slightly “worse” in 2012 than 2011, yet made a dramatic five-game jump in the win column.

In that very Pro Football Reference blog post, they note Pythagorean wins correlate much more strongly to next season’s wins than the season they describe—and since 1978, teams which finish 10-6 with between 9.5 and 10.5 Pythagorean wins (like the 2011 Lions), average 9.3 wins in the following season (like this upcoming season).

Food for thought.

What is my point? I have two left to make: penultimately, going through the schedule and picking wins and losses based on “last year’s record + talent additions – talent subtractions” is a completely useless waste of time, but that’s okay when there’s nothing else going on. Doing it immediately before the draft is madness. Lunacy. I refuse to participate.

I called the Lions going 10-6 last season because I thought they were an above-average team sure to make the playoffs, but no more . . . the scoreboard precisely reflected that level of performance. I wouldn’t have predicted a 5-0 start, and I wouldn’t have predicted a miserable October, but in the end the Lions were who I thought they were.

This year, the Lions will be better. If Stafford and Johnson are healthy for 16 games again, the Lions’ on-field performance will be better in 2012 than 2011, even if the draft yields no immediate starters. I base this entirely on the idea that the development of the younger players will have a greater positive impact than the depreciation of the older players’ negative impact.

How many regular season wins will that “slightly better than last year” performance? Well, between you, me, and Pythagoras it doesn’t really matter anymore. The Lions are a playoff team now. The question is, how many playoff games will they win?

Old Mother Hubbard: The Tight Ends

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:23:58 PDT

The Lions spent the 20th overall pick of the 2009 draft and, indirectly, the eighth overall pick of the 2006 draft on tight ends. That’s a lot of resources to invest in a position that seems to be going the way of the dodo—but offensive coordinator Scott Linehan loves to deploy his two big targets alongside his wideouts, often to great effect.

Let’s check 2010’s Tight End Old Mother Hubbard for where these players left off:

Will Heller is a good rotational blocker, who’s come up with a few nice catches in his time here. He should have a place on the roster for 2011, at least.

Tony Scheffler was signed to a three-year extension right after his great two-game stretch at the beginning of the season; he’ll likely be here through 2013. The player we saw in September was the same player we saw for years in Denver; I can’t believe that guy’s gone for good. Even if he is, “Diminished Scheffler” is a solid receiving TE, who blocks better than you think.

Brandon Pettigrew is young veteran with a huge frame and amazing tools. He’s already an excellent pass blocker, and a very good run blocker. As a receiver, his awful case of the dropsies hurt both his grades and several key Lions drives. Overall, his many penalties did the same. If he can cut down on the mental mistakes, Pettigrew could be one of the best TEs in the game. If not, he’s still a great blocker, and a target defenses must respect.

This is the order in which their PFF grades shook out, which is the opposite of what we’d expect. What about 2011?

The Lions’ top-rated tight end in 2011 was Tony Scheffler. I again quote from last season's report:

Tony Scheffler led all NFL TEs with 25% or more of their teams’ snaps in target-to-snap ratio. Scheffler was thrown to once every 6.3 snaps he played—meaning if he was on the field, he was a major part of the play. He seems to have a very specific niche in the offense, even if it isn’t what we expected.

This season, the pattern continued: Scheffler was targeted once every 7.73 snaps he played, 4th-most in the NFL. He trailed only Jimmy Graham, Evan Moore, and Kellen Winslow; he had the highest yards-per-catch of that group (9th overall) at 13.3. Scheffler also scored six touchdowns; that’s one every 6.83 targets (3rd-best in the NFL) and 52.8 snaps (1st-best in the NFL).

Just from watching, it seemed as though Scheffler was placed on the field the instant the Lions crossed the opponent’s 35, and instructed to go make a touchdown happen. The stats bear this observation out. Inexplicably, Scheffler’s WPA was not calculated by Advanced NFL Stats. He didn’t have a whole mess of reps, but anyone who scores six touchdowns should have had a significant impact on his team’s chances to win. My suspicion is his WPA would be quite high, especially relative to his EPA.

Bottom Line: Tony Scheffler is a weapon. A walking, talking red zone mismatch with ridiculous dance moves. He has a very specific role in this offense and he executes it very well. Expect nothing to change in 2012.

Brandon Pettigrew, on the whole, improved slightly in the eyes of PFF graders, but not relative to other tight ends. In 2010, Pettigrew was marked at –8.0 overall in a season where the TE average was -3.23. In 2011, he graded out at –7.1, and the average was –1.74. This all sounds like it was more of the same, but in fact Pettigrew’s production was completely different:

This is why I do these things. Look at Pettigrew’s 2010 performance: he was a devastating all-around blocker, much better than average in both the ground and air games. He was also a heavily-penalized butterfingers, and as a result his grade was well below-average. This might be slightly harsh. Pettigrew’s athleticism got him open quite often, drawing a lot of passes his way. Sometimes he got his hands on balls other tight ends wouldn’t have been able to . . . but he dropped a lot of the balls he got his hands on.

In 2011, Pettigrew’s performance in the receiving game improved drastically, nearly matching the NFL average. He caught 70.3% of the passes thrown his way, 23rd-best and above the NFL average of 68.5. His pass protection was even improved over 2010, his +3.5 grade 4th-best in the NFL. Unfortunately, he took a big step back in run blocking: from +0.5 to –7.0. Pettigrew’s run-block grade was ranked 40th of 65; well below the 0.0 average.

Unfortunately, Pettigrew's high penalty rate continued: he was flagged 11 times for 117 yards; both of those marks were the worst in the NFL. This is why Pettigrew’s overall mark keeps getting dragged below average: he takes way too many penalties.

Perspective: there’s nothing average about Pettigrew’s production. He caught 83 passes, 3rd-most in the NFL, out of 117 targets—also 3rd-most in the NFL. Those receptions gained 777 yards and 5 touchdowns. Those targets came once every 9.24 snaps, the 13th-most frequent target rate in the game. Unlike Scheffler, a situational specialist targeted once every 7.73 snaps, Pettigrew played almost every down the Lions’ offense did. With 1,081 snaps played, Pettigrew got more reps than anyone in the NFL save Rob Gronkowski.

Bottom Line: Brandon Pettigrew is an enormous part of the Lions’ offense, and will be for the foreseeable future. He grew phenomenally as a pass catcher from 2010 to 2011, apparently at the expense of his run blocking. Pettigrew remains a devastating two-way player, and a truly rare talent. Last year’s assessment remains correct: If he can cut down on the mental mistakes, Pettigrew could be one of the best TEs in the game.

~~Will Heller~~ ~~was released to make cap room, and has yet to be re-signed. He, or another blocking specialist with not-stone hands, will need to be required.~~ Oops, I missed his re-signing.

SHOPPING LIST: ~~A Will Heller-type, preferably of the rookie variety. Or maybe Will Heller~~ Possibly a developmental rookie, but otherwise the Lions are set here.

Calvin Johnson NOT for Madden 13 Cover

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 09:40:46 PDT

It is time for this site to officially weigh in on the greatest controversy of our time: whether, or not, to support Calvin Johnson in EA’s quest for the next victim of the Madden Curse. We hereby advise Detroit Lions faithful to vote NO on Calvin Johnson. The Lions in Winter officially endorses Cam Newton for Madden 13 Cover.

Look, do I believe the player on cover of Madden is doomed to fail? About as much as I believe my opening a Guinness causes the Red Wings to score: for fun, yes totally really it’s completely ironcladly true; for serious no I am not a drooling idiot.

The reality of the Madden cover is the same as the reality of the rest of the NFL Fan/Media hivemind, which is to say it's the same as the Pro Bowl or Fantasy Football or any other award: people think what just happened will keep happening, and what hasn’t happened yet won’t happen. A year ago, Peyton Manning was a "lock" to “shatter” all of Brett Favre’s records, and Titus Young’s drafting was two weeks away from being met with boos.

Calvin Johnson’s proven he’s one of the best players in the NFL, even to the Doubting Crises of the world. There’s no accolade, honor, or award whose bestowment or lack thereof can change that. A Lion making the cover of Madden 13 would mean a dramatic undoing of the Millen Era: a time when no Lion was “hot,” or “cool,” or otherwise hyped by the NFL Fan/Media hivemind . . .

. . . except that this is a fan vote.

The marketing whizzes at EA deciding Megatron, out of all other players in the NFL, would move the most copies of Madden 13, would be one thing. But this is a fan vote. Browns fans got Peyton Hillis on the cover last season, which was super-awesome for them and everything because it’s the only thing Browns fans have left to live for.

The sad truth is, it’s all Madden’s got to live for, too. Why? Because the game that taught my generation how football works has dropped the ball. All the flash and glitz and glamour and play modes and TV presentation and stupid virtual trading card games, what even is that get all the development love, while the gameplay gets faster and faster and stupider and stupider. “Who’s on the cover” is Madden’s primary contribution to the universe.

This year, Cam Newton should be on the cover. He’s the avatar of hope for a team that’s gone through some wretched, hopeless seasons lately. The Panthers are a team on the rise, with a new logo to match their new unis and everything. Let them rejoice in the symbol of their resurrection.

Not long ago, we were as as Panthers fans are. Not long ago, Calvin Johnson on the cover of Madden would have been something I cherished. Savored. Clung to and took succor from. “Golly gosh,” I’d think, “a Detroit Lion won a popularity contest! That had players from other teams in it! The future is now!”

The Lions are a playoff team. I’ll cling to that.

New Detroit Lions Nike Uniforms: Flawless Victory

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 09:40:34 PDT

The horrible specter of the new Lions NIKE uniforms mortified me beyond rational thought. TLiW readers and Twitter followers alike tried to talk me off the ledge, but I was having none of it. NIKE is wont to make post-modern art school disasters out of uniforms, and the Lions just completed a solid, modern update of a timeless look.

Many pointed out that under NFL policy, the Lions couldn’t make significant changes to their uniforms within five years of their 2009 makeover. But if we’ve learned nothing else this offseason, it’s that the league office has no problem ignoring or rewriting its own rules.

town hall meeting, Lions President Tom Lewand quelled my fears by confirming we “wouldn’t see much difference” visually, and that those of us with brand-new Matthew Stafford and Ndamukong Suh jerseys “are safe.” Sure enough, the big reveal came, and . . .

Meet your 2012 Detroit Lions Nike Football Uniform, same as (or remarkably similar to) your 2011 Detroit Lions Reebok Football Uniform.

The Lions opted to take NIKE up on all of their technological innovations, with advanced fabrics cut to fit snugly, “zoned mesh integration,” an articulated shoulder, and the “flywire” collar that keeps jerseys locked down onto pads.

But in terms of the colors, numbers, stripes, and marks—the things that make the Lions uniform the Lions’ uniform—nothing has changed. Depending on reports, the pants are either “shinier silver” or “duller gray”; clearly lighting and the eye of the beholder come into play there.

There are many out there who were hoping the Lions would eliminate the black piping, revert the numbers to their blockier state, and/or tweak the swoopy wordmark, but nope: the look is identical.

Good.

Some don't understand why I take this so seriously. Branding yourself a “Lions fan” is exactly that: branding. You’re taking the team’s identity and wrapping yourself with it. People have often cynically called sports fandom “cheering for laundry” . . . well, when they change the laundry, that’s a big deal.

When you walk down the street in a Lions jersey, you’re signalling to others that you have invested significant time, money, and emotion in supporting the team.You allow, even invite, others to associate your own personal brand with everything the organization does. Every time the Lions win, we bask in the glory. Every time Ndamukong Suh gets a speeding ticket, friends, family, and total strangers bust our balls and lady balls.

Don the Honolulu Blue when the team is doing well, and it reflects well on you. Sport the gear when the team is doing poorly, and you run the risk of lowering yourself in others’ opinion.

This goes a step further. Amongst fellow Lions and NFL fans, jerseys (and other gear) become a matter of taste and fashion. Two years ago, I saw a fellow Lions fan in a supermarket rocking the eye-bleeding silver alternate jersey from the early Millen Era—only instead of the Charles Rogers model in the only picture of that monstrosity I could find, it was an Az-Zahir Hakim:

At a glance, I could tell several things about this person:

They were, at best, naïve about football in 2004.
They were unable to visually differentiate between “awful” and “awesome” in 2004.
They are profoundly clueless about football now.
They either remain ignorant of the difference between “awful” and “awesome,” or
Cannot afford a more respectable jersey, and in either case
They have absolutely no compunction about looking like an idiot in public.

You don't want to be that person. *I* don't want to be that person. I want to be the person who showed up to the 2009 home opener in a brand-new authentic home Matthew Stafford. I also, as I’ve said before, want this look, this Lions uniform, to be instantly identified with this era of Lions success—especially since, as relatively bold of a departure from the past it is, it’s still instantly identifiable as the Detroit Lions’ uniform.

That shouldn't change, and I'm thrilled it didn't.

Mikel Leshoure, Marijuana, Hypocrisy, and the NFL

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:04:21 PDT

If you somehow hadn’t heard, Detroit Lions running back Mikel Leshoure is facing felony marijuana possession charges. This stems from a March 12 traffic stop, when a friend driving an SUV rented by Leshoure was pulled over. Leshoure, having been cited for possession earlier in the month, reportedly tried to eat the small amount of marijuana in his possession.

Yes, like in “Super Troopers.” The snozzberries taste like snozzberries:

Deep breath.

In the wake of discovering a professional athlete’s use of marijuana, American pop culture reacts in two ways: Funyuns jokes, and rage-fueled dismissal. Either Leshoure is now a punchline, an idiot, or a combination of the two; obviously the Lions must make running back a top draft need because Leshoure’s career is over.

If you didn’t know, Leshoure was born in Dwight Correctional Center, a Illinois prison where his mother served time for multiple drug convictions. His father also did time for selling drugs, and wasn’t often around. Leshoure’s college career and entrance to the NFL is the result of incredible will, desire and effort. He overcame more adversity than then vast majority of us will ever face.

If you need proof of how much his NFL career means to him, Leshoure had the Lions’ name and logo, along with the date he was drafted, tattooed onto his forearm. He gets reminded of how far he’s come dozens of times a day.

So, how could he use that arm to smoke weed?

First, perspective. As Dave Birkett of the Freep quoted Baroda-Lake township police chief Gary Ruhl saying, he had “just enough for personal use.” This isn’t a Nate Newton situation, with enormous quantities intended for distribution—or a Charles Rogers situation, driving while intoxicated. Leshoure simply had it on him, and tried to dispose of it rather than be caught a second time in a month.

But why did he have it, again? “For personal use.” Leshoure must currently smoke marijuana on a semi-regular basis. This is a problem for two reasons: 1) without a valid MMA Patient Registry Card marijuana possession and use is against Michigan law, and 2) using drugs illegally violates the terms of his NFL employment, exposing him to punishment under those terms.

The way Rogers was chewed up and spit out by the NFL disturbed me greatly. I wrote a piece about Rogers’ last attempted comeback, where I wondered how NFL fans, media, and coaches could so easily write him off as a player and human being. Of course, Rogers relapsed several times after that, and is currently wanted by authorities. His drug addictions clearly consumed him.

However, many people—including NFL players—have had productive careers despite using marijuana. Former Ravens running back Ricky Williams rushed for 7,097 of his 10,009 career yards before multiple marijuana-related suspensions. Williams has since replaced drugs with spiritual enlightenment. If Leshoure can match that production, the Lions will be ecstatic.

A major concern for LeShoure is downtime. He was a starter for only one year in college, and is most of a full year without so much as practicing. With plenty of money in his pocket (for the first time in his life), and little to do but keep in shape, he’s got plenty of opportunity to make bad decisions—worse, he’s got few people close to him who can help him stay on the right track.

A second major concern is his family history. Obviously both his parents have been incarcerated on drug charges; addiction often runs in families. However, at the time of his drafting, David Haugh of the the Chicago Tribune reported LeShoure’s mother had been clean and sober for 15 years. Perhaps she’s the perfect person to help him put drugs aside.

All of this ignores a truth about life in the NFL: narcotic painkillers enable the supersized, super-fast action football fans are hooked on. The violent collisions of today’s massive athletes cause chronic pains and injuries that can only be blunted with heavy drugs.

In an ESPN Outside the Lines report, they quoted a Washington University study showing that NFL players are four times as likely to abuse opioid painkillers as the general population. 71 percent of NFL retirees surveyed admitted abusing painkillers during their playing days. Of those, 63 percent admitted scoring some of their pills from “nonmedical sources.”

In that piece, former NFL offensive lineman Kyle Turley described team assistants handing narcotic painkillers out like candy. It’s a wonder we don’t hear more stories like former NFL quarterback Ryan Leaf’s: he’s been arrested twice in recent weeks for breaking into homes and stealing painkillers.

There's been a recent shift in the way NFL teams handle painkillers; former Saints Security Director Geoffrey Santini was fired for sneaking pills out of the team’s locked medical storage. But as the ESPN report said, most players hooked on narcotics aren’t getting them through official sources anyway.

So before we cast aspersions on Mikel LeShoure for using narcotic drugs, let’s keep in mind that the difference between him and many of his teammates is as thin as the thin blue line—or perhaps, a MMA Patient Registry Card. Don’t think his lapse in judgment means he’s a lackadaisical drug addict who’ll never be productive in the NFL . . . or that many productive football players aren’t drug addicts, too.

Relax, Lions Fans. The NFL Draft is Fun Again

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 11:08:06 PDT

In my formative years, I had an annual NFL Draft routine. I’d have my Sports Illustrated draft preview issue, Friday’s Detroit Free Press, and a spiral-bound notebook. My targets would be dog-eared and circled, and I’d snuggle in to my blue beanbag chair with a two-liter of Cherry Coke and my insulated Lions mug.

I'd wake up early, tune in to ESPN, and jack in to the Draft and all its glory. I always wrote down every pick through the first round, scratching the draftees off my target list, living and dying with every draft card preceding the Lions’ pick. I can still feel the hot, bitter tears on my cheeks from when the Vikings—the damned VIKINGS—took Dewayne Washington just in front of Detroit.

Back then, the draft was a surprise, a mystery, a carnival of anticipation. Following the draft that maniacally was rare to begin with, and who could anticipate the capricious whims of Wayne Fontes? The needs on the field were legion, even when the Fontes teams were at their best, and his picks rarely correlated with them anyway.

During the Millen years, the drafts actually made sense. He laid the foundation with his first three picks: Jeff Backus, Dominic Raiola, Shaun Rogers. In subsequent drafts, he added a “franchise quarterback” and surrounded him with elite weapons: Charles Rogers, Roy Williams, Kevin Jones.

Indeed, Millen’s philosophy was consistent: he loved athletes. He loved speed and talent and elite natural ability; he drafted for that on both sides of the ball. Boss Bailey, Kalimba Edwards, Tedy Lehman, Ernie Sims, Calvin Johnson. With a few exceptions, the picks made sense to fans and media alike. Just because the picks overwhelmingly failed, and Millen’s teams were historically bad, doesn’t mean Millen didn’t get great draft grades throughout his tenure.

One of my deeper regrets is not starting this blog earlier; I wrote hundreds of "blog posts" that have disappeared into the archives of forums I haunted in the Aughties. On the other hand, folks today would be able to dredge up deeply embarrassing posts from that era, brimming with conviction about what prospects the Lions should draft, and what would become of the ones they’d drafted.

During the Millen era, draft season was less fun and more important. Since the fortunes of the “new Lions” so were entwined with the “real football man” at the helm, each pick was a glimpse into the glorious future yet to come. Even as the glorious future rounded the bend and became a disastrous present, the draft was our only hope for escape. Outside of a few major free agents who went bust, Millen never made an concerted effort to improve the roster. Going into the last few Millen drafts fans screamed at each other, “WE MUST GET FIVE IMMEDIATE STARTERS OUT OF THIS DRAFT!” which should have tipped us off because that’s ridiculous.

Now, the Lions will return 21 of 22 starters from a young playoff team. In key positions, depth is plentiful. The few real needs are obvious, but we understand that the Lions understand what they are—and further, we understand that the Lions are smarter than to draft to fill needs. They draft great young players, or players with the potential to be great. That’s it.

During the Lions’ town hall meeting, Schwartz told a hilarious story:

“Last year we drafted Nick Fairley, Mikel Leshoure, and Titus Young—three great young players who are going to be a big part of what we do for a long time—and every press conference after, we’d get up on stage and the media would be like [WTF SHRUGGING] ‘Really? Really?! Don’t you guys know you need a corner?’ We were like ‘. . . well, would you feel better if we drafted a crappy corner?’”

The amount of faith and confidence I have in this leadership is almost boundless. I stare at today’s Lions draftniks with a mix of deep respect and profound confusion: why on Earth are you building out a seven-round “draft board” for a team that is schooling the rest of the planet on talent evaluation?

Last year's pick of Titus Young was a gift, a tremendous surprise. I’d researched late-round receivers, but Young was completely off my radar. A wideout I’d never heard of, with sub-six-foot size, from a mid-major? It threw me for a loop—but then I did Young’s Meet the Cubs, and saw a world of potential. Then he got on the field and blew me away.

This year’s draft has that old magical feel for me. The Lions draft too low to have a definite grasp on who’ll be available, and there are plenty of good prospects who’ll fit a need, whether or not they’ll fit whatever your personal opinion of what the need is. When the Lions turn their card in, we’ll all get to find out who the newest great young piece of this team will be. I can't wait.

Now where the hell is my beanbag?

Meet Jacob Lacey, new Detroit Lions Cornerback

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 07:20:59 PDT

The Lions secured the services of all of their major free agents, and extended Calvin Johnson until the sun goes dark. As I wrote last week, this slams the revolving free agency door shut: the Lions won’t be losing any of their key young veterans for quite some time.

The flip side of this is obvious: they won't be bringing in anyone else's key young veterans, either. The Lions have only acquired one new free agent who figures to make any impact at all, and that's former Colts cornerback Jacob Lacey.

What are we getting? What can we expect? How does Lacey stack up to the existing Lions cornerbacks? Time to mash up two of our favorite features: Meet the Cubs and Old Mother Hubbard.

Jacob Lacey was a three-star Rivals prospect out of Garland, Texas. A 5’-10,” 155-pound kid with decent speed and some pop in his shoulder, Lacey had several Big XII and Big Ten offers. Lacey initially committed to Kansas, but flipped to Oklahoma State. Lacey played in 10 games as a freshman, and started all 13 games his sophomore year—as he would his junior and senior years as well.

Per College Football Reference, Lacey’s junior year was extremely impressive: 63 tackles, 48 of them solo, with 5 interceptions (one returned for a score) and 14 passes defensed. He had 61 tackles in senior year, 52 solo, and though he only had 2 picks he still broke up 16 passes.

Lacey's lack of game-breaking ball skills, as well as his thin frame (his combine weight was 177 pounds), dropped him out of draft consideration. Most sites projected him as a free agent, but also noted his upside (SI.com graded Lacey at 3.00, a “first-year contributor” in their system).

Contribute immediately, he did: after signing with the Colts and making the initial 53-man roster, Lacey got on the field almost immediately, and started Week 5 of his rookie year. After the subsequent bye, Lacey picked off Sam Bradford, took it back to the house, and drew a celebration flag all in one go . . . my kind of player. He finished 2010 with 3 interceptions and 7 passes defensed in sixteen games (nine starts).

Lacey was picked on, too; Mike Vick and Carson Palmer completed a combined 10-of-12 against him for 101 yards and a score over consecutive weeks. But for an undrafted free agent rookie, stepping in and being a major contributor to a team’s weakest unit is impressive.

As for 2011? Well . . .

As we saw in the cornerback Old Mother Hubbard, Darrelle Revis was the best corner on the planet last season and nobody was close. Aaron Berry earned the season’s best PFF grade, barely eclipsing Chris Houston who played hurt at the tail end of the season (note that Houston’s positive plays actually helped the Lions win more than Revis’s did the Jets).

After Berry and Houston’s solidly above-average performances, Alphonso Smith turned in the most spectacularly boom-or-bust mediocre season ever. It’s at this performance level, with a much improved level of consistency, that Lacey’s 2011 campaign came in.

Lacey played 712 snaps, three times as many as Smith, almost twice as many as Berry, and about a hundred fewer than Houston. He didn’t have much statistically in either direction: just 2 TDs allowed, but only 1 interception and 3 passes defensed. At 34 targets per TD allowed, he was above the NFL average, and ranked 30th out of 109 qualifying corners. But then, he also allowed 73.5% of passes targeted his way to be caught, which was the eighth-worst percentage in the NFL.

This is probably why Colts fans were not a huge fan of Lacey's work last season, and also likely why Lacey was available for the Lions to sign. But his +EPA of 31.7 and +WPA of 0.58 back up the statistical production: he didn’t make a lot of big plays, but he made them in big spots—and his PFF coverage grade of -4.8 coverage indicates he didn’t allow that many of them, either. Plus, his run grade was an excellent +3.1, 22nd-best of 109 in the NFL.

But that doesn’t tell the whole story, either. Nate Dunlevy of Colts Authority and Bleacher Report pointed out this ESPN story about Lacey’s rebound after defensive coordinator Larry Coyer was fired. The bounce in the PFF grades is Backusian:

Dunlevy also went to the tape himself to break down Lacey’s performance against the Chiefs in that fateful Week 5 game you see in red above. Lacey had a rough day at the office, but not nearly as bad as Colts fans came away thinking.

Bottom Line: Jacob Lacey is about as good as Alphonso Smith, trading the gambling risk/reward for consistency and much improved play against the run. Lacey should have a good look at unseating Smith for playing time in nickel/dime situations; if he can continue developing as he did at the end of the year he could push Berry for time at the #2 spot.

The 4th annual Detroit Lions Town Hall Meeting

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 14:36:07 PDT

“In 20 years in the NFL, that Monday Night Football game was the best football atmosphere I’ve ever been a part of.” That’s what Jim Schwartz told me and over 700 fellow Lions fans Monday night—at least I’m pretty sure that’s what he said, because the last few words were nearly drowned out with applause.

I was lucky enough to be present at the fourth annual Season Ticket Holder Town Hall Meeting. The event was exactly as you see it pictured above: a panel of Tom Lewand, Martin Mayhew and Jim Schwartz, moderated by Lions radio voice Dan Miller. The entire event consisted of the three men running the Lions talking about running the Lions. It was outstanding.

My phone couldn't capture it, but Ford Field at twilight had a surprisingly intimate feel. The simple nature of the event, the mostly-empty stadium, and the mood lighting contrasted sharply with every other experience I’d ever had at the venue. Men in blazers and slacks rubbed elbows with jersey-clad fans carrying beers from the single open concession stand. The few staff present were extremely friendly and welcoming.

As I began to Tweet my early impressions, a Lions executive politely asked me to stop. The event was a special privilege for season-ticket holders; the team wanted those present to have a valuable experience, one you couldn’t get from skimming Twitter or YouTube. I appreciated and respected this request.

The three men took a turn making opening remarks, and the overwhelming message was one of gratitude to the fans. Tom Lewand thanked the fans for coming out to the event, but more strongly thanked fans for coming out in the fall and “creating what we think is the best home-field advantage in the NFL.” That sounds like a rock band professing every single city on their tour is the best crowd in the world, but Lewand insisted he was sincere.

“It’s not a cliché,” he said, “when we say you’re the best fans in the NFL.” Jim Schwartz backed Lewand up. “You actually affect the the game on the field,” he said. The energy Lions fans release into Ford Field helps drive the players to better performances—and, as we know, can disrupt the opponent.

I’ve waxed philosophical about this before. It’s the fan’s ultimate thrill: to literally be able to help your team win. To actually tilt the playing field in your team’s favor. To change the final score, even the game’s final outcome, with nothing but the strength of your passion.

"Don't underestimate the effect you have on the networks, either," Lewand said. "I had more than a few people at the NFL and NBC say, 'We heard about that Monday Night game in Detroit. We want some of that.'" It’s a heady thing to hear the President of your team tell you to your face you’re raising the Lions’ national profile with your cheering.

The real headline out of all of this wasn’t the latest news on the draft or free agency; Mayhew is ludicrously close-lipped about such things. When asked about the re-signing of Jeff Backus, Mayhew said “Well, I don’t like to announce things until they’re officially official, but I’ll say you’re probably right” that Backus had been re-inked—despite Lewand and Schwartz openly discussing Backus’s return on either side of him.

Yet, Mayhew spoke openly about “getting Tully’s contract done,” a phrase which smacked of inevitability—and indeed, as I wrote this, PFT reported the Lions inked Tulloch to a five-year deal. When asked to talk about his philosophy of what positions should be taken in what round of the draft, Mayhew glibly demurred. “Our philosophy is not to talk about what positions we’ll be taking in the draft,” cueing a round of laughter.

The real takeaway from the Town Hall meeting was the class of the organization, and the quality of its leaders. Time and again, they stressed doing things the right way, working hard, trusting in each other and their collaborative process, and never resting on their laurels. “We approach it day by day,” Lewand said. “Get better every day. Tackle the mission of that day. Maybe you look back at the end of the month and say ‘that was a good month,’ or at the end of the year say ‘that was a good year,’ but we can’t get caught up in some grandiose goal, or listen to the kudos, or especially read the press clippings."

Schwartz built on Lewand's comments: "Just because we don't talk about playoffs and Super Bowls doesn't mean those aren't our goals. In our experience, the teams that do the most talking about things like that aren't there at the end." He stressed that that emphasis carries through to the players: "We're fortunate that our best players are also our hardest-working players," he said.

Lewand echoed that with a story: “When Calvin was in to sign his contract, he met with the press, and the first words out of his mouth were, 'I'm just looking forward to getting back to work.' That wasn't rehearsed or prepared. He'd just signed a contract that will set him, his children, his children's children, his—” “—neighbors,” Schwartz interjected, “—many future generations of Johnsons up for life, but his focus was getting back to work.” Lewand said. “It was said from a place of authenticity. It was genuine.”

Lewand went on to emphasize how players like Calvin have changed the culture in Detroit. After praising the leadership of veterans like Backus and Kyle Vanden Bosch, Lewand said “You have a lot of young guys we drafted beginning to come into leadership roles and have expectations of winning,” noting the players that join the Lions now are entering a locker room full of players acquired by the current regime, all pulling in the same direction.

Jim Schwartz talked about the community pride the Lions’ success has inspired. “You see people wearing Lions hats at the gas stations now. One of the first things my wife did when we moved here was to go to a sporting goods store. The manager told her, ‘Ma’am, we don’t carry that stuff.’” Now, you see Honolulu Blue everywhere.

The subject of ticket prices was brought up. Lewand thought intensely as he answered the question. "I want to say this: we respect the investment you make in us." Lewand explained the Lions' ticket and concession prices are in the bottom half of the NFL—and that is a hard cap the staff works under at the explicit mandate of the Fords themselves.

I left Ford Field brimming with pride. I’m absolutely convinced that the Lions are being run by the right people; that if anyone can bring a championship to Detroit, it’s these three men. They have, against the odds, retained every key coach and player that made last year a success—and they’ll continue to add talent through the offseason. This team is primed to be one of the NFL’s best, now and for years to come.

Lions Slam the Revolving Door of Free Agency

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 09:51:24 PDT

When Martin Mayhew and Tom Lewand took over, they had almost no young talent on the roster. That’s the idea behind the Old Mother Hubbard posts: when they got there, the cupboard was bare. No longer.

The Lions are a playoff team, and an incredibly young one at that. The foundation of this team is No. 9, Matthew Stafford, and his connection with Calvin Johnson—who, thanks to the richest total contract in NFL history, will be a Lion through the end of the decade.

I can't overstate the significance of this.

I remember well the advent of free agency, the splash Reggie White made by going from Philadelphia to the tiny outpost of Green Bay, and the pillaging of the league the 49ers and Cowboys did throughout the 90s.

From the beginning, free agency has been a revolving door for the Lions: Jerry Ball out, Pat Swilling in; Chris Spielman out, Pepper Johnson in; Jeff Hartings out, Brenden Stai in. Time and time again, the Lions lost foundational pieces and replaced them with designer-impostor stopgaps. Even when they drafted well, the Lions seemed all too content to let good players walk out the door. The Old Lions would have let Calvin walk, and signed Josh Morgan to replace him.

Calvin Johnson is not just a good player, he’s a great one—and not only is he a good person, he’s a great one. Despite the mind-boggling figure, his teammates took to Twitter en masse to declare he earned every dollar (and then some) with his attitude and work ethic. That combination of talent and character is breathtakingly rare—and he has chosen to spend the best years of his career as a Detroit Lion. As Justin Durant wrote at MetroTimes, it was a good day for anyone connected to the Lions.

The Lions have also re-signed Jeff Backus to a two-year deal, inked Shaun Hill to another two-year contract, and brought back veteran safety/special-teamer Erik Coleman. As Anwar Richardson reports, the last major free agent the Lions are looking to add is Stephen Tulloch.

But wait. Don’t I always say that standing pat is losing ground? Don’t I always say that A + B = C doesn’t work in the NFL? That each season is it’s own special potion, an alchemy experiment that can go wildly wrong or wildly right, even with similar ingredients?

Yup, I sure do. But letting Jeff Backus walk and signing Marcus McNeill, or swapping Stephen Tulloch for David Hawthorne, would be classic Old Lions moves. Moving from a sure thing who knows the system to someone new who doesn’t is a risk in and of itself; McNeill and Hawthorne are clear and obvious downgrades from Backus and Tulloch.

In the beginning, the cupboard was so bare the Lions cycled 123 different players on and off the roster in that first contract year. They were desperately clawing to get better at any spot on the roster, even if it was just the 53rd over and over and over. They viewed 1st waiver wire priority as a major tool to improve the roster. Can you imagine any street free agent improving the Lions now?

Let me quote what I said in the final Watchtower of the 2011 season:

For the first time in a long time, it’s truly possible for the Lions to regress. Building blocks of the offense and defense may need to be replaced. Jeff Backus, Cliff Avril, and Stephen Tulloch are all major contributors who may or may not be back, and they only start the list. For the first time since Schwartz was hired, this offseason will not be unidirectional.

Still, what’s important here is that the core, the fundamental truth, the identity of this team will not change. Jim Schwartz is the head coach, Matthew Stafford is the quarterback, Calvin Johnson leads a legion of viable targets, and the defensive line is stacked. That, along with all the other factors, is good enough to get the Lions to the playoffs—and that will be true in 2012 as well.

Can Schwartz, Mayhew, Lewand and company brew a more potent batch of Lions in 2012? Can they add just the right ingredients, and hold back what might spoil the brew? Can they put it over just the right amount of heat so, as the Saints are doing now, it peaks in strength at the perfect time? We’ll see.

We’re seeing right now: not only are the Lions drafting and develop long-term starters, they’re actually paying to keep them here long-term. Slamming the revolving free-agency door shut is crucial to becoming a perennial contender.

If the Lions ink Tulloch to a multi-year deal, and draft as well as they always do, this team is going to be better in 2012 than they were in 2011—and better over the next five years then they’ve been in fifty.

Detroit Lions Town Hall Meeting: Live Tweeting

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 16:03:11 PDT

I’m going to be present at the Lions’ annual Town Hall Meeting for season-ticket holders. I’ll be live Tweeting the event from my account @lionsinwinter,

EDIT: No, I won't. The Lions are asking me not to live-Tweet. I'll respect their wishes.

obviously I’ll be posting about it here after the fact. If you have any questions for the bigwigs, comment on this post and I’ll see what I can do.

I'm also working on a post about the flurry of re-signings, and why the grass is greener on THIS side; should be up by lunchtime.

Also, I'd encourage you to read my latest column on Bleacher Report, Why the NFL Must Embrace Openly Gay Players.

Back in a bit.

NFL Free Agency: The Detroit Lions Bunker In

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 11:03:23 PDT

Today at 4:00 pm, NFL free agency begins. For the first time in my memory, there will be no 12:02 am faxes to the league office, or midnight gift-bearing showings-up at houses. Free agency will begin in an orderly fashion, just as office workers everywhere would begin looking for football news on the Internet anyway.

Yesterday a lot of contract-y things happened, the upshot of which is Tom Lewand got the Lions under the cap, as he always does. Unfortunately, he did not get them under enough to sign Cliff Avril or Stephen Tulloch to a long-term deal before the deadline.

Here is the situation with Tully: last offseason, he thought his body of work merited a long-term deal, and it did. But he and the Lions were unable to come to terms, so both sides agreed to a one-year deal. This is known as a “prove it” deal: sign a contract, prove you’re worth big money, then get that big-money deal from whoever’s offering it.

Tulloch did his part; he proved it. As the Old Mother Hubbard showed, Tully was one of the best—and most valuable—inside linebackers in the game in 2011. His performance removes all doubt: he is worth the big money he’s sought for years.

Free agency allows a player to earn his market worth. The problem for Stephen Tulloch is, the market doesn’t think he’s worth a whole lot. As Anwar Richardson pointed out, Tulloch is not being targeted by the teams with big money to spend and a hole at MLB. Whether that’s because he doesn’t fit their system, they like someone better, they don’t think they can afford him, the devaluing of the MLB position in a “base nickel” NFL, or what, I couldn’t tell you.

The upshot of it is, there is no team who needs Stephen Tulloch more than the Detroit Lions—so salary cap notwithstanding, there will be no team willing to pay more than the Detroit Lions.

This is all a thought experiment on my part; no hard news or even rumor fuels it. But the vibe I’m picking up is that once again, Tulloch will need the Lions to need him just as much as they indeed need him . . . but first, he has to know for sure; he has to test the market. That’s fine. If and when he comes back, it will be for good.

Calvin Johnson has been the straw that stirs the Lions’ drink for quite some time, and he is once again today. If he the Lions re-sign him to a long-term deal, it could greatly increase breathing room against the cap—and long-term deals with Tulloch and Cliff Avril become much easier to reach. If not, the Lions can retain Avril at his tendered salary—but Tulloch and the Lions will be in limbo for quite a while.

Jeff Backus is also an unrestricted free agent, both both sides seem exclusively intent on Backus returning. As I said on Twitter, it’s so not even a thing that they’re not even talking about it. In fact, I wonder if the tacit plan is to simply wait until the last of the CJ/Avril/Tulloch/Eric Wright dominoes has fallen and then get Backus some money however they can.

I don’t see the Lions as players for signing other teams’ free agents. The Lions’ roster has matured; there are only a few select roster spots available on either side of the ball. Further, the lack of cap money means they can’t sign starters—and given the choice, I’m sure the Lions prefer to draft their backups.

So don't plan on any excitement today, Lions fans. The offseason is no longer our Super Bowl; the Super Bowl is our Super Bowl. The Lions need to re-sign their guys as best they can, then draft as wisely as they always do.

. . . now, watch them go sign Mario Williams.

Old Mother Hubbard: The Offensive Tackles

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 08:44:05 PDT

Ah, the offensive tackles. Ever the source of Lions fan frustration, ever the source of Lions fan controversy, ever the source of Lions blogger pageviews. Last season’s Old Mother Hubbarding of the offensive tackles was a pleasant surprise; it concluded that the only need at the position was a possible upgrade over Jason Fox as the Backus’ heir apparent.

Here's what last year's bottom line was for each of the Lions tackles who saw time this year:

Jeff Backus, for the second-straight year, has turned in a solidly-above-average performance at left tackle. His ten-year consecutive games streak is an amazing accomplishment, and he’s playing the best football of his life. The Lions will be fine with him for 2011—but how much tread is left on those tires?

Gosder Cherilus took a huge step forward in 2010—specifically, in Week 4 of 2010. I can’t explain what turned the lightswitch on, but if he recovers from his knee injury and picks up where he left off, Cherlius will be a top ten RT in 2011 and beyond. That’s a big “If,” though.

By only allowing one sack in 271 snaps, Corey Hilliard flashed performance we had no idea was there. He played only better than you’d expect from a 2007 sixth-rounder with very, very few snaps of live action—but you wouldn’t expect much at all, and Hillard was far short of revelatory. I expect him to be in the mix as a backup for 2011, but Hilliard does not appear to be a long-term answer. He is, however, only 25.

This season will be similar, but not the same:

The green line is Jason Peters, Philadelphia’s bookend LT. With the third-best pass block grade (+14.9), second-best run block grade (+10.5), and third-best screen block grade (+2.5), Peters was an outstandingly balanced all-around tackle. With seven flags thrown his way (one declined/offset), he took a very small penalty ding.

Bringing up the rear is the Packers' Marshall Newhouse. A -40.6 overall, the 2010 5th-round pick was as bad against the pass (-21.3) as he was against the run (-17.4). His performance was marked by the worst single-game grade I've ever seen: a -12.4 against Jason Pierre-Paul and the New York Giants.

Jeff Backus was slightly off his 2010 pace, in absolute terms. His -2.0 overall, –0.8 pass block, and –2.5 penalty grades are just below last year’s marks (+1.4, –0.3, +2.5). However, his +0.3 run block, and +1.0 screen block grades are up from last season. The averages, however, are higher; Backus was not as far above average this season as he was last season.

. . . but he is still above average. Backus was the 17th-best left tackle to start most of his teams’ games, and his –2.0 overall is well above the NFL average of –6.0. His –0.8 pass blocking, it won’t surprise, is well below the +4.0 NFL average, but his screen block and run block grades (+1.0, +.03) are right in line with the NFL mean (+0.6, +0.7). He was penalized 11 times, tied for 4th-worst in the NFL . . . though four of those flags were offset or declined.

Statisically, Backus allowed a sack, pressure, or hit once every 24.0 snaps. That ranks him 48th of 76 NFL tackes, below the average of 36.6. As with the other OL positions, we must note that the Lions had the 4th-most offensive snaps and passed more often than any other team, so these results are skewed a little bit—but they reinforce the idea that Backus’s pass-blocking is the weak link in his game.

Update: the good folks at Pro Football Focus encouraged me to, as I almost always do but somehow forgot this time, take a look at Backus' game-by-game breakdown and OH MY GOODNESS:

I knew Backus started the season playing hurt, but didn't seem too far off his career norm. What I missed was his incredible ramp-up over the last half of the year (though I did see how Backus shut down the Saints' Will Smith in Week 16). Many thanks to the PFF staff for pointing this out

Bottom Line: Jeff Backus is an above-average starting left tackle. He is not dominant, but when healthy has played the best football of his life over the last two seasons. He hasn’t missed a start in eleven seasons, which is simultaneously incredible and troubling; how long can he maintain this level of performance? He is an unrestricted free agent, though both sides have publicly confirmed they intend to re-up.

After getting a wake-up call last season, Gosder Cherilus flipped a switch from “horrible” to “amazing.” His first three grades of 2010 were –3.0 or worse; after that he was positive for the remainder of the 2010 season . . . until he broke his knee in Week 13.

The story of Gosder Cherilus’s knee is the great untold story of the Lions’ 2011 season. Late in 2010, Cherilus blew out his knee. On December 17, 2010, Cherilus underwent microfracture surgery, a procedure that typically requires a full year of recovery (and until very recently, possibly a career-ender). March 24, 2011, the Lions anticipated Cherilus being ready for a full schedule of 2011 work, albeit with possibly-permanent pain in the knee.

Gosder started the first game, but committed a brutal late-game penalty against Tampa Bay, triggering a benching for Week 2. Corey Hilliard struggled, so Cherilus got the start in Week 3, at Minnesota. Cherilus was quickly overwhelmed, going back to the bench after just six snaps.. The Grandmaster was not pleased. Quoth Schwartz

We need to improve that position. ... One guy not getting it done on the offensive line makes the whole group look bad.

Unfortunately, Corey Hilliard didn’t get it done either, and Cherilus returned to the starting lineup at Dallas, where he played every snap and graded out at an impressive +1.5. For the remainder of the season he was inconsistent, mostly neutral with two peaks (+3.4 and +2.2 at Denver and Green Bay) and one nasty valley: -6.5 against Minnesota.

From this, we conclude Gosder just can’t block guys in purple.

Overall, Gosder the Gozerian graded out at –6.7, ranked 38th out of 76 tackles in the NFL. In pass blocking, he was ranked an eyelash below Jeff Backus, at –0.9. In run blocking, he was far worse at –7.5. For a player we thing of as a huge angry masher, his run blocking ranked him 61st of 76; that’s flatly awful.

You might want to sit down for this.

After the two cruical penalties in Week 1, Gosder was flagged just two more times all season. Jeff Backus had more penalties declined or offset than Gosder had called on him! Only Marc Colombo and D'Brickashaw Ferguson played as many snaps as Gosder and had fewer penalties. That's saying something.

Bottom Line: Gosder Cherilus was an average starting/rotational tackle in 2011, subpar in pass protection and poor against the run. But he was solid in the screen game—and, after a boneheaded Week 1, displayed gentlemanly play worth of the Lady Byng. Still, more questions than answers: how badly was his knee hurting him? Where did the consistency go? Why can’t he block guys in purple?

After an excellent performance in relief of Cherilus last season, Corey Hillard dramatically regressed to the mean. With just 147 snaps, Hilliard did not meet Pro Football Focus’s minimum cutoff. However, he got painted with a –6.8 grade’s worth of red in that time; a hair lower than Gosder Cherilus (who had seven times as many snaps)!

Hilliard's main problem was pass protection. He allowed a sack, hit, or pressure an average of once every 21.0 snaps; his pass block grade was -3.0. His -4.2 run block grade was slightly better than Gosder's—but again, he accumulated all that negativity on just a few reps. Any notion of Hilliard as a long term swing/rotational/starting tackle has to be shelved for the time being.

Bottom Line: Corey Hilliard had several opportunities in the first three games to overtake Gosder Cherilus, but he couldn’t come close to his 2010 performance. He’ll have to fight Jason Fox, Johnny Culbreath, and any theoretical draftees in camp for a chance at another auditiones.

SHOPPING LIST: Jeff Backus is solid at left tackle, but the Lions must find, and begin grooming, his replacement. Gosder Cherilus remains a mediocre, inconsistent right tackle with maddening potential. The Lions like Jason Fox, but he must get healthy, improve his conditioning, and do it on the field before the Lions name him Backus’s heir, or even Cherilus’s.

Old Mother Hubbard: The Offensive Guards

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 07:29:23 PDT

Last year’s offensive guard Old Mother Hubbard was sobering indeed. The Lions had stolen a productive young starter from Seattle in Rob Sims, and Stephen Peterman was coming off an outstanding 2009. In 2010 they were pretty good and horrible, respectively. Worst of all, the bad performances fueled each other: Raiola does best with help from the guards in the run game, but when the guards are struggling there’s no hope.

Let’s look at last years’ bottom line for each of them:

Rob Sims is an above-average starter just entering his prime. If it weren’t for an odd midseason slump, Sims would have graded out amongst the best in the NFL. He’s locked up until 2014, and should provide stability at the spot for the first time in a very, very long time.

Stephen Peterman turned in incredibly consistent, strongly positive grades in 2009, and was clearly hampered by a laundry list of dings this season. We can reasonably expect a major bounceback in 2011—and, like Sims, he is under contract through 2014.

2011’s performance chart looks much, much, much better:

At the top of the list is Philadelphia’s Evan Mathis. At +34.6 overall, he was in a class by himself. His run block grade was a breathtaking +20.4, more than three times as high as the next-best effort. His pass blocking wasn’t too shabby either; at +10.6 he was the 9th-highest rated guard out of 77. Screen blocking has very little variance, but Evans was in a seven-way tie for 4th place at +2.0.

At the rear, ranked 77th, we have Jacksonville’s Will Rackley. –12.7 run block, –18.9 pass block, –3.6 penalty, –35.7 overall. Brutal.

The Lions guards are much closer to the former than the latter.

Rob Sims was the 14th-highest graded guard in football, and the eighth-highest graded left guard. Most of that comes from his outstanding +11.1 pass block grade, tied for seventh-best in the NFL (second-best amongst left guards). With three assessed penalties on 1,143 snaps, his +2.1 penalty grade was an asset, too.

Now the bad news: Sims earned a –6.5 in run blocking, and had a vicious run of four negative grades from Week 3 to Week 7. The run-block mark isn’t as bad as it looks; the NFL average is –4.3. But Sims’ –4.9, –1.3, –4.3, and –1.4 for Weeks 3, 5, 6, and 7 respectively were his only negative grades of the year. I’m not even excluding neutral/weakly negative grades, as I usually do: those four awful games were his only not-positive grades all year.

What's even weirder, this slump mirrors Sims' performance from 2010: all but one of his negative grades came in five consecutive games from Week 6 to Week 11. I can’t explain either swoon, but when he’s not in the midst of one Sims is absolutely rock-solid, especially against the pass.

Statistically, Sims allowed one sack, eight QB hits, and 11 pressures over 1,143 snaps. That's one every 57.2, 20th-best in the NFL and above the league average of 50.9. However, as I noted with Raiola, the Lions ran the fourth-most offensive plays in the NFL and passed on 63% of those plays—the most frequent pass rate in football.

So far, Bleacher Report’s Matt Miller and staff have only completed the analysis of the right guards; I can’t give you Sims’ scouting profile (though I will update this piece when their piece goes live). Update: here’s the B/R 1000 scouting report on Rob Sims; he’s ranked the 12th-best left guard in the NFL.

Bottom line: Rob Sims is one of the 10 best left guards in the NFL, and in the top 15 overall. He is an exceptional pass-blocker, and keeps his nose clean. He is subpar in the run game, and seems to have a several-game stretch of poor form every season. But outside of those midseason swoons, he’s extraordinarily dependable. He is signed through 2014 and will be a key component of the offense going forward.

Stephen Peterman needed to have a big-time bounceback after last year’s injury-riddled campaign, and he did. Peterman’s performance was just a tick below Sims’ in every facet of the game: +4.2 overall, 20th-best in the NFL and ninth-best amongst right guards. His pass block was +9.1, 14th-best overall and eighth-best rightie.

Peterman's run block grade is further off the pace than Sims’s, at –8.0. That figure is ranked 56th of 77, and deeper below the NFL average of –4.3. Peterman was also flagged five times, with one declined/offset, so his overall grade got dinged for that.

Ready to have your mind blown? At +3.0, Stephen Peterman registered the second-best screen block grade in the NFL. Remember, we’re talking about 6’-4",” 323-pound Stephen Peterman here.

Peterman was more inconsistent than Sims. He registered more peaks (four games graded +2.5 or better, compared to three for Sims), but also had more flat/weakly negative games, and his five negative games were sprinkled throughout the season instead of clustered in one big slump.

Statistically, Peterman allowed 2 sacks, 4 hits, and 13 pressures, one every 60.2 snaps. That rate is slightly better than Sims’s, and of course Peterman played the same number of snaps in the same offense that Sims did.

Bleacher Report graded out Stephen Peterman as the 12th-best right guard in the game, at 70.5 overall. As with Raiola, their scouting report dovetails nicely with what we see above: great size, great movement in space, very good pass blocking, extremely shaky run blocking and off-putting inconsistency.

By the way, for those of you who don’t know Matt Miller’s work, I relied on his New Era Scouting draft evaluations extensively before he signed up with B/R. I’m not forwarding you to his because we’re colleagues, I’m forwarding you to it because it’s great stuff.

Bottom Line: Stephen Peterman proved his horrifying 2010 backslide was due entirely to injury. He’s shares Sims’s and Raiola’s weakness in the interior run game—not what you want from a right guard—but he completes a fantastic pass-blocking interior trio . . . maybe the best in the NFL. Like Sims, he is signed through 2014.

“Davis, Leonard” is a name that appears on the Lions’ roster next to some very big numbers like 6’-6”, 355, 33, 11, and Texas. The former Cardinal and Cowboy was tipped to replace Peterman after his disastrous performance in Dallas. However, the Lions didn’t sign Davis until a month after that game, and he never saw the field.

Except for practice squadder Jacques McClendon, Davis is the only backup for either guard position, and will be 34 shortly after the season starts.

SHOPPING LIST: The Lions have two top-third starters in their prime locked up until 2014. Their only backup, however, hasn’t played since the close of the 2010 season and is at, or near, the end of his career. Ideally, the Lions will draft a talented center who can push Davis to back up one, if not both, guard positions.

Old Mother Hubbard: The Centers

noreply@blogger.com (Ty Schalter) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 12:43:42 PST

Last season, the Old Mother Hubbard assessment of the Lions’ center position was so dire I dropped some Thomas Hobbes in the introduction. Dominic Raiola, the Lions’ only center of note, showed severe signs of regression in 2010. Here’s how I summed it up:

Dominic Raiola had his worst season in years, and possibly ever. Lions tailbacks had zero room to run inside in 2010, and Raiola dances on the edge of disaster in pass protection. His value is partly in recognizing defenses and calling protections, but these grades point to a disturbingly rapid decline in pure performance.

In the shopping list, I said the Lions "cannot afford to assume Raiola will bounce back, and be fine for years to come," and that they "need to acquire an impact starting center for 2012 and beyond."

They didn't.

The good news is, Raiola did indeed bounce back. Let's look at his 2011 performace, as graded by Pro Football Focus:

The top-rated center was Houston’s Chris Myers, who had an incredible season in the middle of the Texans’ line. Myers’s +29.8 was best amongst all centers, and well above the average of +1.4. Most of that was powered by Myers’ stonking +25.8 in the run game; his pass-blocking mark was a pedestrian +3.7.

The worst-graded center was Denver’s J.D. Walton. His appalling –23.4 run block grade, paired with a not-great –5.3 pass block grade, dropped him to the basement of the NFL: 35th overall at –28.9

Dominic Raiola fared much better. His –4.2 overall grade was ranked 24th of 35; just a bit below the average of +1.4. He had the 5th-worst run-block grade at –10.2, and his 6 assessed penalties dragged his score down, too. However, Raiola had a fantastic season protecting Matthew Stafford: his +6.4 mark was 4th-best in the NFL, well above the +0.7 average.

This is a huge step up from 2010. Raiola was graded out at -15.2 overall, and just as bad against the pass as he was against the run. In 2010, he was graded negatively in 9 of 17 games; in 2011 he finished in the red in just 6 of 18. The best part is, he only had one game where he was graded any lower than -1.5: Week 6 against San Francisco, where his -4.7 run block sunk the Lions' efforts to control the game.

Statistically, Raiola allowed 4 sacks and 10 pressures. Raiola allowed one of those three every 81 snaps—on average, 14th-best in the NFL and just below the average of 85.6. I suspect this is because I’m going per snap and not per pass play, but I don’t have that figure to divide by. For those wondering, Advanced NFL Stats does have -EPA and -WPA for offensive lines, but only as a group, not individually.

For another "eyeball test," there's the B/R 1000, a project where the top talent evaluators and draftniks over at Bleacher Report grade out the top 1,000 players in the NFL. Their report on Raiola perfectly dovetails with what the PFF staff saw: B/R ranks Raiola the 23rd-best center in the NFL. If you want a true scout's evaluation of where Raiola's game is at, read that.

Of course, all of this ignores the hidden benefits Lions coaches and staff are quick to bring up whenever Raiola is mentioned. Raiola is phenomenal at reading defenses and adjusting protections; he makes the entire offense more effective by calling protections and feeding Matthew Stafford information.

Beyond that, there’s his on-field and off-field leadership. There’s a reason Raiola wears a “C” on his chest. When the Lions needed someone to tell them to grow up, Raiola was there.

Unfortunately, the backup situation remains unchanged. There’s no one behind Raiola, either in the short-term or long-term picture. The Lions are in the second year of what is likely a 2-5 year championship window, and betting Raiola can keep playing at this level for the duration is a bad bet.

If they want to draft Raiola’s long-term replacement, but don’t want him to learn on the job, this year is the year.

BOTTOM LINE: Dominic Raiola turned in a typical performance in 2011: one of the best pass-blocking centers in the NFL, one of the worst run-blocking centers in the NFL, and a true leader who earns his captaincy. After eleven years in the NFL, he still rolls without a legitimate backup, and the Lions must plan for the future now.

SHOPPING LIST: The Lions must draft a talented long-term replacement for Raiola who can capably back up the center and guard positions.