RedRamage

There's no question this makes the Packers better and I don't like that. It's debatable how much better of course, and what the long term lack of first round picks in the next two years will do to their ability to maintain a great team. I definitely think this makes the Packers more dangerous, but I don't know if I think this makes them the favorite in the division.

I absolutely agree. I thought it was a good pick at the time and I still think it was reasonable. Let me try to explain my thoughts another way: There's a $1M lottery with 2 million tickets available for sale and tickets cost $1 each. I'm gonna spend $10K on tickets... oops, none of them won. That was a bad decision and a waste of money. You, on the other hand, spent $3 on tickets and oops, none of them won. That was a bad decision and a waste of money, but it was a low waste. In hindsight we know that you didn't win and if you had that knowledge ahead of time you could have saved yourself $3. So it's still a bad decision, but it's a minor bad decision. Nothing like my $10K bad decision. The reward was high, the risk was relatively low... but in hindsight it was a bad decision.

So are you saying you get good value from a lottery ticket that doesn't win? Look, I fully understand that most draft picks don't end up becoming productive NFL players and even fewer become star players. I'm also not saying that it was a bad gamble. I thought it was a good pick at the time and I supported it. But in hindsight the production we got from the picket was zero. It was a relatively low value we spent on what could have been a very high return. But it didn't work out and therefore it was, ultimately, a bad pick. That doesn't mean Holmes suck. That doesn't mean we shouldn't take risks. That doesn't mean anything more than we put some value into the pick and we got zero out of it. Even a non-impactful player who is a ST guy would have given us more value than Hooker. There's no shame in look at the pick 2.5 years later and saying: "Yep, it was a reasonable gamble, but it didn't pay out so in hindsight we should have done something different." It's okay to call it a bust without saying that Holmes is a bad GM or that he's making bad decisions.

Probably so far. I'm sure there will be bigger busts at some point, but right now Hooker has to be considered the biggest given where he was selected (3rd) and what production we got out of him (zero). I know a number of people have said he was only a 3rd round and not many of them make it and Brad has lot of other successes... which is all true, but I think that is some what besides the point. And I may have read the tone of the question wrong but in my mind the question of whether Hooker should be considered the biggest bust of Holmes tenure is a compliment, not a slight. EVERY GM is going to have busts that they draft. If the biggest one Holmes has so far is a 3rd rounder that many people considered 1st round talent except for the injury, that's not bad at all.

Not that I see it happening anytime soon, but this is where a partnership between the UFL and the NFL could be advantageous for both. Obviously a lot of tweaking and adjusting would need to be made and the UFL season would need to be changed to overlap, at least a little bit, with the NFL to get the best results for the the NFL. But wouldn't it have been nice to send Hooker to a "minor league" last season and this one too so he could get some "real game" seasoning and we get a better idea of if he's really cut out to be an NFL QB? Given his age at this point I think the chance of him being an NFL starter is about zero, but still if he could have shown something who knows? Maybe he even has trade value that we could have gotten something out of him?

I had this thought recently: Could Hooker end up in the UFL? I mean I wouldn't be surprised at all if another NFL team picks him up as a 3rd QB or a practice squad guy, but I doubt he ever moves beyond QB3 (barring a string of injuries). The UFL might be a place him to try to showcase himself.

Obviously it's early (we don't know if some of the stars are gonna have their careers cut short or anything), but it's amazing to think that a team whiffed on two third round picks and it's still probably one of the best draft years of all time.

Just starting a new 2025 general comments thread.

I think the issue with Indy is that close by neighbor's would object. Cubs and White Sox are < 200 miles away. Cardinals are 250, and Cincinnati is just 120. Even Detroit and Cleveland (~300 miles) aren't too far away. Now personally... I won't mind it too much. Add Indy as an NL team, move the Brewers back to the AL, then we can have the AL Central North of Chicago, Milwaukee, Minnesota, and Detroit. That way I can hate on the same cities in baseball that I hate in football. But again I think there's gonna be too many neighbors complaining about losing fans, especially when there are other viable options out there.

According to the SportsLogo.net: 1901-1902 https://www.sportslogos.net/logos/view/7184/Detroit-Tigers-Logo/1901/Primary-Logo Not sure how accurate that is, but I actually do have a hat with that logo... I mean, a modern recreation, not an original of course.

Totally agree, and he seems to want to be here. I'm just unsure why the Lions don't seem to want him.

Okay, lemme say that first I fully recognize that we're arguing over stats for game. It's a minor thing to be "upset" about. Just want to make that clear before anyone posts: "Why are you going off on a stat that doesn't matter?" Okay, disclaimer out of the way: My contention though is that it DOESN'T do this. Some of the time a Win does that, but like in my example above: How can you say a pitcher throwing 9 inning of 1 run ball most contributed to the loss? Or how can you say a pitcher who gives up a ton of runs, but the offense happens to have a monster night most contributed to the win?

I just think the whole concept of winning and losing pitchers should be dropped all together. I mean even if we look at complete game situations there's still stupid stuff that can happen: Monday Pitcher A throws 9 innings, gives up 8 runs, but the offense exploded late in the game and scored 10 runs. Pitcher A gets a "Win." Tuesday, Pitcher B throws 9 innings giving up just two run, one of them because of a fielding error. But the offense was totally shut down that day and only managed one run. Pitcher B gets a "Loss." Over a full season, and more so of a full career, then a good pitcher will probably end up with a good W/L record and a bad pitcher will probably end up with a bad W/L record, but only in probably and only generally speaking. There are way too many other variables... A perfect example of this is our old friend Jeff Weaver. In 2002 with Detroit Weaver had an ERA of 3.18 and a WHIP of 1.192 but had a 6-8 W/L record in 17 starts. Then he was traded to the Yankees mid season. With the Yanks in 8 starts he had a 5-3 record. Does that mean he got better when he went to the Yankees? Well, the stats say no. His ERA with the Yankees was 4.04 and his WHIP was 1.231. Defense, Run Support, Who you end up pitching against... these are all variables that are way outside of the pitcher's control yet drastically effect the W/L record. It's a dumb stat that at best tells you a good career W/L probably tells you the pitcher was better than average.

A quickie update here but I keep meaning to re-visit this but always forget and I don't have time right now to do a deep dive. Since the all star break the Rockies have been playing much better baseball. It's still bad of course, but not "historically" bad. A 4 game win streak that was snapped last night has helped them play just under .500 since the break (14-16). This puts them at 35-90 and makes it seem very unlikely that they will end up with fewer wins than the '24 White Sox (41) or '03 Tigers (43). Based purely on percentage the Rockies are looking to finish a number of games ahead of the the White Sox and Tigers, and this doesn't include that both the other teams saw a late season surge as other teams where resting players and/or "trying out" new blood. That said, the Rockies do not have a good schedule moving forward. Of the 36 remaining games they have 18 more games against teams battling for division titles (Dodgers 5, Padres 7, Astros 3, Cubs 3). They also have 9 against Wild Card contenders (Giants 6, Mariners 3), leaving only 9 games against teams that probably have nothing to play for right now (Angles 3, Marlins 3, Pirates 3).

Not sure if it's an unpopular opinion or not, but I think W/L record for pitchers is one of the stupidest stats in baseball.

How fitting is it that in a extra innings game with zero runs that it ends of a walk?

I think it's fair to also point out that we have a new DC and OC this season. Now we hope that this isn't going to be a major speed bump, but we honestly don't know. I tend to think our new OC and DC, with Campbell's leadership and the skillful players we have, will be able to keep the train rolling down the tracks, but we obviously won't know for sure until the season is under way. All of this is to say that we might trade of Hendricks because this is our year to go for it and then see the offense totally collapse under Morton. (Given that Sheppard is a hire from within and given that in this senario Hendricks is on the team, I don't see the defense as being as big of a liability.)

Or any time that Lions beat the Packers, at least according to some Packers players.

On one hand: Yeah...we'd definitely be favorites. On the other hand... fate is a fickle mistress. We saw last year how injuries can ruin a season and even in the best of situations the old adage of "any given Sunday" is still true. Given what we've seen with how Holmes builds the team I'm reluctant to mortgage too much of the future on a "legit chance of a championship" when I feel like we're already almost there.

Now that's an interesting possibility. If you trade him for a 7th then you a degree of control where he goes, and it's less likely (certainly not impossible, but at least less likely) that he's gonna get cut from that team and be available to be picked up by our rivals. I wonder what Ben Johnson's opinion of Hooker is? I wouldn't care about shipping him off to Chicago because BJ already knows the Lions well.

Part of me agrees with you, but part of me also says 2025 doesn't agree with you. If the playoffs happened right now: Blue Jays - 5th Tigers - 17th Astros - 7th Red Sox - 12th Mariners - 16th Yankees - 3rd Brewers - 23rd Dodgers - 2nd Phillies - 4th Cubs - 10th Padres - 9th Mets - 1st (Payroll source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2025/04/02/2025-mlb-team-payrolls-highest-lowest/82751012007/) There's more variation there than I would expected there to be going into the 2025 season. Having said that I would still prefer to a more level playing field in terms of payroll. I mean when the top spending team is spending close to five times as much on payroll as the bottom team more often than not that's going to make a huge difference in term of record. Now, on a side note: Maybe expansion is the perfect time to enact some level of media revenue sharing. Given that media is where the big dollars are, that gives a major market team a leg up, and smoothing out this discrepancy could go a long way to helping keep the league from falling into 4 vs 26. You could offer the big market teams a larger share of the expansion dollars in return for new rules for heavy sharing of media money.

I think you'd need an indoor stadium there too, which will be more expensive. When three of months of the season average in triple digits you're not gonna get a lot of fans hanging out outdoors.

Okay, now I've got to see what that looks like.

So... from a strategy stand point: Do you want to cut a QB who's been in your system for the years that Hooker has been? This is another factor that makes me think they'll try to hang onto him. Ultimately I think @1984Echoes makes a good point if they look at it and say: "We REALLY want to keep player-X, but we don't have room unless we cut Hooker," that's a factor against keeping him. But the idea that GB or the Eagles or whomever could pick up Hooker who's been learning out playbook for years is perhaps a reason to keep him around if the team is on the fence with him this year.

Who do I need to "talk" to to make Benetti our play-by-play guy for the Lions during the regular season?? I think I enjoyed the broadcast more than the product on the field.