RedRamage

What was the trade?

Also, in case you haven't seen it:

I continue to be amazed at how differently I feel about the draft vs. just a few years ago. I mean the draft used to be this HUGE thing. We'd all be speculating... wondering about trades, thinking who might fall a few spots. Hoping the next first round pick in the top 10 (where the Lions often picked) was going to be the savior of the franchise. Now I keep forgetting that the draft starts Thursday. Look at our 2022 Draft thread: https://www.motownforums.com/topic/99-2022-nfl-draft-thread/page/58/#comments More than 57 pages of posts BEFORE the draft started! Now, 1.5 days from the start of this years draft and we don't even have 10 pages yet. I know the old joke was always about how the Draft was the Lions' Super Bowl... but man... being on the "other side" now (ie, having a good team) it feels like there really was a lot of truth to that joke.

100% in agreement. I don't want to trade Jamo right now because there's no real value in it. No one is going to give up anything higher than a 3rd and even with Holmes drafting ability I don't see a 3rd making a significant impact THIS YEAR. On a side note... I think Homes.com needs to reach out to Brad for an ad deal. I mean if they can't legally use homesisthebest.com, they probably CAN use holmesisthebest.com. Just saying... seems like a winning plan to me.

Would it have even been possible to house three Campbells on the same team??

Bummer, but can't say as I'm surprised. I know we batted around the idea of increasing the yardage on this penalty to slightly off set losing the auto-1st down. Does anyone know if the Lions proposal had that? I don't think it did but didn't know for 100% sure. If it didn't, I wonder if including that would have had more people in favor of it?

It was a nice opening game for the Panthers. The defense showed up and limited the opposition to just one TD and a couple of FGs. The offense wasn't always stellar, but two TDs, two FGs were enough to win, even without the defense pick six. I'd say that QB Bryce Perkins, late of the LA Rams, was the star of the game. 16 for 19, 163 yards, one TD in the passing game, and then 14 yards on 6 attempt on the ground, including an Barry Sanders-eque run on 4th down, evading tacklers to dive into the endzone. On defense Frank Ginda (2023 USFL defensive player of the year) had 11 tackles and half a sack, and of course Kia Nacua (brother of Samson Nacua, Michigan Panthers; and Puka Nacua, LA Rams) had the late pick six to really seal the game. A new other notes: Michigan has historically alternated QBs each quarter or half. They intended to do that again this game but QB Danny Etling only saw a few snaps after taking a big hit to the chest. The hit would have been legal (ie, it wasn't roughing the QB or a late hit or a hit to the head) except the defender lowered his helmet and speared Etling in the chest. Etling didn't appear to have major injuries, but also didn't return to the game. I thought Perkins was the better QB in the game anyway, so I wasn't too upset over that. During the broadcast they continuously hammered how much access the viewer was given as they interviewed players, HCs, OCs, DCs, and of course head rules bigshot Dean Blandino. I'd say on maybe about 4 or 5 occasions I thought it was informative and helpful to the viewer. The rest of the time it was very distracting for me. It was hard to follow the game when the announcers were asking questions and I was trying to figure out who was answering and what he was saying. It was too much access imho. Fan turn out was... HORRIBLE. It looked like a COVID game. Seriously, it was BAD. I hope Michigan fans turn out better for next weeks game but Memphis fans? I think there were more players in that stadium than fans.

Has anyone else complained that is stinks that the first series of the year is super late at night? Just wanted to get that off my chest because I'm sure no one else has complained yet.

Playoffs are for division winners. Win your division and you're in the playoffs. Wild card berths are just consolation prizes for the teams that weren't quite good enough to win their division but still had a pretty decent year. If you want to just take the best 7 teams, then get rid of divisions as divisional standing are meaningless and playing your divisional team mates twice can end up being a good or bad thing depending on the rest of the division. I mean who knows if Chicago might not have had a better record if they didn't have to face Detroit, GB, and Minny twice.

I disagree personally. The (relatively speaking) short season and limited opponents face makes division winners important. The goal is to win the division. The wild card slots are just extra slots for teams that are really good, but not good enough to win their divisions. Yes, you'll absolutely have situations where a really good team like the Vikings has to go on the road vs. a team with a worse record, but those are rare. And it's even more rare when there's such a clear case that you could argue that the team with that record also faced some of the stiffest competition (in division).

Ah man... here I was getting pumped to see MASCOTS.

ESPN has started coverage.

Youtube is now saying 2:30.

It's showing in my Youtube TV in the schedule so I think so. I won't be shocked if some silly MLB rule ends up blacking it out, but hopefully not.

I don't think it needs to be as complicated as a smart watch... just needs to be a buzzer tied to the play clock. But I do like the idea. As you said the ref doesn't need to watch the play clock then, s/he can focus on the ball. Feel the buzz while seeing the ball still on the ground? Throw the flag. See the ball move before the buzz? Then you can ignore the buzz.

I get that reporters can only report on what they hear, but this is the season of lies. Anything that comes out of any NFL teams mouths needs to be strictly considered to be in a Schrodinger's Cat situation. It's both truthful and a lie until after the draft when it collapses upon observation to one state or the other.

I'm in the same boat. Don't hold us in suspense anymore @BoomGaspar. Who is it?

Can't say as I blame Bregman for taking the Boston deal at all. Seems like the best move for him personally. I don't like that he's not coming here, but I do like that the Tigers (ie, Ilitch) was willing to offer a big deal for a FA. Obviously this doesn't mean that Harris has full permission to spend a lot whenever/however he wants, but the fact that they apparently were willing to spend here seems encounraging.

Don't forget the right to refer to the offspring of Mike Ilitch as "Ilitch's Kids."

I thought I saw something about Alonzo's deal not being official until a certain date... and I know I've seen other deal announced as "done" but couldn't have been fully completed until a corresponding roster move was done. So I don't think they would need to wait until the official 60-day-DL date to announce something.

Just to add one more thought here: Was CB really that big of a position of need by the draft? Certainly it wasn't a position of big depth, but remember we had traded for Carlton Davis, we'd signed Amik Robertson and we'd resigned Moseley. Certainly there were question marks on Moseley but there was at least reasonable hope that he would contribute in 2024. For depth we had Dorsey and Vildor. You could certainly argue that we should add talent at CB given that Moseley was questionable, but I don't know that it was a bigger need that some other positions like LB or DE or others, and I'd certainly think that after trading up to get a CB in the first round the team could consider themselves good there. But their next pick was also a CB. After trading for a starter and signing a starter and drafting a first round CB they draft another CB?

Sorry... I'm a few days late to the BPA/positional need discussion, but here's my two cents: There is not a team out there who drafts ONLY on BPA or ONLY on positional need. Anyone who solely did this would be out of a job quickly (unless they were working for WCF of course). Every GM, every team will fall somewhere on a sliding scale between those two things. (There's probably many other factors as well... things like Lockerroom fit, off the field issues, etc. etc. etc. For simplicity's sake we'll lump those into BPA as I'd say those help define who the "best" player is at the time of the draft.) So no... Brad Holmes does not draft strictly BPA. No one does, and no one should. Just like no one should draft strictly based on positional need. When I (or others if I may be so bold as to assume what others are thinking) say that Holmes drafts BPA I mean that he leans very far over to the BPA side of things. If we take a 1-10 scale and say 1 = Strictly BPA and 10 = strictly positional need, I'd say Holmes sits at 2 or maybe 3. I'd say most teams are probably closer to the middle and I'd say that most 'talking heads' tend to evaluate who a team should draft much closer to 7 or 8 (not that talking heads matter to teams of course). To @buddha's point earlier: Yes, if you have two players with very similar grades but one fits a hole and the other is an area of strength, you absolutely take the one who fits the hole. Where I think Holmes differs here is where that line is. Using an arbitrary 1-100 scale... if player A is a 91 but player B is 85 and fills a need I think many GMs will take player B. I think most media will say you should take player B. I think Holmes will say: "I want player A." I think player B would need to be closer to 88 or 89 before Holmes would be swayed by positional need.

Here's a lot more info on the movie:

I'm a little surprised there are more efforts at front loaded deals. I supposed owners may not be hugely in favor of them, but I'd think front offices and players would generally be in favor of them. From a front office perspective if you pay more initially you're paying during the years the player will likely be producing more. When the player ages and likely production declines the salary declines with it and it doesn't seem as much like you're "stuck" paying an aging veteran. From a player perspective if I'm going to make (for the sake of argument) $200M over 5 years and the club is going to pay me $55M, $47M, $40M, $32M, and $26M... I'm going to agree to that immediately! If I get more money earlier I can invest it and be making good bank on it.

I'm a little surprised myself. While I was alive when the original Mi Panthers were around I was relatively young and not much into football, so I had to look up some stuff on it. The original Panthers only played two seasons and the original USFL only had three season. This will be the fourth season of the New Panthers. Technically the new USFL only lasted two seasons (before merging with the XFL to become the UFL) so old USFL lasted longer. Doing some wiki-research, the end of the (original) Panthers is kinda interesting. Taubman was the owner of the Panthers. After the 1984 season when the owners were planning to move the season to the Fall, Taubman, a Lions fan and friend of WCF, didn't want to do it. (Side note: The two owners who were apparently spearheading the push to move to Fall were Chicago Blitz owner Eddie Einhorn and NY Generals owner Donald Trump.) Taubman figured the Panthers would never be able to compete straight up with the Lions (if he even wanted to) and wouldn't be able to find a local college stadium to play in anyway so instead merged with the Oakland Invaders. So I supposed for those who aren't Trump fans you have one more reason to dislike him: The fall of the original USFL.