RedRamage

I dunno if I'd say I'm stressed out, but my concern resolves around a new OC and DC. I think the team is fine, as long as injuries don't stack up like they did last year. I don't think anything and recover from that many major injuries on defense, so getting those players back will be like a massive upgrade to the defense as it stood at the end of last season. But we're about to find out how much of the Lions great offense was Ben Johnson and how much was Dan Campbell. Time will tell.

Sorry, I know I said I was getting off the soap box, but just wanted to add some raw data because I'm sure one of the question will be: "Is there really a need to balance the playing field? How lopsided is it right now?" There's probably a million ways to answer that question but here's one. I looked back over the past 30 years for the number of teams each team has made it to the World Series. Given 60 teams played in the World Series, perfect distribution would say each team shows up twice in the past 30 years. OBVIOUSLY we're not going to see that because of MANY factors including that over just 30 series we're not going to see perfect distribution even if all other factors were equal. Still, for what it's worth, here are the numbers: Arizona Diamondbacks 2 Atlanta Braves 4 Baltimore Orioles 0 Boston Red Sox 4 Chicago White Sox 1 Chicago Cubs 1 Cincinnati Reds 0 Cleveland Indians 3 Colorado Rockies 1 Detroit Tigers 2 Houston Astros 5 Kansas City Royals 2 Los Angeles Angels 1 Los Angeles Dodgers 4 Miami Marlins 2 Milwaukee Brewers 0 Minnesota Twins 0 New York Yankees 8 New York Mets 2 Oakland Athletics 0 Philadelphia Phillies 3 Pittsburgh Pirates 0 San Diego Padres 1 San Francisco Giants 4 Seattle Mariners 0 St. Louis Cardinals 4 Tampa Bay Rays 2 Texas Rangers 3 Toronto Blue Jays 0 Washington Nationals 1 2 teams have five or more appearances: Yankees and Astros. 8 teams have 3 or 4 appearances 6 teams have 2 appearances 6 teams have 1 appearance 8 teams have 0 appearances 33.3% have MORE appearance then average 20% have exactly average 46.6% have LOWER than average Instead of the expected bell curve that's higher in the middle, we have a upside down bell curve that's higher on the edges.

Next: Cap/Floor for baseball... Again, I can see an argument saying that there shouldn't be a cap on how much a player can make or that we should penalize a team that does good marketing and therefore has more money to spend. And I can see some value in that argument. However, we've seen salary caps be effective in leveling the playing field in other sports and I appreciate that aspect. If we have a contest to see how many balls we can throw into a bucket with the most times getting a ball in the bucket, if I have 100 balls to throw and you only have 10... I probably going to win the contest more of than not, even if I'm not as accurate as you. I feel the same applies towards sports. If my GM has a $300M payroll to work with, more often than not my team is going to be more successful than your team, who's GM only have $90M... even if your GM is better than mine. Now, if we're going to set a cap and we're going to require sharing of media revenue, we also need to set a floor to ensure that the teams getting the benefit of the revenue sharing aren't just pocketing the extra loot. Is the floor the most effective method of ensure a club fields a competitive team? Probably not, and I'd be open to exploring other options (such as investment in player development, scouting, training camps in other countries, etc) but there has to be a clear and definable method to the other options, one that can be easily checked and verified by the league to again ensure the receivers to the revenue sharing aren't just pocketing the profits and not caring about the team they put on the field. A salary floor is one easy method to do this so I'd argue for that, at least until we can find a better method. Okay, I'll get off my soap box now.

I 100% agree that this (and the rest of your post) are true, but I don't think it's precludes the idea of a cap/floor. Rather it further highlights the needs for a cap/floor along with better revenue sharing... at least in my humble opinion. One one hand the Yankees and Dodgers (to pick on the usual suspects) should be lauded for building the following that they have. Granted, they've had the benefit of playing a large market, but so have the Mets and Angels, and they don't have have quite the following the first two teams do, so it's not just the large market that have made them successful. So yeah, again, on one hand it's hard to argue that they've been TOO successful and therefore should be punished by having to give some of their money to other teams. On the other hand if MLB consisted just of the Yankees and the Dodgers (and maybe 2 or 4 other teams) it probably won't have nearly the following it has and those teams would have the fan following that they do. The Yankees and Dodgers need the other teams to play against. The YES network isn't going to be successful showing the Yankees playing scrimmages against themselves 162 times. So on the other hand I think it's very reasonable to say that the Yankees success (in terms of media revenue) are in a significant part because of the other teams in the league and therefore it's reasonable that they should have to share that revenue. The debate, in my mind, is not IF, but HOW MUCH should be shared.

That's the part that I think people miss when comparing big vs. small markets. It's not just that you have enough money to sign the big names... it's that if you miss on them you're not handicapped for the next 5 years. How many times over the years have we said something like: "Well, when player-X is off the books, hopefully Ilitch will be willing to spend more." Now I know this is an oversimplification, but there is truth to it.

Agreed 100%.

Answering my own question because I like to hear myself talk (or type): Probably not entirely no... telling someone they can only earn x-amount of money because you want to make other teams remain competitive is a bit anti-capitalist. So is there a way to make it more fair? My humble suggestion (which likely has a million holes in it) would be to: Set a salary cap, and a salary floor. Pool media deals... maybe something like 75% of media revenue goes into a common pot with 25% remaining with the original team. Cut up and distribute the media pool: 75% goes to teams, 1/30th for each team. 25% goes to players, not sure how to divide this up (evenly for each? based on years in MLB? I dunno) But this goes back to owners needing to open some of the books up.

Get a good team in a big market = better media deals = more revenue to spend on the team = better team in a big market = better media deals = ... It's not quite as simple as saying that the small markets don't have the media revenue to compete, but I do feel that's a big part of it. I've always felt that not having a salary cap is kinda like letting some players use PEDs, and in fact letting the most successful a player gets letting them have more PEDs. It creates an uneven playing field for front offices. You could be the best GM out there in terms of picking players, but if the other guy can just throw more money at players that you want AND not suffer the same draw backs of making a mistake on a contract, you're not going to be as successful. Now again this is only part of the problem. You have to have owners who WANT to win and are willing to pay to win. But a salary cap would at least level the playing field a bit. But is it fair to players?

https://www.detroitlions.com/video/2025-lions-schedule-release Interesting... as someone not from Detroit I didn't recognize all the places, but cool to see some landmarks of Detroit that I did know. I do think they missed out on an opportunity though... they should have had the Bengal/Lions game in front of Comerica Park.

I honestly have a very hard time seeing the Lions signing Rodgers. I think they'd avoided plenty of talented players because of culture fit questions, and Rodgers isn't the QB he used to be. The dude is 41 now and I know QBs can usually play longer than other positions, but still 41 is old. So you have a guy who's talent level is declining and who's about as far from a culture fit as I think you can get outside of criminal activity... I don't see it.

That doesn't surprise me at all. There's sound logic there, at least looking at this from outside the organization. The Lions defense was obviously the issue last year and you're two biggest stars there are unproven right now. McNeill probably won't be starting the season and Hutch is a question mark whether he'll be 100%. Next it's a road game for the Lions, so GB gets some advantage there. Now add in that the Lions just lost both of their main coordinators and you'll expect that there will be at least some work figuring out how the new DC, and especially OC, want to run things. Add all that up and yeah... I'd probably lean towards the Pack having the slight advantage as well. From the Lions perspective this is great bulletin board material: Coaches to the players: "They don't respect you. They don't respect Dan Campbell. They think it was just AG and Ben who were running things here and make it all work. They think that now that those two are gone you're all going to fall apart."

Anyone need new wall paper for their phone?

Honestly I'd prefer my team does NOT play on Christmas. Too much other stuff going on then.

The Lions did just get an opening day game a few years ago so it's entirely possible they are just trying to spread the love around a bit.

Ah, I did not realize that... then yeah, that was absolutely the right call and not any sort of generous gift from the refs.

Both teams are winning on about an average of once a week.

I want to say that they got a little help from the refs on the clock there... but I think you could reasonably make the claim that they did get the Timeout in. Plus I thought the refs hosed them on some calls earlier in the game. Panther's secondary did NOT look good though.

The only thing I hate about the super challenge is how specific it needs to be. For example, last week Nolan challenged DPI on a play. The defender was not flagged so Nolan was challenging that the defender should have been flagged. They reviewed it and said: Yep, defender was holding...but the defender was holding only BEFORE the pass was thrown, once it was thrown the defender wasn't holding anymore, so it was only holding, not DPI. But because Nolan specified that he was challenging the no-DPI call, the challenge failed. I like the idea of a super challenge, but I think it needs some tweaking. Now obviously you can't Challenge the whole play and have the replay booth review the entire 22 players on the field for the entire play... that would take forever and end up with a LOT of ticky-tacky penalties that had no outcome on the actual play. What I'd like to see is that you challenge everything that happens in, say, a 5-yard circle at a specific point: Refs/replay looks at the 5 yard zone at the time in question and reviews everything that happened in that area. A bad flag thrown? Pick it up. Something not called that should have been? Flag it.

Just a guess obviously, but I'm thinking this is a more accurate way of asking the question.

Can we just let it die instead of slapping a new face on it?

It is, unfortunately, where the money is right now. And even more unfortunately it is almost-kinda-sorta-maybe related to the game itself, so it's entirely out of place for broadcasters to talk about it and for production to show the odds on screen. That's the really insidious component. I think back to the 90s when it seemed like every other commercial during a sports broadcast was a beer ad. It was annoying, but that's where the money was at the time. But... can you imagine if during the broadcast they'd cut to a beer expert who'd talk about what beers were available and which had the best taste? Or the announcers referencing the beers that they were drinking? Or beer prices being shown on screen? Especially in the 90s there would have been a revolt. They would have pointed out the obvious ads and how it ruined the broadcast. Now? Well first we've been conditioned with more and more ads showing on screen during the broadcast. Then, as I mentioned, you can almost masquerade the betting talk as something your doing because the viewers want it vs. it just being ads.

Have you watched any of the UFL games? The broadcasts can be overwhelmingly bad at times for a number of reasons, but one is certainly that they are updating betting odds throughout the game. It isn't so bad that I find it the most annoying thing, but that may simply be because other aspects of the broadcasts are worse.

For what it's worth (I haven't read the article, just the summary of it) I appreciate the the author here is trying to find an objective method of grading the draft. And apparently the author even calls out himself saying it's risky to call out the Lions drafts given their past success. That said, I think the methodology needs some tweaking. I think there are too many subjective aspects built into the formula before the objective grades are determined. Supposedly they're looking at positional value for example. Well, sure you assign value and then objectively grade the positional value of the pick based on that value. But the assigning of value is subjective. How do you determine that a TE might be less valuable than a DE for example? Because most teams say that? What if this team uses TEs much more? What if this team has a full DE room but only one decent TE? How do you know how the coaching staff values their players? Honestly there just may be no way to objectively grade a draft except looking back after 3-5 years. (And even then there are variables that effect grading. You think Caleb Williams would have had as poor a rookie season if he was behind the Lions OL with our RBs to support him?) This attempt by the Athletic might very well be the best method out there to try and determine an objective grade, but that doesn't mean it's a good method. Time will tell.

I eluded to that earlier as well. I'm perfectly fine with getting Cs, Ds, and Fs in draft grades if the Lions are still perennial SB contenders. But better than getting As and Bs and getting bumped out of the playoffs in the first round (if we made the playoffs). I almost wonder if we need to worry about the reverse. This is JUST speculation here so take it for what it's worth. But in the early years of the Holmes tenure the Lions were a joke. If you take a swing at a long shot and don't get a touchdown (how's that for mixing metaphors!) no big deal... it's the Lions. No one expects greatness. Now the Lions are legitimate. Does that make the front office more cautious? Do they take safer picks because missing a draft pick will be directly linked (fairly or unfairly) with lack of SB appearances/wins? I mean there is a VERY REAL probability that the Lions regress somewhat this year. We lost both our coordinators after all! If that happens you KNOW that there will be people who point to the "F" grade and say: "See! Bad draft makes the Lions a lessor team."

Very valid point. Pre-draft grades are determined by people who are not NFL GMs or in NFL scouting departments. Now, to be sure these graders are getting tidbits of info from teams and scouts and supplementing it with there own opinions/views, but that's not the same as being an NFL GM. I think it's extremely common for players to move up or down a bit based on what happens draft day... if there's a run on DEs and your team desperately needs a DE, you might reach. But yeah, if there's general agreement by 32 teams that someone is a 3rd round talent he's not slipping to the 6th round. He might slip to the 4th, but no way to the 6th.