MichiganCardinal

It looks like during a conference call with reporters last week Troy Vincent "strongly implied" that it would be treated similarly to the illegal use of helmet rule, where it is more often a fine and letter penalty. ESPN. If I had to guess, it's going to be - similarly to the use of helmet penalty - not called unless it results in an injury to a key player. That said, I also wonder if this penalty is actually going to be even all that effective at getting these out of the game. This penalty most often comes when the defender is in "chase mode", where if they don't do something to stop the ballcarrier, it will be a touchdown. If a corner has a choice between picking up a fine and (maybe) a 15-yard penalty or giving up a touchdown, they may select the former in a real-time, game-time decision. In that sense too, I don't think this will be a game-changing penalty in the way defensive holding can be. The 15 yards will come after a first down has already been picked up more often than not.

I agree, though I think it goes to show that behind-the-scenes guy is only as effective at his job as the football guys are. He wasn't very useful to the fan experience until we got good again. He was named President in 2015 but wasn't really impactful until 2021.

If he thinks he can just hang out in Michigan and avoid it, they'll extradite him when (not if) they eventually catch up to him. It's not like the police in Michigan are looking for him (though they might knock on his door if Florida asks them to), but no one runs forever. And if he's arrested in Michigan he'll almost certainly be in custody longer than if he just returned to Florida to be arraigned.

What a moran.

My understanding is that while this is going on the books as a 15-yard penalty, the officials are going to be told that this is designed for postgame enforcement in fines, plausibly suspensions for egregious behavior. If so, I'm whatever about it because it's more of a coaching mechanism than it is something that will change the game. If we start seeing nonsense penalties regularly called that impact the game, I'll be pissed. It feels like this is just already covered by unnecessary roughness penalties. FWIW, the Lions proposal providing a coach with a 3rd challenge upon one successful challenge (instead of both) was also approved.

If he says yes, the police probably give him a call and put him in an uncomfortable position. If he says no, he's lying. He's spoken to him.

I’m actually really surprised they hired someone with no Michigan connections at all. Seems like a good hire though.

I don't think he's dead. If those absolutely closest to him - his parents, siblings, and close friends that see him or talk to him frequently - were concerned, it would be out by now. There'd be a missing persons report, or a press release from his agent. The reason nothing has come out from his "camp" is very likely because there is nothing sympathetic to report. He's just choosing not to turn himself in yet. The police aren't concerned either.

I don't think they'll take a step back, but I think they are kind of at the point, at 12-5 and an NFCCG appearance, that a lateral step is effectively as good as you can hope for. Teams don't go 16-1 in today's NFL. The best record in the NFL last year was the Ravens at 13-4. A team hasn't even finished with less than 3 losses since the expansion to 17 games. At some point, the difference between 10-7, 11-6, 12-5, 14-3, and 16-1 isn't comparable season to season. It's what you do in January and hopefully February that matters when you're in that camp. I think all I'm trying to say is, if they go 10-7 because a couple bad breaks go their way or they suffer a key injury or two, the torches and pitchforks are staying locked up... I think they're at the point where if they suffer a tough loss in October against the Bears or Vikings, and the instinct is to get angry and complain about how they'll regret that game in week 18, to remember that it's okay, because the real important games should be the ones we are playing come January.

Go nerds!!

He wasn’t released for the allegations, he was released for driving a Jeep.

It's a serious charge but it's definitely not a flee the country kind of charge. He may have some sort of prior conviction. The picture released by the Sheriff's Office looked like a mugshot, though it may have been a DMV picture. It's hard to say, but at least in Michigan, he'd still probably just be looking at a lengthy probation sentence for a first offense with something like this. And that's if he's convicted. DV charges are notoriously difficult to prosecute, and it's not out of the realm of possibility that a less-than cooperative victim would lead to a lesser charge being offered, like simple DV, which is a misdemeanor. Despite saying all that, it's not really fair to speculate. In the words of John U Bacon, no one knows anything...... But he's got to turn himself in.

I don't know. I think in a world where Sutton's attorney releases a public statement on Wednesday afternoon disputing him having been contacted by police and claiming innocence, he deserves his day in court. That ship has sailed by now, but I worry of snap judgements costing players millions and permanently ruining their reputations based solely on accusations. Trevor Bauer's case kind of speaks to this.

I'm not sure they had more info. The issue may have been they didn't have more information than the general public. If they called him and he didn't answer, and then they called his agent and he hadn't heard from Sutton either.... at some point, you have to draw a line. "If he doesn't call us by tomorrow morning, we are going to have no choice but to release him and void the deal for violating the contract. Try to get him to contact us." Plausible deniability that he's got a felony warrant goes out the window after the entire world finds out. The day comes and goes and still no contact? Still hasn't turned himself in? Leave them with no choice really.

There's the Commissioner's Exempt List, which kind of works in this way. It effectively serves as paid administrative leave.

Pistons entire roster was effectively MIA for about 50 games if that counts.

This is a good find. It's basically what I've been looking for the last few days. The TLDR looks like that the Lions at the moment are on the hook for a $12.6MM cap hit this year and a $6.5MM cap hit next year, but that they've appealed to the NFL for relief based on Sutton's violations of the player conduct agreement, which could reduce those figures to $2.1MM this year and $6.5MM next; but that's not the case until the NFL rules, which is on their schedule not ours. And to get the $8.6MM would require a breach of contract lawsuit. Which could take years, but of course if Sutton is as averse to the civil court system as he is the criminal court system, maybe he just won't show up.

I almost typed a nearly identical message, but backed out..... I'm glad it was written. 😆

If I ignore the very real and very personal aspect of this for a moment, this is still a better situation than a season-ending training camp injury. There is time to recover from this. Free agency is still open, as are trades. $4MM isn't a ton of money, but it's money we didn't expect to have. If our initial offer to Gilmore wasn't enough for instance, now we have $4MM to add to it. Sutton was probably our CB2 to enter the season. Options are aplenty to replace him. But I still hope he's okay.

I'm worried about both. His release has given me some resolution about his status with the Lions, but I'm still wondering what the next steps are. Gilmore would make sense, so would Sneed if those talks were had prior to all this mess occurring. At the same time, I really do hope we hear something from him or his camp soon. His world is coming crashing down. I'm close to some people who have been alleged of similar things and these things don't happen in a vacuum. I'm not by any means excusing the allegations, but it would be disingenuous to think that this doesn't happen without CTE, or upbringing, or childhood trauma, or innumerable other contributing factors. No one wakes up one day and decides to be an abuser.

I think they would have held onto him if they were concerned about the cap implications. I'm pretty certain he's voided his contract and that cap relief can be sought if needed. I hope he's okay though. He's alleged to have committed some pretty awful things, which he should face the law for, but he's still a human whose life is collapsing before the world's eyes.

I don't want this to wander into the political section, but generally speaking I do not think that a police statement alleging someone of evading police should correlate to someone losing their right to due process. I do think he needs to turn himself in by tomorrow morning if he wants people to give him any benefit of the doubt about the allegation of fleeing.

I'll care for at least two or three days until Houston gets inexplicably upset and my bracket is busted.