MichiganCardinal

I tend to think faux outrage is more of a one-way street between Ann Arbor and Columbus right now, but minds may vary.

He’s under contract with the Rams through 2024, so it would take a trade, unless he took a year off first.

Vikings are preparing themselves for another move. Either New England at #3 or the Chargers at #5 would be my guess.

Last game was a playoff loss to the Detroit Lions

You can only get value on long snappers before the 3rd round. I think trading the pick for Davis probably means they’re happy with Daly. /s

I'd be okay with it. It's more about who the kicker is than whether you draft them or sign them as a UDFA. Plenty of kickers drafted in the 6th or 7th round flame out and plenty UDFAs work out pretty well. If Holmes sees a kicker in the 6th worth taking, it would mean something, because he can find guys like James Houston and Malcolm Rodriguez in the 6th round. I'd rather not go into 2024 with the Patterson & Badgley Show again.

Because he had it and is actually good at getting to the quarterback!! 😆

At some point though you run into the problem of your guys pushing out your guys, and younger guys (like Martin) showing more long-term promise on a rookie deal than older guys who will need to be re-signed. I give Levi credit for his aggressive rehab, I can't imagine playing NFL football after a major back surgery like that. But he's not really been an NFL-caliber player in his three years now. That said, he'll get his chance in camp again. They carried five interior defensive linemen (three or four active) on the 53-man for much of 2023. Alim, Benito, Buggs, Levi, and Martin. In 2024, we can remove Benito and Buggs, and add Reader. Tyson Alualu was a late addition when we released Buggs, but he'll be 37 by training camp, he's likely contemplating retirement. Alim, Reader, and Martin are locks, as would be any 2024 draft pick in the 6th round or earlier. That likely leaves Levi with the opportunity to win a roster spot again.

I would just err on the team doctor's prognosis. One hit could end any player's NFL career. If they say "yeah he's played fine for the last two years but he's definitely more susceptible to a career-ending neck injury in the next five years", I'm with you, 100%. If they say, "I don't know what those first doctors saw, there is no reason he can't play a long NFL career", then go get the talent.

All the pressure is on Ohio State and Ryan Day, and I am almost positive that will remain the case all the way to late November. If I had to pick today, I would think Michigan is going 8-4 and missing the playoff, with losses to Texas, Oregon, Ohio State, and one game they should win but inexplicably lose. If I had to pick for Ohio State, they're going 12-0, quite possibly entering the playoff as the 1-seed. But an 8-3 team picking off an 11-0 rival whose number they've had for a few years now? It may be pay for play in 2024, but it's still college football. Stranger things have happened.

Generally speaking, I think you're absolutely right. Ohio State can generate money with the Alabamas of the world. Michigan can generate money with the Notre Dames. Both tiers can win championships, but it sure is easier in the Bama/OSU tier. That said, if Ryan Day goes anything short of 12-0 this year, especially if he loses in the Shoe to Sherrone, the internal chaos and outright implosion that will occur in Columbus will be a sight to behold. Ohio State administration would likely have to choose between a large number of their donations and a coach who would be 67-9 in his career... They give him these millions of dollars to beat Michigan, and if he can't do it, I don't think the money will persist indefinitely.

Figures that right as we finally get our heads out of our ass as a franchise that the rest of the division would too. The Bears should be pretty good next year. Packers too. I expect the Vikings to struggle a little with their rookie quarterback, but they should still hover around .500, there is talent on that roster. It's going to be an extremely competitive division next year. No games are easy in the NFL, but it's nice when you can count on two games against a bottom feeder.

He didn’t retire, he was told by a set of doctors he would be forced to, which a second opinion disagreed with. He hasn’t missed a game in two seasons at UCLA. If the team doctors clear him I don’t see an issue.

I don't think any other massive free agent signings are coming. I expect us to sign a guard, likely Kevin Zeitler or Greg Van Roten, on a one-year deal; a WR, likely Josh Reynolds, DJ Chark, Mike Williams, or Michael Thomas on a one-year deal; and maybe some defensive depth, particularly in the secondary, guys like Kamren Curl or Tre'Davious White would fit the bill. My preferences with the draft... 1. Trade for an instant playmaker. This could be either a trade up in the draft or a trade for someone like Tee Higgins, Josh Sweat, or Haasan Reddick. In any event, the team is closer than they've been in franchise history to being a perennial Super Bowl contender. There is no reason to beat around the bush or to draft guys as "projects" right now (unless you're damn sure that that project is going to work out). Go get the guy or guys who will put you over the top. 2. Edge Rusher. I think this is where I would most prefer us add a 1st round talent, though there are only a couple names that likely qualify (Dallas Turner, Jared Verse, and Laiatu Latu). I think the addition of Reader next to Alim is a great start to fixing the defensive line, but we now need a true long-term bookend to Hutchinson, to unleash (what I see as) his true potential as a 15+ sack a year edge rusher... No more revolving door of mediocrity between the Okwaras and Charles Harris... This overlaps with #1 above, but I would like to see us go get one of those top three edge rushers if they fall out of the top twenty. I don't think Davenport's one-year deal forecloses this either. 3. Offensive Guard. Even with a signing of Zeitler or Van Roten (which really should happen), I think IOL will be the most glaring "need" of the team going into the draft. Guard is not a position where you need a top ten pick to find a quality long-term starter, which is good. The two best OG prospects I see were OTs in college (Taliese Fuaga and Troy Fautanu). They could pick them up and spend 2024 transitioning them to LG or RG, depending on where they want Glasgow. They could also use them as a long-term plan for RT when Decker leaves. Given they are tweeners, they could possibly slide to #29 despite being top-20 talents. Otherwise, there will be a plethora of options at #61 and #73. Layden Robinson, Graham Barton, Cooper Beebe, Zak Zinter, and Zach Frazier all make sense, are all potential high quality starting OGs, and I would expect more than one of them to be available at #61 and at least one to be there at #73. 4. Secondary depth. I expect Carlton Davis to receive an extension in the next month or so. He's only 28, in a contract year, and is coming off his worst year, making him something of a buy-low extension candidate. Obviously the Lions like him or they wouldn't have used a "starting" draft pick to trade for him. Add onto that that he currently stands at the 3rd highest cap hit on the team and I think it would make sense to give him an extra year or two and spread that cap hit out. That being said, I don't think the Lions are going to be seeking a CB1 in the draft. I think they view Sutton and Davis as CB1a and CB1b, and will align them game by game as they see fit, with Branch at NB, Kerby at FS, and Iffy at SS. That being said, that still feels incredibly perilous. Behind that group, you have guys like Moseley and Amik Robertson at corner, but you really have nothing at safety depth. You don't want to risk an injury there (like how CJGJ suffered one) and having nothing behind them. Further, Kerby has had cold streaks, and you can't say with 100% certainty that Iffy's late dramatic improvement is here to stay. They need to add something to that group in terms of depth. If you're gift wrapped Cooper DeJean at #29 I think you have to seriously consider it, but otherwise guys like Javon Bullard and Kamren Kitchens make sense in the 2nd and 3rd, or just depth later on. Jaden Hicks out of Wazzu is a Dan Campbell guy to keep an eye on. 5. Depth. Can never have enough of it.

I was going to say the same thing. It's not like they were the 2022 Vikings.... Only five of their 12 wins were even by one score (@KC, @LAC, vCHI, @NO, @MIN), so it's a far stretch to basically say "you should lose any game you don't win by two scores"... Of those games though, Chicago is the only one where I think it's fair to say that a number of breaks went their way late to make that win happen despite not being the better team for 55 minutes... For the other four, it's always hard to win on the road. KC was a dogfight start to finish, LAC the offense could not be stopped in the second half, NO they looked phenomenal to start and cooled off but still pulled it off, and MIN was for the division and we clearly looked like the better team. And if you look at losses, three of those five were by one score (vSEA, vGB, @DAL). Of those, against Dallas we were certainly the better team or at least should have won. Green Bay we were not. Seattle is arguable. We probably should have won but it's hard to say you're the better team when you shoot yourself in the foot repeatedly. I think if you look solely at "what should the outcome have been", the Lions record would have been 12-5 or 13-4. Which doesn't translate to 2024 necessarily, but I don't agree that there were four or five games we should have lost.

This is why people shouldn’t lose their minds if the Lions go 10-7 this year. Growth isn’t always linear.

I don’t think Joe Douglas acted in a vacuum with the decision to bring on Rodgers - or to bring on all of his friends for that matter. They were all complicit and will all go down with the boat when it sinks… except Woody Johnson of course, he’s safe and sound in the light house just off shore. I was just talking about the Steelers prima donnas the other day with a friend who is a Steelers fan. He joked that they traded Diontae Johnson’s issues for Russell Wilson’s, while keeping George Pickens. They are definitely a team that doesn’t shy away from locker room problems.

We are all really good at playing the crazed fanatic out of touch with reality! Good thing we are all only playing and definitely don’t act like that in our everyday lives. Haha. Ha. Ha.

I'm willing to predict that this will be Saleh's last year. Last year he bowed to the will of a 39yo prima donna QB who would have rather been hosting Jeopardy... Now he gets to reap the consequences with a 40yo Sandy Hook denying QB who would rather be Vice President, fresh off an Achilles tear.

sO tHiS iS wHaT tHeY'vE bEeN dOiNg iNsTeAd oF sIgNiNg fReE aGeNtS?! Makes sense, they earned it. They originally signed six year contacts in 2021, and this is only adding a year, through 2027. So it's likely more of a raise than it is a one-year extension for four years from now. Is this the first Lions coach to get a second contract since Wayne Fontes?

Your #3 should be the best clipboard holder in the building and if that’s what they see in Sudfeld I have no complaints.

Jim Harbaugh won more games, despite being suspended for six of them.

If Ben Johnson didn't run the ball on 2nd down so much, this never would have happened.

It's not bickering about the bickering it's squabbling about the quarreling.