NYLion

OKC has a phenomenal development program, one of the best in the league, but I was referencing their "war chest" of picks. They've been able to accumulate them because they've had star/superstar assets to use to acquire them. Same with Houston, Utah, San Antonio and Orlando to a lesser extent. Weaver's best assets were broken Blake and Rose.

Yeah, people talk about OKC and Houston with their war chest of picks (throw Utah in there now too, Orlando as well) while the Pistons don't but the reality is that Weaver didn't have multiple stars to trade for a wealth of picks while those franchises did. Regardless, quality matters much more than quantity in the NBA so the Pistons just need to hit with a few of their prospects and they'll be off to the races. They need some lottery luck too.

It's a good low risk move for Atlanta but people are acting like they traded for Ramsey.

It was a top story on ESPN, Falcons fans (on a message board I checked out) were over the moon. "Former 3rd overall pick Jeff Okudah got traded" as if this was a guy who just got drafted 3rd. This was a depth CB that got traded. I think some people see that he was drafted highly and assume that he's this top player but I can understand the lack of knowledge about the players because who really cared about the Lions before they started biting kneecaps halfway through last season.

The whole argument for taking a QB, outside of rookie contract, is "raising the ceiling". Well, you have a QB in Hooker that is many years older than their current QB was when he led his team to a Super Bowl and made multiple Pro Bowls so what you're getting with Hooker if he reaches his potential is pretty much what Goff is at his best and he likely won't even hit that level for at least a few years because of the injury and then having to get familiarized with the offense etc. then, guess what, it'll be time to pay him soon after. In the meantime, you pretty much wasted a pick in the win now window that could have been used for a Day 1 starter when the NFC is there to be had. I've said that I'd be ok with taking him with one of the 2nds but I'm starting to backtrack on even that because it's only a 4 year rookie contract so I'm pretty much taking him off my board completely. I'd sooner gamble on the upside of Richardson who has the potential to be a "ceiling raiser" than settle for Hooker and I'd rather not do that either. If the Lions were in position to take Stroud or Young then maybe but these guys afterwards are just too risky with a potential reward that is a remote chance of happening.

Because he's young....and black. Duh Who cares that he had one fluke season and pretty much no other resume to speak of. He's young and black so.... put him on the list.

Jacobs was actually better than Okudah down the stretch. Okudah was their 4th CB essentially, 3rd or 4th.

Possibly the worst reason I ever heard for hiring a coach but I digress.

He got phased out of the lineup and they weren't picking his option up so he would have been gone for nothing next season so they got a little draft capital for him and freed up some money for in season moves or maybe a late free agency pickup or two. The reality is that he showed a very small sample size of NFL starting CB caliber play in 3 seasons. Most of the rest of it was ineffective play, injuries or playing injured. Cutting bait and getting another draft asset for Holmes to play with was the right move, I expected a 6th or 7th so a 5th is good with me. It'll probably be good for Okudah as well to have a fresh start and a bigger opportunity for playing time. Chances are that they'll draft a CB in the first 2 rounds but that was likely anyway before the Okudah trade.

That's the thing, if they had their choice of these guys then I'd be a bit more on board with it but with them being at 6th and getting stuck with the leftovers, I'm much less amenable to it. If Holmes has Richardson as his top rated QB and truly believes in him then we'll just have to trust his judgement but man what a risk it would be. Then again, the potential reward could be great. I've always said, if you're going to roll the dice on a position it should be on the most important position in sports so I wouldn't be 100% against it but I'm just not a big fan of the QB options in this particular draft.

I don't think it's out of the realm of possibilities. I'm assuming that Kiper has a QB trade up to 3. That's what we should be rooting for, a team below the Lions to trade up to 3 to take a QB which will result in Indy taking the 4th QB and Anderson or Carter being there at 6 for the Lions to take one of them or use it as a valuable trade down chip.

He was good against Philly too who had one of the best defenses in the league. He was down to mostly practice squad receivers against New England and Dallas. He was poor in those games but it comes with an asterisk when the team is decimated by injury at the skill positions. I just took issue with saying that Goff was just good for the easy 1/2 of one season. Even if you want to say that he just played well the second half of last season, he was darn near flawless in games that had meaning. I don't take issue with your concern about his next contract, I think all of us (even @Motown Bombers) has some concern about that but the question is, how many QBs are truly better than Goff in this league, QBs that you know for sure are a clear upgrade? I've got Mahomes, Burrow, Allen, Hurts and Herbert, Lawrence soon most likely. That's it. So point being that are you willing to burn a 1st rounder on the 4th or 5th best QB in this draft in the oft chance that he supplants a top 10 NFL QB? The thing is, when you draft this guy he's the franchise guy, Goff is most likely done after 1 season unless he takes the Lions to a Super Bowl or close enough so he better be worth it when Goff is moved out or else you're stuck with Jordan Love, a depreciated asset that you're forcing into the #1 role because you kind of have to due to the capital exhausted to bring him in. We also know that Goff fits THIS offense and culture, will the next guy? With that said, going $40m+ on the next Goff contract presents risks of its own and, yes, he's a guy with a limited ceiling so there's risks both ways. I don't envy Holmes's position here, it's a tough franchise altering decision when you don't have a true franchise QB but do have a guy who is good enough to win with. I get both sides of the argument and have waivered myself over the last calendar year but am leaning towards take an impact prospect that can help now in a win now window and MAYBE take a shot at Hooker if he's there in the 2nd. No QB in the 1st, not this year.

Easy half? Are you talking about 2 years ago in a lost 3-13 season when he played well down the stretch? Last season, he had two notably bad games against New England and Dallas in which the team was decimated by injuries at the receiver position. Otherwise, he played well enough to win every other game and played well down the stretch of a playoff run, nothing easy about that. It wasn't like he stunk in the first half and just turned into a completely different player in the second half. I'm not saying that the Lions shouldn't look into a potential long term solution if they have reservations of paying Goff franchise money on his next contract but lets not act like he wasn't good most of last season and was good the second half of the prior season as well.

It's hard to tell how good any of these coaches are. The NBA, moreso than any other sport, is a player driven league where coaching isn't really that important although for a young team like the Pistons, good coaching is more paramount. People leaguewide are putting Udoka at the top of everybody's list but what has he done exactly? Mazzula took over and the team didn't miss a beat. Whoever the coach is, I hope he preaches defense because I have no idea what defensive system Casey employed.

This goes back to what I said earlier, either Casey chooses to step down as head coach or he remains head coach. I don't think Gores and Weaver will force him out, too much respect there. Who's Charles Lee? Nevermind, I see that he's the Bucks assistant coach. Sure, why not? Just get a different voice behind the bench.

The problem is that Big 10 offenses generally have weak passing games and virtually no NFL level QBs and he didn't play against Stroud lat year. McCarthy was the best QB he faced and I'm not sure he's going to be highly drafted, O'Connell is decent I suppose. Other than that, it's a bunch of nobodies really so it's really hard to take those stats too seriously tbh.

100% a Campbell guy but he's on the small side and if you watch the tape, he makes a lot of plays on the ball that would be penalties in the NFL so there are some red flags with him. The positives is that he has good athleticism and that "dawg" mentality, ferocious tackler, but I think 6 is a reach for him. I think Gonzalez has more tools to succeed at the next level but not sure if he passes the Dan Campbell Kneecap Biter test.

That's laughable. It would probably take more for the Lions to move from 6 to 3. The Titans are giving up at least a future 1st and a 2nd to move up from 11 to 3.

Not anymore. The Lions have become a national phenomenon seemingly overnight starting with Dan Campbell's persona then Hard Knocks then tearing it up down the stretch culminating with knocking Aaron Rodgers out of the playoffs in prime time then this offseason when they made several splash signings. I think the Lions have become must see TV from a national standpoint and will be a ratings booster as shocking as that sounds. I'd be surprised if they don't get at least two Monday Night games.

Casey will step down before they fire him. Hopefully he's ready now. He's had a good career but it's time to call it quits and take on a comfy front office role if he chooses.

It's interesting that any of the 5-8 seeds (assuming the Lakers and Pelicans/Mavs move on) can beat the 1-4 seeds and nobody would be shocked while the east is quite the opposite.

The 2020 draft was a disaster, there's no arguing that, but it's just one draft when it boils down to it. Outside of their 1st that might wind up just conveying to 2nds at this rate or, at worst, a late 1st (which is pretty much Stewart's value anyway), they didn't lose anything that hurts the long term outlook. It sucks wasting a 7th overall pick but the others were mid 1st which now amounted to Wiseman and Stewart which is fine value for those spots. Ultimately, what's done is done. The core is Cade (needs to stay healthy), Ivey, Duren and hopefully a hit in this draft. It's still a good foundation to work from with the added bonus of cap flexibility to add to the core. The 2020 draft was a setback but it's not a rebuild crippler. I think this thing is still on track highly dependent on Cade staying healthy and progressing.

Not really directed at you necessarily, I happen to agree with your issue of Weaver's center collecting fetish. It's more of the comments about the letter and getting sick of hearing about high picks. The reality is that this was only the 2nd FULL season of the rebuild. His first year was basically clearing out the remnants of the SVG era (the Blake buyout was only 2 years ago believe it or not) so he went full rebuild which is what Pistons fans have wanted for a long time. It doesn't mean he hasn't made some mistakes but he's doing exactly what everybody wanted and hasn't made any moves that have crippled the future outside of the busted 2020 draft of course. I'm not championing him or anything but I don't think it's fair to judge him yet. I think Cade, Ivey, Duren and this draft pick is a nice base to build off of. Now he has to supplement the core with the right players and he has the cap flexibility going forward to do just that so it's just a matter of.... we'll see.

Pistons fans (and I know a lot on this board) were screaming for the Pistons to rebuild for years, over a decade really, and that's exactly what Weaver is doing. Not sure why anybody is upset or surprised by this. With that said, this offseason needs to be designed around building a WINNING roster. It'll now be the 3rd FULL year of the rebuild, fans are going to start getting sick of hearing about high draft picks pretty soon.

I don't think Holmes cares about positional need or at least he doesn't make it the highest priority so I can easily see him pass on corner and DT early if the value isn't there. Based on talent alone, that's a pretty good mock for the Lions.