In a few minutes a new era of Lions football will begin in earnest. Another rookie GM will try to guide this franchise to places it has failed to go in over half a century. Baby Face Quinn will try to do the seemingly impossible. Build a winner out of the Detroit Lions.
Here's to you Baby face. Get your ass to work. Lions fans are historically patient but we can only take so much. You don't have to win now but it will have to be soon. Good luck.
BTW, who do you think will be the first reported Lions target during the legal tampering window?
Having a hard time getting up for this FA period. I've set the bar pretty low. This is a weird year for free agency. Typically the teams you see with a ton of cap are undesirable destinations with little talent. Take a look around this year & you have NY, CHI, SF, SD & the newly minted LA Rams. Meanwhile, traditional bottom feeders like JAX, OAK, TB & TEN have all seemingly found their QBs & look to be much more attractive than in years past. Including all teams mentioned there are only 4 others squads with more cap space than DET...CLE, HOU, CIN & CAR. 3 of which are playoff teams.
ReplyDeleteI say all that basically wondering out loud where our Lions fit in all of that. I don't see this as like previous years where some idiot team makes a splash(Eagles, Dolphins), perennial basement dwellers get passed over because no one wants to play there for any amount of money. Then a team like DET gets to come in & play moneyball with the secondary market. Say what you want about Mayhew but FA was a strength for him. Tulloch originally acquired on a 1 year deal. Glover Quin has been one of the better safeties in the league. We all know what Tate can do. He got tremendous value when we had the money. Quinn however has no track record, there's really no way to know what to expect. He's also up against an abnormal market. Outside of CLE just about every potential big spender out there is either a sexy market or a team with actual promise. I'm not getting my hopes up this year, despite how much cash we have.
All extremely solid points. The thing about us having money to spend, it just isn't all that much really. According to PFT and the NFLPA the Lions have the 10th fewest adjusted cap space....
Deletehttp://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2016/03/07/adjusted-cap-space-by-team/
I know that doesn't translate to cap room but it does show how much other teams have been rolling over space from prior years.
According to overthecap.com. The Lions have the 12th most cap space available.
http://overthecap.com/salary-cap-space
Look at all that free cap space!! There is just so much that needs to be spent out there. $600 million total for the teams with more space than us. Players can expect to be paid well over their pay slot and there will still be teams looking to give it to them. That does not bode well for any team in the NFL. One could argue that these new prices are just proper inflation (overdue) of player's salaries that haven't adjusted to the dramatic increases to the salary cap.
The freeking Panthers have more cap space than we do right now!!!
It feels like we are in no mans land right now. We are solidly stuck in the middle of the pack. I don't think we have the talent to add a few pieces and legitimately contend for a championship but we are just a little too talented to tank it.
We really need to nail the next 3 drafts before our window with Stafford closes. I know he could play longer but what is going to happen to him with a few more years of taking beatings for a perennial looser?
Just look at calvin. Taking that beating playing for a loser took its toll on him. I guarantee you. If we were a legitimate contender, he wouldn't be considering retirement. Of all the curses the Lions need to overcome that is the one that haunts us the most. We just don't offer real hope.