The Detroit Lions-Cleveland Browns game is over, and a lot of burning questions have been settled.
Can Jahvid Best produce big plays? Yes.
Has Matthew Stafford grown as a player? Definitely (and he didn't even have to separate a shoulder to impress us this time).
Is the defense there yet? Not quite.
The sentiments are mostly the same, and with a few exceptions, we know who the impact players are going to be for the Lions this season.
So instead, with the first round of cuts coming up soon, let's focus on the bottom half of the roster. With rosters soon to be cut down to 53, who made a case to keep a spot, and who could be on the way out based on their performance against Cleveland?
Winners
Randy Phillips
Okay, [...]
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I was listening to the radio the other day, checking on baseball scores. The Detroit Tigers game—the one I'd been waiting for—came up, and I found out that the Tigers had blown a late lead to the Kansas City Royals, dampening their already slim chances of making the playoffs.
I shook my head with a lamentful smile, and said to my fiancee, who was sitting next to me, "They're just not built to win this year. Too much young, inconsistent talent, too many holes, too much that needed to be perfect."
I shrugged it off and decided to look at the bright side. Hey, at least the team is around .500.
If it were 10 years ago, I would have committed a felony to see the Tigers scratch a winning record. In 2003, the Tigers spent the summer compiling a new AL record for [...]
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As a Detroit Lions fan, I really like the Denver Broncos.
It's not any affinity I have for Josh McDaniels or Tim Tebow, it's that the Broncos seem to always make the Lions look good.
The last time these teams met, the Lions blew out the Broncos 44-7 to cap off a 6-2 start to the 2007 NFL season.
That was the last time I felt really, really good about the Lions, because since that game, they are 3-37.
Oddly enough, this game against the Broncos might herald another shift in momentum, and one that's been a long time coming.
Sure, it's preseason, but some players that the Lions needed to step up did just that. Of course, some players did just the opposite...
Winners
Jahvid Best
Consider this my retraction of anything I said about Best [...]
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Within a few hours of me posting this, the Lions will begin their preseason schedule, and thus the inevitable march towards the kickoff of the 2010 NFL season.
Everybody has a different idea of what preseason games mean to them, but the general consensus is "nothing," almost to the point where it has become cliché.
While that's true in a team sense — your team is most certainly not any better or worse based on preseason performance — saying that the preseason truly means "nothing" is a bit reductive.
The preseason is really about personnel evaluation. More than teams winning preseason games, it might be more appropriate to think of "winners" and "losers" in terms of individual player performance.
For the Detroit Lions, the best thing that could come out of Saturday's [...]
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It's strange to think that an professionally drafted football player is coming into the 2010 season with no NFL experience, despite being drafted in 2008.
Even stranger is the image of that same player, who will turn 26 in September, being forced to carry the pads of, say, 23-year-old second-year player Zack Follett.
Yet that scenario is just one of many unusual circumstances brought about by the tale of West Point graduate Caleb Campbell.
You might remember Campbell as the only interesting thing that happened in the seventh round of the 2008 NFL Draft. And no, not just because he was Matt Millen's final draft pick. But he was... right after Landon Cohen, Jerome Felton, and Kenneth Moore (who was a wide receiver, but I had to look it up, because I don't even [...]
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Before I say one word about Brett Favre's "retirement," let me first say this: I don't believe it.
Right now, I don't believe it because it's a "report" from an unnamed source citing a conversation between Favre's "people" and Vikings "personnel."
If Brett Favre comes out and announces it officially, I won't believe it.
When Tarvaris Jackson takes the Vikings' first snap of the regular season against the New Orleans Saints... I'll be closer to believing it. A little.
With that said, even if Lions fans don't care about Favre's annual carousel of madness, the fact is, the boys in Honolulu blue have a good deal at stake regarding Favre's decision.
Oddly enough, none of that has to do with things happening this year. What you're about to hear is effectively a rehash of [...]
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After a slow July with very little to talk about, the NFL is finally heading into training camp season.
Detroit Lions fans, it's time to get excited. In an offseason that spawned a great deal of optimism across Detroit, this is the time when you get to hear about how well players are performing in drills.
In other words, that optimism is about to hit a fever pitch.
But while training camp is good news for fans, it's very bad news for the 54th guy on the roster. The Lions have had a quietly active offseason (aside from the announcements of Kyle Vanden Bosch and Nate Burleson on day one), signing a number of guys who will be involved in a camp battle somewhere.
Some of them while be involved in a battle for depth chart position. We'll talk about those guys later. Right now, [...]
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Over the past 10 years, the Lions have been even more futile than the city they play in -- which is saying something when you play in Detroit. This franchise is 42-118 in those 10 years and, remarkably, just 2-30 the past two seasons.
But heading into 2010, things don’t feel quite this bad in Detroit. For once, there seems to be a sense of purpose and stability. Maybe it’s because Jim Schwartz and his [...]
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Look, I know. Matt Millen is gone, and I need to get over it. As Detroit Lions fans, we all do. Dredging up the past isn't really going to help anything.
But with the recent release of safety Daniel Bullocks, yet another Millen-brand second round bust, one can't help but wonder how much longer his mark will be on the team.
Over the past two offseasons, the Lions' current management has done a fantastic job of rebuilding the roster with players not associated with the former GM.
Still, as Bullocks proves, there are some remnants hiding out here and there, and even some players that don't have anything to do with Millen have been affected by his tenure in some way.
After all, it has been less than two years since Millen was finally fired, and [...]
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Quick-hitting analysis on every key contributor to the 2010 Detroit Lions.
*new veteran
**rookie
Head Coach: Jim Schwartz (2nd year)
Offense
[...]
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