So What Have We Learned?

About the Lions? Not too much, other than that they do not match up well with the Packers at all.

Yesterday's game was eerily similar to the 26-0 loss of a few weeks ago. The Lions scored a few more points due to some Packer miscues and some solid defense but the offense was equally ineffective.

In the October 18 game Culpepper was forced to play without Calvin Johnson and with injured Brandon Pettigrew and Gosder Cherilus. Green Bay had Aaron Kampman and Al Harris. Before leaving with a "hamstring" (mercy killing by the staff?) Culpepper was simply swarmed under. I don't recall a single pass he was able to step into. Stanton was able to run around a bit and create passing lanes but ultimately he was equally ineffective.

Yesterday Stafford has a bit more time, but he was gimpy, Calvin Johnson still appears to be gimpy and Pettigrew (again) got knocked out of the game early. Green Bay didn't have Kampman or Harris but ultimately they didn't need either.

So we really have no idea whether Culpepper would have done better.

The Lions' run defense was better than the pass defense but that wasn't anything new. Rodgers passed at will against the weak Lion pass defense. It's hard to see how that part of the game gets fixed quickly. Detroit really needs a solid #1 corner, some pass-rushing ends and linebackers and a rangy free safety. Even if they are able to draft all of those players in one off-season (unlikely) it will be a year or two before they reach their potential.

What we maybe did learn is how much better the Packers are than the Lions, and perhaps what makes them a solid sleeper come playoff time. Green Bay's defense is simply ferocious. Better with Kampan and Harris than without, to be sure, but still among the best in the league.

Ted Thompson is probably the best talent evaluator in the division. Since taking over GM duties in 2005 he has drafted Rodgers, Greg Jennings, Nick Collins, AJ Hawk and Jeremy Thompson. He signed Charles Woodson and traded for Ryan Grant. He drafted Johnny Jolly in the 6th round and a 7th rounder from this year - Brad Jones - got his first career start yesterday in place on Kampman. From the 2009 draft Raji appears to be the force that Green Bay expected and Clay Matthews has 5 sacks so far, TJ Lang is the starting right tackle.

and expect Green Bay to get better. They are in their second year in a 3-4 and while they appear now to have the pieces in place to run it, there will still be some maturation and improvement. The offensive line is a shambles but the team is still pretty good. Figure the line gets addressed this winter and at the very least is better in 2010, if not much better. Rodgers probably has the best set of offensive players in the NFC around him with Grant, Jennings, Donald Driver and Jermichael Finley (among others).

So while we might not have learned much about the Lions at all, we maybe did learn how far they are from where they need to be.

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The milk-carton WR corps -- time to worry?

No Calvin Johnson. No Bryant Johnson. No Dennis Northcutt. No Brandon Pettigrew.

This is becoming an issue.

Though I've criticized rookie QB Matthew Stafford's performance against the Browns, to be fair, it's difficult to impossible to judge the passing game when your top FOUR targets are out, and have been out for weeks now.

This will absolutely affect the offense early in the season, and probably lead to losses in the early part of the year, if it continues.

Sure, Calvin will be Calvin. But there will be no cohesion to the passing attack because they've had so little time together on the field.

None of the injuries is said to be so serious that any of the four is expected to miss a large amount of time. And yet it's been week after week without the group working together on the practice or playing field.

If this extends on into the third preseason game against the Colts game, it's time to get real worried.

They're talking about it in The Den!

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Salary Cap Forum Updated - PREMIUM

2009 Lions Cap Status through August 6th

Transaction Log Updated through August 6th

Sammie Lee Hill Player Cost

Derrick Williams Player Cost

Louis Delmas Player Cost

Brandon Pettigrew Player Cost

Cap Adjustments

Follow Detroit's salary cap with expert George Ketchman here. (Requires premium membership to RoarReport.com)

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Delmas, Others, Miss Wednesday's Practice

The Detroit Lions held out several players from Wednesday morning's practice session, including rookie safety Louis Delmas, according to mlive's Tom Kowalski.

Delmas had swelling in his knee following Tuesday's afternoon practice. The injury isn't considered serious, and he will be listed as day-to-day. The same applies to receiver Calvin Johnson (right hand), who told Kowalski "I'm fine, it's not bothering me. Fellow safety and possible starter Daniel Bullocks (knee), tight ends Brandon Pettigrew (thigh) and Casey FitzSimmons (ankle), DT Grady Jackson, and RB Maurice Morris (leg) also missed practice, according to Kowalski. The Lions don't anticipate any of the players missing much practice time. Most of the moves were for precautionary reasons.

Discuss Lions training camp, and your thoughts on the 2009 season, in The Den message board.

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Pettigrew gets high praise from one of the best

Brandon Pettigrew has some high praise to live up to, now that he's been raved on by one of the best to ever play that position.

Nicholas Cotsonika at Freep.com reports that Lions Hall of Fame TE Charlie Sanders had many good things to say about the just-signed rookie Pettigrew as Brandon enters his first training camp.

“He’s a complete tight end,” Sanders said at the end of the off-season program. “He really is. The thing I like about him – his size, his speed, his strength. He doesn’t back down when it comes to blocking. He’s not intimidated. He has great hands – better hands than I thought – and great hand-eye.

“If there’s a negative right now, it would be, in my opinion, to learn to lower his body weight in terms of separating, coming out of breaks. It’s not so much speed as the ability to separate. He’s got all the tools.”

Pettigrew should have a key role as an every-down TE in Scott Linehan's offense, Cotsonika writes -- opening holes in the running game, making big catches and taking pressure off All-World WR Calvin Johnson.

“Now it’s just a matter of developing the packages for him, because he’s going to have to be accounted for,” Sanders said. “No linebacker is going to be able to check him one-on-one, and I don’t think there are too many safeties can do it."

From your lips to the Lions' scoreboard, Charlie.

Talk about it in The Den!

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Levy signs; Lewand expects all draftees signed by Friday

Some good news heading into the start of training camp Friday: Lions team president Tom Lewand said he expects all of Detroit's rookies to be signed and in camp on time, Tom Kowalski reports at MLive.com.

Those yet to ink deals include first-round pick TE Brandon Pettigrew; second-round S Louis Delmas; third-round WR Derrick Williams and fourth-round DT Sammie Lee Hill.

"I feel confident that we'll have everybody in camp on time," Lewand said this afternoon. "We've been pretty close to meeting it every year. The last couple of years, we've missed a day or two at times and you certainly don't want to do that and I don't think there's any reason why we should this year. "We've got good relationships with the agents we're dealing with. They're established, credible, good agents who have good track records of their own."

Why wouldn't you want to report on time as a rookie on a team this bad? Where else do you have a better shot at playing time?

As if to prove Lewand's point, ESPN.com's Kevin Seifert reports on his NFC North blog that the Lions signed third-round LB DeAndre Levy to a three-year deal today.

Discuss in The Den!

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Calvin Johnson Getting Love

There's only a few things the Detroit Lions should carry over from last year's 0-16 team.

But consider Calvin Johnson and his 1,331 receiving yards and 12 touchdowns among them.

Johnson's fantasy value was discussed in a recent article in the Detroit Free Press, and not so surprising, the third-year receiver is considered one of the top fantasy players for 2009 -- regardless of who is tossing him the pigskin.

"If his hands become a little more consistent, which they should, there's a good chance Johnson will be the top-ranked WR when it's all said and done this year," writes Matthew Lutovsky of the Sporting News, who rates Johnson as the team's only five-star player. "Don't be scared away by either Daunte Culpepper or Matthew Stafford throwing the ball to him."

The article, which more or less relied on the Sporting News for all of its fantasy prognostications, also listed running backs Kevin Smith and Maurice Morris, receiver Bryant Johnson, tight end Brandon Pettigrew and kicker Jason Hanson as fantasy draft worthy talent.

DISCUSS FANTASY FOOTBALL, AND MORE DETROIT LIONS TOPICS, IN THE DEN MESSAGE BOARD

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Atticus: Delmas, Pettigrew Could Be Great

We love sharing the insightful opinion from knowledgeable fans, and it typically doesn't get any better than The Den user Atticus, who shared the importance of Detroit Lions rookie safety Louis Delmas and tight end Brandon Pettigrew in what has become a hot topic on the message board.

First -- let's talk ... baseball.

LOL.

There are some rare commodities in baseball -- used to be even more rare -- but still pretty rare.

I'll list 2.

A shortstop who is a notably good fielder AND a notably good hitter with good power. A catcher who is a notably good fielder AND a notably good hitter with good power.

It's just such a plus for a team to have such a Shortstop or Catcher. You don't have to put up with mediocrity in one area to have the other area. A good hitting catcher who's crap in throwing out runners or calling the game. Or a great fielding catcher who barely hits his weight and who has warning track power. Same for SS. Pettigrew. There are perhaps 15 notably productive TEs in terms of receiving numbers. So getting a TE who can give you that -- is itself not that easy to find. The number of TEs who are notably good in both blocking AND receiving production?

Count them on one hand. I'll list Witten as my example guy. He helps Dallas in so very many ways. He's a very rare guy to have on your team.

That's what Pettigrew hopes to become, I think. A really good all-around TE -- similar to Witten. I think most folks think he'll do exactly that. Perhaps not get quite the receiving numbers -- though Witten's not really all that fast and wasn't a guy with big numbers in college either.

Pettigrew is a version of Alex or Pudge Rodriguez. Rare talent. Great value to his team (leaving aside Alex's problems in the post-season of course).

Delmas. He's a safety who we believe has the tackling/run-help ability of some of the better safeties AND he has cover abilities that rival many of the better safeties. So -- using the above analysis -- he's got it all as well (we think). And it's fairly rare. Thus -- Ed Reed, Troy Polamalu, Bob Sanders are extremely valuable to their teams.

And that's what we've seen in the NFL -- the emergence of Safeties as bigtime values to their teams -- the really good safeties. There aren't that many of them. The Lions have floundered at safety (along with lots of other positions) for years and years. Certainly throughout the Millen era. And I'd actually go back to Blades in the early 90s.

In today's NFL, safeties can be a great and valuable asset to a team and defense. The all-around guys will fit any system. The main problem with such guys is that a team is likely to take them for granted. Then pay a huge price if the guy goes down to injury. The drop-off will be glaring -- that's how rare they are -- and how valuable they can ultimately be to their teams.

Is Delmas in the class of Polamalu, BobS and Ed Reed? Again -- I think the brass think so ... and a lot of draft sites agree.

I grump around about the DT situation and CB2 -- but that's more a failing overall of the draft and free agency efforts (and the inability to deal with every need in one year -- an understandable situation). I have NO issue at all with Pettigrew or Delmas. BPA's at the time? Certainly among the BPAs IMO. NEED? Yes. I think clearly they also help us in areas where we clearly needed help.

Rare talents -- and we got them at 20 and 33. In the same year. I think we got Spielman and Blades at 29 and 3 in 1988. I think these guys -- Pettigrew and Delmas -- will prove to be just as great as Lions in the NFL. Toss in that guy we took at #1OA ... and the 2009 draft of Mayhew/Schwartz may well prove to be the best in Lion history. But only time will tell.

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Showing the rooks what -- and who -- it's all about

Terry Foster of the Detroit News highlights something very cool and under-the-radar that Lions Coach Jim Schwartz recently did -- and apparently hoped would remain a secret.

Schwartz took top Lions draft choices Matthew Stafford, Brandon Pettigrew and Louis Delmas to the Dearborn Truck Assembly Plant, where they sat for two hours and signed autographs, took photos and passed out Lions gear to surprised workers.

He wanted this to be part of his players' education on the NFL and the city of Detroit.

Schwartz is a different cat. After a month of planning, he took his high-profile rookies to meet the rank-and-file. His goal was to do more than just spread good will to Ford employees. He wanted his rookies to touch hands with regular people in Detroit. He wanted them to see the hardened Rouge plant that has pumped out thousands of cars and trucks over the years.

"The other day, Dominic Raiola talked about how he fell in love with the city," Schwartz said by phone from Maryland. "He said how much he loves the people and I thought it was important for these guys to experience the same feel and things like that. We did not want cameras there because we thought it would have ruined the whole dynamic of it."

Schwartz, 43, wants his rookies grounded ... "We wanted them to know who they were playing for," Schwartz said. "We wanted them to meet the people who were paying their paychecks."

I think this is just fantastic. If Schwartz handles football games as well as he's handled the other stuff so far, 0-16 will soon become a very distant memory.

Share your thoughts in The Den!

Millen heaps love upon Lions, Detroit in press conference

Get your bricks and disposable televisions ready, Lions fans. Matt Millen's coming back. As Nicholas Cotsonika reports at Freep.com, Millen held his first media session since being hired as an analyst by the NFL Network. Millen disclosed that his pay issue (the Lions' money was apparently cut off after they fired him) remains unresolved. But he said that won't affect how he talks about the Lions on TV.

"I’ll handle the Lions like I do any other football team -- just look at them and break them down and see where they’re at."

Millen was asked if his atrocious record as an NFL executive with the Lions will cause him a loss of credibility with viewers.

“In the National Football League, you’re only judged on wins and losses, so my tenure was not good,” Millen said. “I mean, it was very poor. And so it’s been said, you learn a lot from failures, and I learned a ton. So I can bring that to the table. I view my experience in Detroit as a positive.”

Millen was effusive in his praise of Detroit during the press conference (as if that will win back any hearts and minds):

"Here’s the thing with Detroit,” Millen said. “I love Detroit. I love … I’m a huge fan of Martin Mayhew. I’m a huge fan of Jim Schwartz. I think that’s an excellent hire. I think Jim did a good job of putting his staff together. “But there is no bigger fan anywhere of Mr. Ford than me, and I would love to see him holding a trophy. That would be great for me -- for him, rather -- but more importantly, it would be great for the fans of Detroit. They deserve it. They’re awesome fans."

He then turned his praise to the Lions rookies:

“But I know this: I really like Stafford. Stafford has a real arm, and Stafford can make real throws. In our league, you have to have that guy. … “I couldn’t speak to what they would win or lose, but I can speak to they’ve got themselves a guy to really work with. I also like the tight end they got. That kid’s a good player. So there’s some pieces up there.”

My take? I think Millen's forever tainted by his toxic time with the Lions. That's not to say he can't go on and be quite successful once again as an NFL analyst -- a job he was once quite good at. It just means that there won't be nearly as much buy-in into his analysis as there was prior to his taking the reins in Allen Park. Talk about it in The Den!

Stafford/Pettigrew = Romo/Witten?

Well, the bromance may not be at a Tony Romo-Mark Witten extreme -- yet, anyway. But Carlos Monarrez at Freep.com notes that rookie TE Brandon Pettigrew was a frequent target of rookie QB Matthew Stafford during a recent Lions practice, and the two appear to work well with each other.

"It just happened like that," Pettigrew said. "I'm glad we're kind of getting a feel for each other and a good connection going into this thing and having a good relationship. That'll be good." Pettigrew has been particularly impressed with Stafford's on-field maturity. "He's a rookie as well, but he sits in there with composure and attitude and leadership, like he's been here," Pettigrew said. "He's just an all-around good player and good guy."

Pettigrew was obviously brought in for two reasons -- help the running game with his blocking prowess and take some pressure off WR Calvin Johnson with his receiving ability. The extent to which he does both will go a long way toward putting 0-16 in the rear-view mirror. Talk about it in The Den!

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Dan Miller On WZAM: 15 Minute Interview

Pirated from WZAM Marquette via MLive. Really outstanding 15 minute interview with Miller where he discusses the OTAs in real depth.

Highlights:

Stafford has a lot of talent but his rawness is pretty clear (yawn).

Pettigrew looks good, but more important in Miller's analysis that Pettigrew was really drafted to be an impact player along the lines of Witten/Cash/Gonzalez. While he has a slightly different skill set, Miller was pretty emphatic that Pettigrew is out there to create mismatches and in his eyes will be a disappointment if he doesn't become a significant offensive threat.

And the best, his discussion of Delmas (paraphrasing) 'the fans will love Delmas, he hits everything that moves and keeps hitting it until it stops moving'.

Miller goes on to warn that it's early, players are in shorts, etc. Another datapoint that we have a lot to be optimistic about concerning the '09 rookies. Every source has been positive on the top three and it is sounding more and more like Delmas is projecting to be a star.

Direct download of interview. Link to MLive article/discussion.

Discuss it here in The Den.

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Another good look at the new unis, on the rooks

From a Matthew Stafford fan's blog: Matthew was in Los Angeles this past week for the NFL Players Rookie Premiere at the Los Angeles Coliseum. During the event the rookies pose for trading card pictures, sign autographs and are interviewed for websites. The LA Daily News, ESPN.com and Beckett.com have posted some photos of Matthew wearing his Detroit Lions uniform. From that event, here's a picture of Derrick Williams, Brandon Pettigrew and Stafford together: For some reason, I see the unis in a way I didn't see them when they were unveiled. Maybe it's the natural lighting. You'll never convince me they haven't gone to a lighter, teal-er shade of blue. Looks good, though, I guess. Has a more modern look. The other thing I noticed is, Matthew's a rather big boy. But check him out next to Pettigrew! What do you think? Talk about it in The Den.

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