This is the last year for a semi-valid opinion to be spoken in regards to Calvin Johnson, at least with any shred of credibility, so please enjoy it all former NFL wide receivers turned commentator.

As opposed to the outrage and fury that I felt when Chris Carter opened up his loud, country-bumpkin sounding pie-hole that sits under a protruding beak-nose. I am actually happy that Jerry Rice has now set himself up to be shown wrong once and for all.

This is a bit different for me because Jerry Rice was more respectful of Calvin Johnson in his assessment of his top five wide receivers and I think that has a lot to do with the way that I feel about his opinion.  The all time greatest wide receiver in NFL history (for now) has ranked Calvin Johnson as only the second-best receiver in NFL football today behind Larry Fitzgerald. Fine….that’s his opinion, but that’s all it is.

Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

The great thing about this is that you know that after this year, there will be absolutely no question in anybody’s mind as to who the greatest wide receiver in the game is today. Continue reading “Jerry Rice’s Opinion Doesn’t Change Megatron’s Reality” »

OK, so with all of the wacky tabacky issues our Detroit Lions have been going through I was a bit hesitant to use the phrase “get off the pot”. I don’t want to confuse you, but this article is not about the Ganja and I’m making no references to the sticky green. Are we clear? Good.

This is all about players who have flashed elite-level talent but that’s all they have given us, flashes. This is about players who need to show up big this year or else get classified as a SO-SO football player. I don’t have to tell you what happens to so-so football players, but I will anyway. Their team starts looking for replacements.

You might get ticked at me if one of your favorite players is on this list but don’t blame me for their consistent level of just better than mediocre! Sheesh….

Oh, and I’m leaving off all players that haven’t shown ANY flashes, like Amari Spievey for example. Players like him aren’t good enough to make this list. Sorry Amari…

On to the players watch list.

1. DeAndre Levy – The 4th year LB drafted out of Wisconsin has been a steady yet unspectacular player even though given tons of playing time at multiple positions. Don’t scream at me, I’m not saying Levy sucks. He is pretty good in pass coverage and he is a good technical player with 109 tackles to show for it last year. That’s all well and good, what…ever.

The problem with DeAndre Levy is that he simply doesn’t make enough big splash plays. Continue reading “The “Piss or Get Off The Pot” Watchlist… Detroit Lions Players Who Need To Step It Up” »

When a basketball team is down by 10 points with 20 seconds left in the game they usually have their best shooters chuck up 3-point shots, not because it’s the highest percentage shot to take but because they have nothing to lose and they are SUNK if they don’t hit a couple big ones.

Martin Mayhew is this Lions organization’s best shooter and he chucked up some 3-pointers in his own way by selecting a few highly-talented players with red flags hanging off of them.

I for one, do not blame the Detroit Lions general manager for doing so. When you’re rebuilding a team that lacked more talented football players than nearly the entire league for about a decade and finally bottoms out at 0-16 you are not put in the normal position of being able to play it safe.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Martin Mayhew didn’t get this team to 10-6 and the playoffs by playing it safe and making sure that all of his draft picks were boy scouts. He made sure that every player he selected was a superior player in his opinion.

BPA stands for best player available not best person available. Continue reading “You Can’t Fault Mayhew For Choosing Highly-Talented “Risk” Players” »

OK, let me be very clear about this so that I don’t get any crazy comments directed towards me. I’m very happy to have Kellen Moore on the team. He’s the winningest QB in NCAA history, boasting a ri-dic-u-lous 50-3 record over his career. That’s awesome and I think he has all of the potential in the world.

He could be the next Drew Brees for all I know, he could also be the next Koy Detmer as well. Whose to say?

Either way I don’t care, I just would hate for him to become Detroit’s own Tim Tebow as far as hype and unwarranted coverage is concerned.

I’m just getting a little bit concerned for my Lions fan brethren and the local Detroit sports media. An undrafted QB brought in to compete for a spot at no.3 quarterback is not truly THAT exciting. But I’m seeing the beginnings of a Tim Tebow-esque style of coverage coming around the corner and I don’t like it one stinkin’ bit.

REAL training camp hasn’t even started yet and my left eye is already starting to twitch at each unnecessary mention of Kellen Moore. Continue reading “Hoping Not To Get “Tebowed” With Media Coverage Of Kellen Moore” »

When you draft elite-level talent, your team will have highly-talented players that produce immediately and elite-level players that breakout after a delay in progression or unfortunate injuries. The Detroit Lions have had plenty producers on the field the last couple of years, but it’s really intriguing how many difference makers are waiting at bay.

Willie Young (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

I looked more into this after former NFL GM Bill Polian gave his list of 10 pivotal players in the NFL this season and sitting at #3 on that list is Detroit Lions’ defensive tackle Nick Fairley.

So, before I get into our other potential season-changing breakout players for the Detroit Lions, here is what Polian wrote about Fairley:

“Fairley could be the missing piece in making the Detroit defense dominant. If the big Auburn alum can reach his potential, a trio of him, Ndamukong Suh and the emerging Corey Williams could make the Lions’ D-line extremely hard to handle up the middle and wreak havoc on the pocket (which will help an improving secondary).

I still think the Lions need more from the running back position to be legitimate title contenders, but if Fairley steps up, an already improved defense will be taken to another level.”

Although I don’t know how an 8 year veteran like Corey Williams is “emerging”, I agree with everything else Mr.Polian said.

The exciting thing for Lions fans though is that this roster is PACKED with young and talented players who could blow up this year and propel the Detroit Lions to the absolute upper-echelon elite in the NFL. You all know what that means

Here’s is my top 10 Detroit Lions players that could breakout and lead this team to greatness.
Continue reading “Detroit Lions Stacked With Potential Breakout Players” »

How did this happen? Where did the narrative that “Gosder Cherilus isn’t that good” come from?

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Whether it is fans of the Detroit Lions or talking heads in the Detroit sports media, I get the sense that everybody is waiting and expecting Gosder Cherilus to be replaced at the first opportunity, especially now that LT Riley Reiff was drafted. My question for you is simple. WHY?

I don’t know what it is about Gosder, but he doesn’t seem to garner much love from fans or media even though he is a really good player. Do you doubt that? Well then, I have another simple question for you. WHY?

I don’t know whether it’s the fact that Cherilus was a 1st round draft pick that none of us expected, or that he isn’t a Pro Bowl player yet or maybe even it’s that he has a bulbous head and kinda looks and sounds like Biz Markie, but Detroit Lions fans underestimate the big guy greatly.

2010 was the make or break year for him in my eyes because he certainly had underwhelmed in his first 2 seasons. The thing about it is this though… Gosder Cherilus started playing VERY good football in his 3rd year. He was very impressive in pass blocking, he was one of our better run blockers but then he got injured against New England in the Thanksgiving Day game on November 25th 2010.

I remember thinking about how much of a shame it was that he got hurt when he was actually becoming the player he was drafted to be in the 1st round. Well evidently, some of you missed out on that observation and only absorbed the disappointment of the injury and resumed seeing him as the Gosder from years 1 and 2.

The injury Gosder Cherilus sustained required micro fracture surgery, a surgery that has ended MANY professional sports careers. It’s one of those surgeries that some guys simply can’t recover from. So going into the 2011 season, I was simply hoping that the guy’s career would continue and that he’d be able to be on the field for MOST of the season and do reasonably well.

What did Gosder do?
Continue reading “Gosder Cherilus Won’t Be Beat Out At Right Tackle” »

2/20/2012 - Wow! People are turning on Cliff Avril quicker than a gold-digger would on her newly-bankrupt 80 year old husband after a stock market crash!

Fans have long been known to be fickle creatures, so this doesn’t come as a surprise. But I wish my fellow Detroit Lions fans had a little bit more understanding for a man’s own personal financial decisions that are made public unlike most of ours are.

My question is this? Whose really being the selfish one, Cliff Avril? Detroit Lions fans? Both maybe?

Everyone will obviously have a different opinion and that’s the beauty of debate with other fans of the same team.

Cliff Avril’s decision on what his contract demands are, are his decision and his right as a man. How do you feel when someone tries to count your money? You don’t like it right? Well the messed up thing about a professional football player’s situation is that everybody is counting his money and deciding what is “enough” for him and his family.

It’s funny that so many people love capitalism and free markets until it comes down to a pro athlete who is really a business in and of himself. I especially don’t begrudge a man’s contract demands when he is taking the field in the National Football League.

Why? For the very obvious reason that every time these men take the field they have a very legitimate chance of being carted off that exact same field on that very day. Do you remember Bo Jackson and how great his career would’ve been? Do you remember Detroit Lions Mike Utley or Reggie Brown and how great they could’ve been?

Well that could easily be any NFL player that touches the turf on any given Sunday in the organized violence that we call the NFL, a life full of would’ve beens and could’ve beens. When is the last time those woulda & couldas paid a bill?
Continue reading “Possible Cliff Avril Holdout Worries Me But Doesn’t Anger Me – You Mad?” »

Hi Ndamukong,

My name is Lee Torre and I’m one of the most avid Lions fans in the world, I have been since childhood. I can remember the names of full starting lineups, all of the superstars and even many backups for Lions teams of the 1990′s, even irrelevant players who nobody but Lions fans remember like Corey “Toast” Raymond and Larry “Turnstile” Tharpe (they sucked BTW).

I remember being 18 & 19 years old and tailgating outside of the Pontiac Silverdome with my best friend up until about 12:50pm and then BOLTING towards the Silverdome to see Barry do the amazing, I’m an old fart now at the age of 34 but I still LOVE and have stuck with the Lions through the good, bad and even the ugly Matt Millen decade of disaster.

Needless to say, I was super-geeked to see the Lions draft you, you are a man amongst boys on the field. You are an amazing talent and I’m glad I can root for you rather than against you on Sundays! BUT, I say all that to say this…

I have NEVER seen a Lions player that I was more tempted to dislike than you. As a matter of fact, I have never disliked a Lions players public persona before, ever.

But you sir, you are teetering on pushing much of your hometown fan base away and it’s for a very valid reason.

THE LIES.

The blatant, “don’t believe your lyin’ eyes” type lies you insist on telling. One thing you will learn about Detroiters is that we thoroughly respect “stand-up guys” and despise fake people.

I’ll tell you this bruh, I have never in my life been more stunned and dumbfounded from a Lions players press conference than the one you had after the Thanksgiving game against the Green Bay (fudge)Packers. As a Detroiter we embrace Bad Boys, I’d had been almost schoolgirl giddy if you had said “Yeah, I stomped him because he was pissing me off, you all didn’t see what he got away with. I’d kick him again too!” (Even as a fan though I’d be hoping you were just pissed and planned on NOT actually doing it again and were just talking tough. And I admit making such a statement wouldn’t be good for you outside of the D, especially with this power-hungry Commish lurking.)

Or even a simple admission of what you’d done like… “Yeah I kicked the guy, I should have kept my head. I’ll try to avoid that from now on” would have sufficed. But did you do anything close to either one of these examples? NO!

Instead at one of the weirdest press conferences I’ve ever seen, you say….

“What I did was remove myself from the situation the best way that I felt in me being held down in the situation that I was in,” You continue… “My intentions were not to kick anybody, as I did not.  [I was] removing myself, as you see, I’m walking away from the situation.  And with that I apologize to my teammates, and my fans and my coaches for putting myself to be in position to be misinterpreted and taken out of the game.”

At this point I am just sitting there, blinking. (You know that dumfounded blink…)

And then you continue with this doozy….

“I was on top of a guy being pulled down and trying to get up off the ground, which is why you see me pushing his helmet down,” You continue….  “As I’m getting up, I’m getting pushed so I’m getting myself unbalanced. . . .  With that a lot of people are going to interpret it as or create their own storylines, . . . but I know what I did, and the man upstairs knows what I did.”

At this point I began to wonder if these were the words of a liar or if you are truly delusional. I don’t know which one I was rooting for, but the thought that you maybe be a deluded person was what I was leaning towards because of the sincere look on your face AND of all things evoking God!

But that was then and this is now, I truly thought this issue was over, I saw your half-apology on your Facebook Page when you gave it and even though I could read through the words to see that you still were not going to take full responsibility and truly “own” what you did in front of the eyes of the entire nation, I said “whatever, it will soon be over now. Thankfully!”

But much to my freakin horror, IT’S NOT OVER!

Now you go on NFL Face to Face with Hannah Storm and CONTINUE to tell me and the rest of the world that the Earth is made of cheese!

After you act like we the people and media just call your actions whatever we choose to call them, then you admit you made a mistake. Only to follow it up with “It was really just me getting out of the way”, so which is it Ndamukong? Were you just getting out of the way or did you make a direct attempt to kick the guy? I don’t like being lied to and treated like an idiot by anyone. I really want to like you but WOW do you make it hard!

Your repeated words are so blatantly false it is truly laughable and puzzling.

Here’s a bit more.

Hannah Storm: “so was it intentional?”

Ndamukong Suh: “no it was not intentional”

Bruh, I know you think you’ve handled this well, because you’ve even said “I think I’ve done a great job of, one, addressing it…”, but I assure you, you have done quite the opposite.

Please stop the lying or just simply refuse to ever talk about the stomp ever again. Detroit backs guys labeled as bad guys all the time, we’d have your back if you just kept it real dude! I think you are doing yourself a huge disservice. I honestly think you are a really great guy for the charitable works you do, for instance providing football gear for kids to donating $2.6 million to the university of Nebraska, which was the largest charitable contribution ever from a former athlete and more.

As of right now, I’m still a fan of yours even if it doesn’t sound like it, but I just tell it how it is. I hope that you make it possible to stay a fan of yours. I wish you the best bruh. GO LIONS!!!!

Sincerely,

Lee Torre

LionsDetroit.com