Detroit Lions Weblog

Lions Swing and Miss on Panthers CB Lucas, SI’s Don Banks on Lions, Uncapped Season Bad for Lions?

Apparently, according to a number of reports, the Lions attempted to make a trade for Panthers CB Ken Lucas today, prior to the beginning of free agency.

Lucas would have had to agree to a newly re-structured deal in order for the trade to occur. Lucas effectively killed the deal by refusing to re-structure. Nice try, Lions front office. Better luck next time.

It is no secret that the Lions are desperate (we’re talking junkies in the throes of withdrawal symptoms, people!) for help in their secondary. Ideally, they would end up with a starter and a backup (or two) during the free agent signing period. Rumors continue to surround the Lions potentially acquiring versatile Titans corner Chris Carr.

SI’s Don Banks , after Peter King’s recent jab at free agent-to-be Dan Orlovsky (he should play in Canada– they have bigger end zones) and it’s recent feature on Matthew Stafford, continues that venerable publications fixation on the lamentable Lions organization, as it speculates upon where the 0-16 team will cast it’s lot in April with the first overall draft pick.

In Banks’ mock draft, he believes that LB Aaron Curry’s combine performance was notable enough to vault him atop the draft board, especially given the Lions terrible ‘08 defense and clear need for a playmaker in the middle of their defense, who can play on all downs. Curry would give the “Schwartzingham” defense a versatile chess piece to utilize in their scheme.

Even more intriguing, is the possibility that the Lions could select DT Peria Jerry with their second first round pick. In Banks’ mock, the Lions could even select Jerry’s teammate and potential franchise left tackle Michael Oher with their pick at the top of the second round. If this were how the Lions draft actually played out, I would be ecstatic.

In order to be “fair and balanced”, Pro Football Weekly’s Eric Edholm gives a more stinging assessment of the Lions potentially drafting Curry in April.

Edholm believes that Scott Linehan’s success presiding over the development of young QB’s would trump Curry’s excellent combine performance. From my vantage point, not being a proponent of selecting a QB with the first pick, this is both entirely too logical and very troubling news.

Free agency does put some contingencies upon what the Lions could eventually do, though. Such as, if they are unable to actually sign any cornerbacks, a left guard, or backup Qb in free agency, then they would have to re-consider all of these selections.

Speaking of free agency, as the likely uncapped 2010 season approaches, Tom “Killer” Kowalski does an excellent job of teasing out exactly how an uncapped season may impact the Lions as they attempt to rebuild towards respectability:

1) a unrestricted free agent has to play six years instead of four, meaning less available players than usual in free agency.
2) Teams would receive an additional “transition” tag, which again would slow player movement significantly

The Lions had a terrible draft in ‘06, so they would not benefit from the extra two years of retaining the relatively inexpensive players that they could hold onto the rights of. (curse you, Matt Millen, you imp).

One benefit for the Lions, if this scenario plays out and the owners and players don’t agree to a new collective bargaining agreement by next March, is that the four teams who play in the conference championship games will be limited in what they can do in free agency, as a result of their success. It seems incredibly unlikely, CBA or no CBA, that the Lions will appear in a conference championship game anytime soon.