Lions Preview part deux

I've been waiting to publish this post for a while now. Best Buy and their lovely geek squad can be thanked for that.

Now that we got offensive skill positions out of the way, its time to look at the worst parts of the team the O-line and D-Line.

O-Line
C:Dominic Raiola
He's the only center on the roster as of right now. He's been here for 8 years, and it seems like he's struggled every second he's been here. Reports have said he's taken on the leadership role on the Offensive Line and that's fine because with as mediocre as he has been, he's been one of the more consistent lineman the Lions have had in a long time.
C Grade:C-

G:Frank Davis, Edwin Mulitalo, Corey Hulsey, Steven Peterman, Manny Ramirez (He takes time off from the Red Sox outfield to play the O-Line in Detroit), Ben Noll
Edwin Mulitalo was one of the surprises last season on the offensive line ending the season at left guard. Frank Davis was solid in 2006, his rookie campaign, at the left guard spot. Stephen Peterman has ended the last two season at right guard and has been decent at best. Manny Ramirez spent his rookie year as a backup at the guard spots. Ben Noll was a practice squad player last year, so I have nothing more to say about him.
G Grade:D

T:Jeff Backus, George Foster, Jonathan Scott, Godser Cherilus, Chris Patrick
Jeff Backus has been consistenetly mediocre at Left Tackle for the past 7 years. George Foster looked to take over the Right Tackle spot that Damian Woody departed from until the Lions drafted that guy from Boston College, Godser Cherilus. Jonathan Scott ended his rookie campaign in 2006 at the Right Tackle position when Damian Woody was injured. The Lions have added Ithaca, Michigan's favorite son, Chris Patrick. He hasn't done much in the league, but he could ba a solid member of the practice squad this year. Overall, a somewhat experienced group that could definitely improve, a lot.
T Grade:C-

OL Grade (total):C-

Defensive Line

DE: Ikaika Alama-Francis(Hard to say and hard to type),DeWayne White, Corey Smith, Jared Devries, Rudolph Hardie, Victor DeGrate, Cliff Avril

DeWayne White had a pretty good first go around with the Lions. He and Jared Devries had 6.5 sacks each, the top marks of the defensive ends. Corey Smith, if he could do it again, i think he would do it the same. In backup duty in 16 games, Smith had 2.5 sacks. Francis only played in 6 games, didn't have any sacks, but contributed to 6 tackles, while making 11 of his own. Rudolph Hurdle, Victor DeGrate, and Cliff Avril are all rookies that have been added for some depth and its anyone's bets as to who might make the team. This group isn't exactly the strong point of the team, but really there is no strong point on this team, if you haven't figured that out yet.
DE Grade : C

DT: Cory Redding, Shaun Cody, Langston Moore, Chuck Darby, Landon Cohen, Andre Fluellen, Jonathon Lewis

DT is a position that isn't best defined by stats like DE is. Cory Redding, the highest paid DT in the league, did what DT's do. clog the line. But in the 4-3 alignment the lions use he needs a good partner, he had one in Shaun Rogers even though Rogers only tried 15-20 plays a game. Is Shaun Cody good enough to play full time? I think not. The Lions have definitely made a commitment to the D-Line because they drafted Cohen and Fluellen and brought in Darby from Tampa Bay. Marinelli seems to be transporting the young pieces of the Tampa line that he coached that weren't good enough for tampa to keep.
DT Grade: C-

D-Line Grade:C-

Check in and one of these days there will be a whole new post probably about the stanley cup finals.

Detroit Lions Season/Draft Preview

While there are so many good things going on in sports right now, I would like to take a look a one thing that has always left a little hole in my heart, Lions football. The Lions have not had a winning season in 8 years and with some of the moves they are making it looks like they might be able to stretch it to 9, hell chances look so good I'll settle for another less than 10 loss season. While Rod Marinelli believes he can get another five years to build through the draft, it looks like he might be out before then. Before I get too down on the Lions and start looking for a cliff to jump off of let's take a look at the Lions position by position roundup.

Today, Its offensive skill players.
QB: Jon Kitna,Dan Orlovsky, Drew Stanton
Relatively one of the stronger units on the team. You've got an aging starter who's got God on his side. A back-up who's biggest accomplishment in his pro career is leading his team to the 3-yard line and not scoring. A third-stringer touted as the future, even though at the Senior Bowl couldn't throw a spiral. I expect Kitna to play 12 games, but because of age and the Offensive Line (we'll get to that later) he'll get knocked around too much to remember at least what will add up to one whole game. No one has seen enough of Orlovsky or Stanton to really give them a grade, but we'll go with they would be no worse than JP Losman if they were forced to start.
QB Grade:B-

RB:Tatum Bell, Brian Calhoun, Aveion Cason, Jon Bradley
The lions running back corps is looking for more people to throw into the rotation as they got rid of the two most productive backs they have had in the past 3 years(T.J. Duckett and Kevin Jones). After demanding a trade and then seeing his competition gone, he is back to carry the load he should've after the trade from the broncos last year. Brian Calhoun is one fast little guy, at least that's what I know from Madden football. No one else knows because he hasn't been on the field enough in his two seasons as he has only been on the active roster for 11 of 32 games.
This is definitely and area that will need to be addressed during the draft because the Lions have taken a couple of swings and misses on the free agent market.
RB Grade:C-

WR:Roy Williams, Calvin Johnson, Mike Furrey, Shaun McDonald, Reggie Ball, Ron Bellamy, Brandon Middleton, John Standeford
The Lions love them some Wide Receivers, don't they? With an expected and unreasonable shift towards the running game this season, look for all of these guys to have down years. I wouldn't be surprised if somehow Matt Millen decides to get rid of one of these guys for a couple of Draft Picks, help in the trenches, or a RB. I really can't say anything bad about this WR corps. They don't drop that many passes, it just seems like they only drop them when a win is on the line.
WR Grade:B+

TE:Dan Campbell, Casey Fitzsimmons, Michael Gaines, Sean McHugh, John Owens, Clark Harris
The Lions brought in Michael Gaines this year as a probable blocking tight end. These guys haven't gotten much action the past couple of years with Mike Martz at the helm. Noe that Jim Coletto is here, get ready for a couple of small breakout seasons form Gaines and Fitzsimmons. They won't be elite tight ends, but they will be good targets on play action fakes that the lions will need to run.
TE Grade:C

In the next edition: The Trenches and Special Teams

Lots of stuff happened.

Its been about a month since I last posted and a lot of things have happened:

-CMU baseball has started to win games. They've won 9 of the last 14 including a win over No. 22 Michigan.

-CMU softball won 6 0f 9 with one of those losses being to No. 6 Michigan 4-3.

-The NCAA tournament was awesome. The first weekend was chock full o' upsets. The second weekend was still good, even though the three of the one seeds moved through fairly easily. The NCAA pulled some great scheduling techniques to make Davidson vs. Kansas the last game of that weekend. The two Final Four games last Saturday weren't extremely exciting. But, The final was one of the best I've seen in my lifetime. My question coming out of that game is "Is Mario Chalmers the next Miles Simon?"

- The Baseball season has started. The Orioles are atop the AL East. The Marlins are atop the NL East. The White Sox and Royals are tied atop the AL Central. The Tigers are 0-7. Too much emphasis is placed on the first week of games. I can almost guarantee that none of those teams will come close to winning their divisions. Just the same way the Tigers won't set the new record for most losses in a season with 162. Its a young season and the Tigers are missing one huge component of their offense and a couple of key cogs from their bullpen. When Granderson comes back and is healthy, and Rodney first, then Zumaya come back to the bullpen, the Tigs shouldn't lose any series.

My main motivation for posting is the NHL playoffs. For me, this is definitely the best time of the year. Go from NCAA tournament to Opening Day to the Stanley Cup playoffs. The best teams lie out in the Western Conference while arguably the best individual talents are out in the East.
My favorite to come out of the West is San Jose. With my dark horse (5-8 seed to make it all the way) being the Flames. Now I know both teams are playing each other in the first round. But for calgary to beat the sharks, its going to take a hot Miika Kiprusoff. If he can stay hot after that, the Flames would be the toughest team to beat in the NHL. Out of the East, my favorite is the Pittsburgh Penguins. I have no dark horse out of the East. The only team I give a shot to win their 1st round series is Philly, but I don't think they will be able to beat anyone else.

That's all I got for now, I'll leave you with a good link

Best defense ever: "This is how I chill, ma'am"