So I headed on over to Bleeding Green Nation to see what the dudes over in Philly were saying in regards to the voided Ronnie Williams-Jerome Harrison deal, and was shocked to see this post on the front page.

Apparently some dumbass by the name of KC Joyner used the common practice of overevaluating statistics to come to a conclusion that leaves me feeling that the dude has absolutely no credibility in the football world:

Mike Wallace is better then Calvin Johnson.

Outside of losing any and all credibility in what I would hope would be the vast majority of NFL fans eyes, KC Joyner has also brought down the credibility of ESPN in general. That the "Insider" service that they're selling is this bullshit has to make anyone who actually is spending their hard-earned dollars on want to punch ESPN as a whole in the face.

That's all. Just hadn't seen anyone else mention this, so thought I would pass it along.

But we definitely need a poll here:

Haven't seen anyone mention this on POD, so I thought I would pass it along. A judge ruled against the NFL in a ruling yesterday that would prevent them from using the $4 billion in TV revenue they would have received during a lockout, which NFL owners were counting on to cover operating costs and other expenses during a lockout.

Why is this good for us? Because it takes away the biggest leverage that the owners had, and should give them a lot of motivation to get a deal done, as many teams, the Lions included, could have serious issues paying their bills during a prolonged lockout without said $4 billion stockpile to fall back on.

Shout out to Latif's blog House of Spears for providing the Detroit News link. Keep doing your thing, man.

Tony Washington. The "sister sleeper". We talked pretty extensively pre-draft about this guy, with most comments consisting of a simple one liner or joke regarding incest. The common opinion was essentially that, no, we shouldn't use a draft pick on the guy, though a lot of folks seemed to be good with the idea of taking him with a seventh round pick.

Yes, it's hard to fathom what possibly was going through his mind when, as a 16 year old, he decided to have consensual sex with his 15 year old sister. But according to this article, posted on ESPN.com, he seems genuinely remorseful, and has had a pristine record since "the incident".

Dude ain't had a easy life. I'm not going to sit here and say if you were in his shoes you would have done the same, because you probably wouldn't. But what you can do is forgive a man for a sin he committed as a 16 year old, growing up in a situation likely much worse then anything you or I did.

All this leads up to the question I have for you guys: should the Lions take a look at Tony Washington? For those that aren't aware, he's an Offensive Tackle who stands at 6'7" and 310 pounds. He also has very impressive athleticism for a guy of his stature, and was projected by most mock drafts to go in the third or fourth round before word of "the incident" got around to NFL execs.

Even as a seventh round pick, there would have been some amount of investment in him, and therefore some type of risk. But as an UDFA, there is no risk involved in bringing the guy in. If nothing else, he instantly becomes the most talented O-Lineman on the practice squad, and as crazy as this sounds he probably has more upside then our fourth round pick, Jason Fox.

I know, Corey Hilliard has played really well, we just drafted Fox, and that's in addition to Backus, Jansen, and Cherilus. But, again, he would likely be on the practice squad, and in a year or two be ready for a promotion to the big leagues.

What time is it? You guessed it: Poll time.

I know, I know, this isn't technically Lions-related, but I wanted to know what guys thought of the new season. It's always interesting to see the inner workings of an NFL franchise, regardless of what franchise it is. I gotta be honest, I was somewhat dissapointed to hear Schwartz say that he would never allow the Lions to do the show on his watch. *Insert Frowny Face Here*

A couple of guys POD'ers discussed drafting:

John Conner, FB: This guys is an absolute BEAST. I remember a few different people standing on the soapbox saying we should get this guy, and after watching him in camp I wholeheartedly agree. Dude already looks like the hardest hitter the Jets have, and he hasn't even played a regular season game yet.  I would be surprised if he's not a Pro Bowl FB within three years.

Kyle Wilson: Damn. Yep, he's as good as we all thought he would be. If we had found some way to get him, he would easily be the best Corner on our roster from day one, which is as much a testament to how shitty our secondary is as it is a testament to his skill. He looks like he's going to have a hell of a career.

Also, what are your guys thoughts on all the backlash on Rex Ryan for the amount of F-bombs he dropped? I think it's being blown WAY out of proportion, let's keep in mind that this is HBO, not Nickelodeon, people, and that Ryan coaches grown ass men in the NFL, not kids in the Little League World Series.

Thoughts?

Since we've signed Kyle Vandenbosch, I've heard a few Lions fans grumble about it, saying things like "Why are we giving a guy who is supposedly over the hill so much money? He's turning 32 this season, why does he deserve all of that money?" Here's why, as reported by ESPN's Kevin Seifert:

"Here was the most interesting and amazing thing I saw Tuesday: Twice, veteran defensive end Kyle Vanden Bosch sprinted 25 yards downfield to chase a ball carrier during 9-on-7 or 11-on-11 drills. In one case, he stunned Morris by trying to poke the ball loose. Vanden Bosch, a 10-year-veteran, didn't do it for fun. I considered it the most visible sign yet of setting an example for how a young team should practice. I'm guessing few Lions defensive linemen have chased ball carriers that far downfield during training camp practices."

You can read everything else he's had to say at:

http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcnorth/post/_/id/14336/lions-camp-day-2-meanwhile

I must admit, I smiled something serious when I read this. This is exactly the type of guy you want when you're trying to change the culture of a team that's been losing for as long as we have. He doesn't have to go to the Pro Bowl to earn his money; all he has to do is set the best example for our young guys, which he's clearly doing. He might not put up big stats this year (though that would be nice) but he still may end up being more responsible then anyone on the roster for helping to turn this team into a winner. This type of effort is infectious, and KVB seems like exactly the type of player the Lions have been lacking for a long time, that being a guy who gives 110% on every rep, regardless of the circumstances.

Also, I realize now this should've probably been a fanshot, but I didn't realize that until I was about halfway through typing this. My bad.

I'm not exactly the biggest fan of Yahoo's sports coverage, but I discovered an article where Jason Cole ranks every D-line in the league, and surprisingly we were ranked 16th overall:

Jason Cole NFL D-Line rankings

He's also ranked Quarterbacks, Running Backs, Offensive Lines and Wide Receivers, with our only other notable ranking being our receiving group, which he ranked 12th in the league (and I would possibly argue that with the amount of talent we have at WR and TE we could/should be ranked higher). The D-line ranking surprises me the most though, mainly because from the beginning of Millen's campaign all the way through last season it was a weakness, or mediocre at best, and because national media outlets seem to have an infatuation with flinging poo at the Lions.

I'm not a fan of polls, but curiosity is going to force me to be hypocritical:

But it's yet another person from another SBNation site doing a mock draft as GM of your Bengals! Yay!

But first, due to my username possibly breeding hostility, I'll give you a brief background of myself. I was born in Cincy and lived there until I was two, at which point my Mom found out that my Dad was pulling a Tiger Woods. She then took me and my brother back up to Michigan, where she grew up. I still have a ton of family in Cincinnati and visit them fairly often, and, of course, they are all Bengals fans. I went to numerous games as a kid, and I am still a fan. The pitiful Lions are my NFC team, the Bengals my AFC team.

Was that more information then you needed to know? Yes. But I'm hoping that knowing my Ohio background will lend some of you to help out more then you would have otherwise.

Here's the jist of it: I'm representing the Bengal's in Pride of Detroit's mock draft, by choice obviously. I've been reading through posts on Cincy Jungle, and it seems like there are two primary choices for the pick at 21, those being Taylor Mays and Mike Iuptapi. When I asked my dad about it he seemed to think the interior line was the greatest need, and is hoping the Bengals grab either Mike Iuptapi or Maurkice Pouncey, but I've seen a number of posts on this site advocating Mays.

I don't know who will be available when I pick yet, and anything can happen, but assuming that both Mays and Iuptapi are on the board, who would you want to take at 21?

Thanks for the help guys. WHO DEY!

I'm not sure if this has been discussed (I'm still new guys), but this was something I just noticed while looking through Julius Peppers stats. I know a lot of people feel that we just need a guard to shore up the O-line, and that Backus is fine at LT. However, Julius Peppers has played the Lions 4 times in his career, and in those 4 games has a total of 7 sacks, all at RE and all with Backus being at LT. I understand this isn't entirely Backus' fault, but now that we're gonna be seeing Peppers twice a year, should we be concerned? What do you guys think?

EDIT: For whatever reason, I thought Peppers played RE his whole career, which is inaccurate. He's played both ends, so Backus may not be to blame.

OK, so I stole the headline from the article on Mlive of the same name, but this, to me, is one of the most underrated subplots for the Lions this offseason. If Megatron wasn't such a class act, he probably would have forced his way out of town by now, and currently he is the only elite-level player on our team. Losing him would be a crushing blow to the team. However, it sounds like he's happy to have Burleson playing alongside him:

"I think he can be a big factor,'' Johnson said. "Nate's got some speed and great run-after-the-catch and I'm looking forward to seeing the ball get in his hands''

Glad to see the FO is doing what they can to keep our best player happy.

Alright guys, so the results (thus far) of the second round pick poll are as follows:

Devin McCourty, 63 votes

Jahvid Best, 61 votes

Maurkice Pouncey, 37 votes

These were the top 3 vote getters, I'm gonna leave it up for another couple days in case some people want to rally Best for a comeback victory (just check out his highlights on YouTube guys) and in the meantime I'll put out the third-round choices.

Once again, these are REALISTIC CHOICES at the no. 66 spot, I got so sick of hearing about Kyle Wilson with the second round pick, a guy who has absolutely no chance of falling out of the first. We also are not gonna wildly speculate draft day trades and assume we're using the picks the Lions have now. There will be a couple guys that will be off the vote that you guys probably think shouldn't be, and a couple of options on there that probably won't drop this far. I'm also including more options this time around; I was kinda surprised at the number of votes Patrick Robinson got even though McCourty is the consensus better prospect.

So far these are the choices we're making in this group mock of sorts.

Round 1: Ndamakong Suh, DT, Nebraska

Round 2 Devin McCourty, CB, Rutgers (SUBJECT TO CHANGE)

So without further ado:

So we have all discussed what the Lions may do with the second overall pick in the draft to the point where I'm just plain getting sick of hearing about it. However, I haven't heard anyone really discuss what we'll be doing with our other picks, or at least I haven't seen any topics in regards to it. Since nobody else has been jumping to do it, I am gonna take the initiative and make a couple topics discussing what we should do in other rounds.

We're gonna go ahead and assume the Lions take Suh with the second overall pick. Whether or not that will actually happen is up for debate, but I think it's safe to assume that that's the guy we'll most likely end up with. We're gonna assume there are no crazy draft-day trades, and that we're just drafting with the picks we already have.

So, here's the choices for who we should pick with the 34th overall pick. I've gone over a lot of recently updated mocks to choose the group of guys that have a realistic chance of being there when we pick. Keep in mind I'm sure I missed a couple guys, and a couple of these guys might be gone when we pick. I'll put up a topic for the third-round in a day or two after we've all had a chance to comment. Here goes:

Trying to contain my excitement about the KVB and Burleson signings.

So it was pretty much a consensus that we should take Suh with the second pick. All of a sudden, we acquire a good DT in Corey Williams who, like Suh, plays from the three-point stance. When you factor that we are adding $6 million to the payroll with the addition of Williams, it would be a little ridiculous to also then add Suh, who will get $10+ million a year with his rookie contract. If we did pick up Suh, we would be looking at paying nearly $20 million solely for our two starting DTs. So what do we do?

Draft Russell Okung instead. We have already significantly upgraded the D-Line with KVB and C-Will, and the O-line needed nearly as much work before free agency began. We draft out franchise LT in Okung, move Backus inside to guard, which will significantly upgrade our O-line. LG was really our only gaping hole, and this would fix that. Stephen Peterman is an underrated RG, and we know what Raiola can do. The only question mark on the o-line would be Gosder Cherilus, who we can only pray finally plays up to his potential this year.

here's a (hopeful) Lions mock for the first 3 rounds:

Round 1: Russel Okung, LT, Oklahoma State

Round 2: Jahvid Best, RB, Cal

Round 3: Donovan Warren, CB, Michigan

I admit, Best landing in our laps in the second is a stretch, after his combine showing it's very unlikely he'll fall out of the first round. But, hey, I can be hopeful, right?

If the draft unfolds like this, we all of sudden have no glaring weakness, maybe outside of depth at CB. But nobody can say we couldn't be a legitimate playoff team with all of these additions.

Thoughts?

This is a situation I'm curious to hear other Lions fans thoughts on. I'm personally torn between whether he's worth keeping or not. He's obviously overpaid, and I'm not sure there are any other teams in the league that would be willing to pay him at this stage of his career what we are paying him. At the same time, we are in such dire need of a pass rush that it seems like we have to hold on to him. Wish he would be willing to take a paycut but it doesn't sound like he's very open to that idea.

Your thoughts?