Detroit Lions Season Wrap-up.
Well, the lions had a busy offseason with GM Justin Herr taking over the Detroit Lions after failing miserably in Kansas City. When asked about his new team he had to say this " Well it was a young roster with a lot of high draft picks I had to add some vets and someone to take Bradford under his wing Along with sending some picks to kc to get Steven Ridley to shore up our backfield and Braylon Edwards to help out young stars desmond Briscoe and Tight end Egnew".
Overall I feel we exceeded expectations we had a top 10 defense all season and a top 5 run game. we need to work on the passing game and stopping the run we went 9-7 and didn't get enough luck to make it into the wild card but the season was a success. we don't hold any picks in the top rounds or mid-rounds of the draft but we will have a lot of cap space open to bring in some free agents during free agency. We are currently in contract talks wth wide receiver Desmond Briscoe Quater back Drew Breese and Rolb Dillard.
The Players who stood out the most.
Half-back steven ridley had 289 touches for 1462 yards with an avg 4.91 10 touchdowns and 3 fumbles.
Wide receiver Desmond Briscoe Had 76 receptions for 1192 yards and 7 touchdowns.
Quarter Back Sam Bradford had 367 attempts completing with a 54.4% completion rate 3048 yards 18 touchdowns and 13 interceptions was sacked 32 times with a quarterback rating of 83.7%
On the Defensive side of the ball, Lolb Jon Beason had a great season after the lions sent a first and 2nd for him he put up 68 solo tackles 8 tackles for loss 7 sacks 2 forced fumbles 2 fumble recoveries 6 deflections.
Corner back Kelvin Hayden with the young star Vontae Davis injured the majority of the season Hayden stepped up racking up 54 solo tackles 3 tackles for loss 2 sacks 5 interceptions with 24 deflections and allowing 30 catches.
Middle linebacker the captain of the defense Young stud Luke Kuechly had a good outing with 85 tackles 14 tackles for loss 1 sack 1 forced fumble 2 interceptions we expect big things out of this kid in the near future.
Overall I am very pleased with the outcome of my first season here in my hometown of Detroit and I hope the fans enjoyed a winning season.
Plans for the offseason.
Well, we need to replace two big positions one at cornerback as we don't know the decision we are gonna make on bringing back Hayden or letting him go and replacing Braylon Edwards we have been in talks with many teams about both positions and some have gone better than others but nothing has been official yet and won't know anything until after free agency id assume. We also have to deal with the disgruntled Tight End egnew I hope to solve the issues he had with how he was used this season and the rumors about him being traded but that for now is up to him.
The lions go 9-7 and needed the Vikings to lose to the bears and they would have made the wild card weekend luck was not with them but overall I give the season a Solid B and a lot of room for improvement hopefully with the cap room and free agency and a little luck in the trade department we can hit 10+ wins next season and see a playoff game or 2 it's a very tough division.
well it became official tonight as gardiner got fired from the detroit lions,and too make matters worse apparently gardiners win percentage is worst in detroit history.after going nuclear season 1 we had high hopes bringing in 9 players in first couple of rounds we were perhaps bit naive and didnt give the lack of awareness a second though we assumed couple of seasons of starting will bump upto needed levels but despite going 6-10 first 2 seasons and there being a feel good about detroit will bunch of great young players what happened season 3 and 4 was unaccetable and we appreciate detroit board needed to do this as gardiners management looked like stubborn failed plan .
we have had the pleasure of working with some great young players and thats the one consolation we can take from this failed experiment,we gave alot of kids opportunity to play and we look forward to seeing how they develop over the remainder of their careers so at least we can say despite being worst coach in lions history we helped lay the foundation for these guys to have a solid career.
gardiners annoyed and embarassed whats happened in detroit and when asked if hes done with coaching,he replied hell no.ill keep working hard until i earn back some respect,just need the opportunity
as the cleaners swept the last bits of rubbish from the stands,gardiner slowly packed his personal things into large cardboard box after the curtain came down on another disappointing season.gardiner has been summoned to a meeting with the board and its widely expected hes gonna get his marching orders.
gardiner refelects on his strategy of going nuclear rebuild in his first off season to give his youngsters most chance of progression,this back fired massively as lack of awareness and wins hampered progression.
he also reflected on bradfords 2010 performance of 737 yards 7tds to 0 ints in 2 games that convinced gardiner to hand him starting gig whats happened the next couple of years since has been well documented with bradfords play being pretty erratic.
gardiners thoughts arent just aimed at his decisions he also cursed his shitty luck as leagues most penalised team,we found alot of these came at most horrendous moments and its almost like detroit is cursed.
we also like to think that if we dont get a reprieve we have left new gm in good situation with 5 early picks and decent cap situation and with plethora of young talented but raw guys
gardiner puts his rolled up playbook in the box turns out the light and shuts door and heads off down corridor.will this be last the of gardiner in detroit im sure the fans are hoping so
lions headed into 2012 off season in a surprisingly strong position roster wise,they had most cap available to upgrade roster,they had a handful of highly paid regressing vets reach the end of their contracts.they also had a number of high draft picks to revamp roster.we got 5 out of our 7 targets in free agency with our major disappointment missing out on chargers devin thomas,with our major weakness being WR we managed to snare couple of decent vets from free agency as morgan signed from chargers and jackson came over from baltimore,we also spent a 1st and 2nd round pick on bringing in couple of over high potential players in floyd and benjamin,alongside last seasons holdovers pro bowler briscoe and bowe we have young talented group that should give bradford plenty of targets.
detroit were also active in trade market bringing in couple of solid vets along the oline in harris and mcclendon,which turns out to be a masterstroke as fulton finds himself harshly suspended for 2 weeks following lions breaking draft protocol,we also managed to get big john henderson from eagles and although hes not an everydown tackle anymore he can still play a big role in gardiners future,lastly we manged to get 2 time pro bowler chris mcalister to sign and again he will play a big role in mentoring the youngsters in secondary and the staff hope he can contribute a few pivotol moments through the season
with 4 rookies earmarked to start the outsiders are wondering if gardiner learnt his lesson at all,with gardiners all in youth policy biting him on the arse culminating in a league worst 4-12 record last season,the general consensus was gardiner would lean of vets to try and secure his job.what this looks like is hes given the youngsters the chance to reclaim their starting spots and perform well and if things start going wrong there is capable vets ready to step in.
training camp
HB richardson
TE egnew
WR floyd
RE wilkerson
these guys all made great strides in training camp the 3 rookies slated to start offensively all got the boost from extra sessions with staff,and with physical freak wilkerson finally in line for some starting snaps hegot some extra reps too
resign
C jeremy zuttah,we decided to tie zuttah down for the next 4 seasons he was one of our more consistant lineman last year and just started to develop solid chemistry with bradford he signed 4 yr 10.9M deal,with decent strength and blocking skills already
match eligable
we decided on torain mainly because of our first round investment,although hes firmly entrenched as our back up,hes had spells of good play and spells where he struggles to hold ball,not gonna lie our main aim was to get a pick of someone to take him off our hands and this looked to be the case when buccs made a play for him,but after realising lions werent gonna let him go for peanuts they pulled out and we resigned ourselves cheap back up
trades
we managed to trade away lolb maualuga who has sat behind lehmann for 3 seasons,rey has alot of potential but with aload of players out of contract next season we felt best to cash in now,we managed to find trade [partner in cleveland that had a need for an outside backer and the opportunity to reign rey next off season,a deal was thrashed out we send maualuga and 2013 7th rd pick,cleveland sends us 2012 browns 7th and 2013 browns 2nd
as always when in trade talks,we found ourself involved with apolo we found oursleves with matching criteria he was looking towards future we needed assets to help us this year we sent them detroits 7th rd pick 2012 along with what they cherished detroits 2013 1st round pick.we get a solid vet player to challenge oher who seemed to regress last season kvarme harris returns to detroit we also added early 2nd and 6th round selection 2012 and titans 2013 3rd round selection unless we tank again think this was more favorable for us
next up was trade with dallas where we acquired another solid player for a mid round selection as we brought in RG jacques mcclendon for detroits 4th round 2012 selection,mcclendon has good strength anmd solid blocking skills and if fulton regresses or we get bitten by injury bug hopefully he can step in without too much of a drop off
so when recapping our trades this is list of incoming and outgoing assets
overall pretty even as long as i dont mess up and give titans early 1st
free agency
we won 5 bids out of 7 missing out on johnathon stewart and sedrick ellis,we bid big but wasnt prepared to shatter our wage structure so we move forward without these guys.
our main target was WR devin thomas surprinsingly we were only bidder,probably the ME designation that put guys off,still we offer 5 year deal just under 25 million,if we win will cost us 2013 detroit 2nd round pick,but if not we bring in good starter opposite briscoe
WR josh morgan was also available after being released from san diego a former first round talent,hes been developed very well and has very good speed we had to beat out bears and texans for his signature so we had to pay him more than we offered thomas and morgan will be earning 5 million a season with us
WR desean jackson...what another receiver??yes but no jackson has been signed for kick return duties going up against packers and eagles again bumped up out offer to make sure we got him,jackson will average 4 million a season
P eddie johnson with sauerbrun taking big drop cos of his age we needed to address punter position,eddie looks more than capable of filling the gap this season and with rams with not alot of cap we knew sensible offer would get him,2 million this year will leave punting game in johnsons hands
HB ryan torain was our match eligable guy,after buccs pulled out we managed to secure him on a cheap 3 year deal just offer 1.5 mill average
