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Thoughts On Free Agency


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24 minutes ago, TL-TwoWinsAway said:

Stanford was hurt earlier in the year, even before the Chiefs game.

It wasn't just me, of course. Read through some GDTs. Nearly all of the posters here were fully behind Patricia before they shut Stanford down. Ignoring Stanford's potential impact against those mediocre opponents, and using that to argue that past free agents haven't made a significant impact, is unfortunate.

Did we draft the entire Cardinal offense to play QB for us?

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2 minutes ago, Nnivolcm said:

We had seven games, and a losing record, with Stafford to base our opinions on. 

Going from where we were to 10 wins would be nothing short of magic. 

Until you factor in the mediocre 2nd half opponents. In addition, guys like Davis, Flowers and Harrison struggled early in the season and played better as the season moved along. Penciling in wins against the Bears (x2), Broncos, Buccaneers, Cowboys and Redskins - all beatable opponents - leaves us with 9 wins. Then you have the highly overrated Packers.

I'm not saying that it was a lock, but it was definitely possible. Losing Stafford (Stanford) was what derailed our season, and that doesn't count against Flowers.

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Just now, TL-TwoWinsAway said:

Until you factor in the mediocre 2nd half opponents. In addition, guys like Davis, Flowers and Harrison struggled early in the season and played better as the season moved along. Penciling in wins against the Bears (x2), Broncos, Buccaneers, Cowboys and Redskins - all beatable opponents - leaves us with 9 wins. Then you have the highly overrated Packers.

I'm not saying that it was a lock, but it was definitely possible. Losing Stafford (Stanford) was what derailed our season, and that doesn't count against Flowers.

The 2nd half opponents have been factored in. 

Saying opponents are beatable is neat, but has no value. As stated, the Lions, with a fully healthy Stafford, lost a 4th quarter 18 point lead to the Cardinals with a rookie HC and QB making their first starts. That team was not capable of running the table on the "mediocre 2nd half opponents" with or without a healthy Stafford. 

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10 minutes ago, Nnivolcm said:

The 2nd half opponents have been factored in. 

Saying opponents are beatable is neat, but has no value. As stated, the Lions, with a fully healthy Stafford, lost a 4th quarter 18 point lead to the Cardinals with a rookie HC and QB making their first starts. That team was not capable of running the table on the "mediocre 2nd half opponents" with or without a healthy Stafford. 

Also  lost to a bad Raiders team. And barely beat a bad SD team. 

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4 minutes ago, Sllim Pickens said:

Also  lost to a bad Raiders team. And barely beat a bad SD team. 

This is true. There is the other side of the coin: that we were a 4th down scramble away from beating the SB champion Chiefs and a bunch of horrible calls away from beating the 13-3 Packers. Yeah, we had a last second loss to the Raiders and got thrashed by the Vikings, but we showed enough during those first 8 games to suggest that we weren't a 3-12-1 team with a healthy Stanford.

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16 minutes ago, TL-TwoWinsAway said:

This is true. There is the other side of the coin: that we were a 4th down scramble away from beating the SB champion Chiefs and a bunch of horrible calls away from beating the 13-3 Packers. Yeah, we had a last second loss to the Raiders and got thrashed by the Vikings, but we showed enough during those first 8 games to suggest that we weren't a 3-12-1 team with a healthy Stanford.

My take is Stafford isnt an all time great that can win alone like Manning.  If the team around him cant win a game without him, that team is pretty bad.  Other teams lost their QBs for a part of time and didnt look as bad as ours.  we are winless team without our QB and maybe a 7-8 win team with him.  Which is still not good enough. 

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Just now, Sllim Pickens said:

My take is Stafford isnt an all time great that can win alone like Manning.  If the team around him cant win a game without him, that team is pretty bad.  Other teams lost their QBs for a part of time and didnt look as bad as ours.  we are winless team without our QB and maybe a 7-8 win team with him.  Which is still not good enough. 

I definitely don't think that 7-8 wins is good enough. I just can't believe that this team is a 3 win team with Stafford, and I won't argue that Flowers made a mere 3-12-1 impact. There's more to it than that, in my opinion.

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1 minute ago, TL-TwoWinsAway said:

I definitely don't think that 7-8 wins is good enough. I just can't believe that this team is a 3 win team with Stafford, and I won't argue that Flowers made a mere 3-12-1 impact. There's more to it than that, in my opinion.

I dont think we are a 3 win team either, but we also arent a 10 win team (or a 12 or 13 win team).  We are average because the roster outside of 4 or so players is quite average at best. 

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I’ve kind of been sitting back and watching free agency happen and these are a few thoughts I have so far. 
 

1. Lions fans stated pre free agency that players would not want to come to Detroit. It’s Detroit, it’s a losing franchise, people believe it’s a lame duck year for Quinn/Patricia, etc. and yet those same fans get outraged when the Lions don’t go out and sign their favorite top free agent. There are 31 other teams that are also looking to sign guys, those teams have winning records, better scheme fits, former coaching connections, more money, etc. That leaves a little window for the Lions to work from. Despite this, Quinn has signed some good players (Collins/Trufant/Shelton) and people are negative about the moves because they are former Patriots, or there were other players they wanted more. 
 

2. There have only been two moves that I don’t really understand so far in free agency for the Lions. Signing Vaitai to such a large contract and cutting Devon Kennard. I’m not against bringing in Vaitai to compete with Benzschawel/Aboushi/Garnett/whomever for those G positions... I just don’t think he’s worth $10m per.
 

Even if Collins can play every LB position, Kennard was our best LB, a team captain, fell in line, etc. He was no distraction to the team. He could have teamed up with Collins to get Davis/Tavai/whomever up to par. Cutting him baffles me. 
 

3. I’m anxious to see how the draft pans out. It’s going to be a big part of our offseason, will bring a better focus to where we are defensively, add a lot of cheap contracts to key positions. 
 

4. There is still a lot of offseason to go... I’m not going to bash/applaud every single move emotionally... I want to see how this all plays out. 

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I think the Kennard release was about his cap and possibly Davis' usage.

Vaitai has quite the team-friendly deal.

"Starting in 2022, it becomes palatable for the team to escape the deal with a reasonable dead money cap hit. If, for whatever reason, the pairing isn't working out, the Lions could cut Vaitai before the 2022 season while only being responsible for the $4.2 million in dead money remaining from his signing bonus. That figure drops to $2.8 million in 2023 and $1.4 million in 2024."

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8 minutes ago, Louis Friend said:

I’ve kind of been sitting back and watching free agency happen and these are a few thoughts I have so far. 
 

1. Lions fans stated pre free agency that players would not want to come to Detroit. It’s Detroit, it’s a losing franchise, people believe it’s a lame duck year for Quinn/Patricia, etc. and yet those same fans get outraged when the Lions don’t go out and sign their favorite top free agent. There are 31 other teams that are also looking to sign guys, those teams have winning records, better scheme fits, former coaching connections, more money, etc. That leaves a little window for the Lions to work from. Despite this, Quinn has signed some good players (Collins/Trufant/Shelton) and people are negative about the moves because they are former Patriots, or there were other players they wanted more. 
 

2. There have only been two moves that I don’t really understand so far in free agency for the Lions. Signing Vaitai to such a large contract and cutting Devon Kennard. I’m not against bringing in Vaitai to compete with Benzschawel/Aboushi/Garnett/whomever for those G positions... I just don’t think he’s worth $10m per.
 

Even if Collins can play every LB position, Kennard was our best LB, a team captain, fell in line, etc. He was no distraction to the team. He could have teamed up with Collins to get Davis/Tavai/whomever up to par. Cutting him baffles me. 
 

3. I’m anxious to see how the draft pans out. It’s going to be a big part of our offseason, will bring a better focus to where we are defensively, add a lot of cheap contracts to key positions. 
 

4. There is still a lot of offseason to go... I’m not going to bash/applaud every single move emotionally... I want to see how this all plays out. 

I just don't understand how you can be reasonable.  You either have to be outraged, or empathetic.  There is no place for being reasonable.

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