To me the objective is to have a team that you could go to battle with before the draft. Not perfect (never going to happen in todays cap world) but competitive. I’ll start with the easy part the offense.
The offense is OK with potential weakness at OG, WR and RB. Resigning Chark on a multiple year deal would set up the WR room for a couple years. With St. Brown and Williams that would scare the shit out of secondaries. Signing Brown would be nice as he is great depth at C and OG. By signing those two guys we are in GREAT shape for the next several years and do not NEED OL or WR for years. We can get a quality OG with one of our picks. if Big V isn’t ready to go or doesn’t measure up he then becomes an easy cut. IF he is ready the OL has great depth with a rookie getting groomed.
Reynolds, Chephus and Raymond can fill in for snaps. Jamaal, who everyone wants back, probably stays at a fair price, too much and we get a short-yardage back late in the draft, not hard or expensive.
I am Ok with the WR room for now.
Romeo was darn good preachilles tear… when I saw he barely played vs the Packers in the season finale, kinda makes me think they are moving away from him. Romeo had 12 snaps vs the Packers, Cominsky had almost 50. Cominsky is the man we need back most. He plays D-end on running downs and can play inside in pass rushing situations. Big fan of the commish. Now if Romeo is willing to take a pay cut, I’d like him back still.
Can’t see paying him close to 15 mill next year. His cap number is 14.5 mill, and we would save like 7 mill cutting him.
On defense we are short talent with lots of maybe guys. We need CB, DT, S and LB. at DE we have Hutchinson, Harris, Okwara, Pascal and D Taylor so not a big concern but obviously bringing back the Commish would make it legit. At DT we have Alim McNeil, Benito Jones, Levi O (maybe) so it is imperative we resign Buggs for his ability on the field and locker room. He wants back so do it!
S has issues too as I doubt Walker is ready to go for the opener next year. so you have K Joseph, Walker, I Melifonwu, B Breeze. We need to sign Elliot to add some quality to that group and maybe get some help in the draft. LB we need to bring back Board and Woods as depth pieces and ST players I think both come back reasonable $$$,with Rodrigo and Barnes. Probably resign Anzalone for experience and depth but not for big bucks. We can get by if forced to. CB is a real issue we have Okudah, Jacobs, Lucas and some maybes Here we need to go into FA and get a solid player (like Jamel Dean) and draft one early. If Okudah/Jacobs are our #3/#4 corner this team will be way better.
It only requires 1 big signing CB
I see things a little different at the CB position. IMO both Okudah and Jacobs have shown that they are solid #2s, though neither one is a #1 at this time. I also think that the Lions would be better off just drafting a CB sometime in the first 2 rounds to fill that #1 spot. I see no reason to grab one in FA.
see your point but having a veteran back there with the young guys would help. And if you sign a FA it will likely be a multiple year deal and with Okudah coming up on his 5th year option would give some flexibility. AS our FA came near the end of his deal the rookie you sign today would need his next contract so you can cut the 30 year old man to make room for the 26 year old.
That is definitely too much… but this could be a situation where a pay cut might work out. Romeo has almost zero leverage because no other team is gonna pay him $11 million either. He’ll be 28yo in 2023 and didn’t have enough reps to really get more than a 1-yr prove it deal in 2023.
GREAT point. IF Holmes plays “hardball”, both Romeo and his agent know he’ll pay a price at some point (age and money). If they don’t want to talk threaten to make him a post June cut which will reduce his chances of signing for big money even further, and to spread out the dead money. Theoretically, we could then use that money for in season moves and not have to keep much in reserve.
I agree that it is high but his contract also has 7 million in dead cap. So cutting him outright only saves 4 million this year. Assuming he is healthy and they still feel he offers value in the lineup then I would hope they could manage some kind of restructure to give him a little more security while substantially cutting his cap hit. Good DE’s do cost money.
Cutting him as a post June 1st cut saves $7.5 million in 2023….
but that really isn’t the decision.
Okwara will cost the Lions a minimum of $7 million against the cap from this moment on…. and keeping him past opening day of 2023 means he will cost $18 million total… for 1 more season.
It’s not really a quandary. They play different roles in our defense.
Comish and Romeo split snaps and play the same role. They play an Edge role and thier responsibility is setting an edge and applying pressure from the end position.
Harris plays a SLB role. We lined him up at SLB and ILB and used him in a pass rush role. Often stacking him over top of a DL. Two completely different roles.
Without Harris we were limited in what we could do. Sure Barns and Rodrigo took similar snaps but they do not offer the pass rush abilities that Harris does from that role. Harris brings a special element to our defense that no one else is providing. I highly expect Harris back.
I see everyone posting that the Lions run a 4-2-5. That’s not completely true.
We often run 3 LBers and one of them is a SLB. Which puts 4 on the LOS. Hutch takes snaps in the SLB spot often. When you see this that’s really a base 3-4 and we’re subbing out the WLB for a NCB or 3rd safety thus we’re in a 3-4 sub-package a lot. We just have four on the LOS.
Based on the way we played him down the stretch I’d say it’s unlikely he sticks and returns to his 2020 form. I think he’s done as a Lion and Comish is the new starter.
my guess is it depends on if he is just an idiot or an idiot leader. One is bad and the other is worse. but when i think football i might prefer the leadee.
Well I would agree that Romeo’s future looks gloomy. I just hate the concept of players coming back from injury and getting axed. I know it is a business. But I would hope that they at least offer to work with him but let him know that we have limited resources and he can probably do better on the open market. And I personally hate the concept of post June 1st cuts. Completely screws over a player for money. IF you know you are not resigning a player let him know as early as possible to help him and his agent find a new landing spot. I know - I am a softy.