• Last year's first round pick, Safety Jason Allen, was a non-factor, but that was because he held out of camp and never caught up with all the learning a rookie needs to do. He may live up to his promise this year.
• Last year's seventh-round pick, D-Tackle Rodrique Wright, was a first considered a first round talent until he was found to be concealing a wrist injury. He's all better now and may turn out to have been a steal for the Fins.
• Joey Porter was signed at linebacker after being released by the Steelers. Porter is a top talent, or at least he was; he's not getting any younger and Fins have plenty of, ahem, "well-seasoned" players. Of course the upside is the potential for high comedy from a guy who celebrated his signing by going to the Palms casino in Vegas and having his entourage assault another NFL player at a poker table. Those who believe the Fins needed "attitude" are rejoicing about this.
• Joey Harrington is gone and Duante Culpepper is likely on the way out leaving Cleo Lemon
as the top QB but there is a good chance that Trent Green may be signed.
• In one of the most profoundly stupid picks in the history of the draft they used their 9th pick to take wide-out Ted Ginn. Ginn should have been lucky to go late in the first round or early second. Just awful. I can't even contort myself enough to find any justification except possibly it was just a bad mispronunciation of "Quinn." Oh wait...I'm supposed to be finding reasons to be positive, aren't I? Um...Ted Ginn may get healthy for training camp.
I'm sure I'll drink the Fins Kool-Aid again this year, but it will be that nasty green Kool-Aid, and it'll have dead bugs in it. Oh well, let the Cleo Lemon to Ted Ginn era commence. The sooner it starts, the sooner it's over.
In the NFC, the Lions remain the Lions. If Kitna stands tall in Martz' schemes and the receiving core doesn't underachieve, we could have a very entertaining offense this year. Might be fun to watch. I have a certain amount of sympathy for Matt Millen. He drafted wide receivers three times in four years, two of which were total busts, then he's standing there on the clock with the second pick and the player that stands head and shoulders above the rest is a wide receiver. So that makes a wide out first round pick in four of the last five years. This could only happen to the Lions. Let me quote Mike Tanier over at Deadspin.com:
According to an NFL Network report, Lions offensive coordinator Mike Martz convinced Millen to select Johnson by explaining how he would use the receiver in his offense. "I plan to have Jon Kitna throw footballs to him," Martz explained. "Gosh, I never would have thought of that," Millen replied. "Now back to my Spider-Man coloring book. Staying between the lines is ever so hard."
Meanwhile, Drew Sharp of the Detroit Free Press has already made the prediction that Lions will go 3-13. Way to go out on a limb there, Drew.
In direct contrast to the remedial mind of Matt Millen, when it come to off-season moves the Pats are on another level. I can already see them as the odds on favorite, what with their loaded up receiving core. The Randy Moss thing looks controversial, but it's not. If he turns out to be a bust or a locker room cancer, they are so stacked at that position they can sit him or cut him and still be six receivers deep. It's Belichick's league, we just watch on TV. I guess you can accomplish a lot if you don't waste any thought on your appearance. (Seriously, Belichick must get endless pleasure from being in the same division as Miami. What an advantage to know that you can just sit back and wait for 25% of your division to systematically hang themselves.)
Oh and by the way: Did I not completely and perfectly ID Michael Vick as a cretin years ago when I started my Sick of Vick campaign in his rookie year? What a heaping pile of pot-smoking, bird-flipping, Valtrex-snarfing sleaze he's turned out to be.
