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The numbers were pretty bleak. Bryant Johnson and Derrick Williams shared duty as the Detroit Lions' No. 3 receiver this season and they combined for 21 catches for 240 yards and zero touchdowns.

"I think it impacted our entire offense. We didn't have much of an impact from that position. We didn't have a difference-maker in there,'' Lions general manager Martin Mayhew said.

Those shaky performances are why the Lions will be looking to find another No. 3 receiver, either in the draft or free agency.

http://www.mlive.com/lions/index.ssf/20 ... resse.html

^^^
Which I told everyone back in January...just sayin'

I don't think anyone liked our third receivers. This should not be surprising

Now we all know who the lions are going after =JJ

Well it would have been nice if he would have let Derrick Williams play this year so we could see if he might have been able to help us. All of our WRs other than CJ and Burleson were guaranteed losers that were certain to not impress, DW was our only shot at having a 3rd productive player, we had nothing to lose to play him and we didn't even try.

kellmellus50 wrote:Now we all know who the lions are going after =JJ

Because teams always draft third receivers with their 13th overall picks

More likely we target a free agent impact player or spend a later pick on one.

TSE wrote:Well it would have been nice if he would have let Derrick Williams play this year so we could see if he might have been able to help us. All of our WRs other than CJ and Burleson were guaranteed losers that were certain to not impress, DW was our only shot at having a 3rd productive player, we had nothing to lose to play him and we didn't even try.

He was given every opportunity to earn reps, but he simply cannot catch the ball well enough or prove he could get open against the Lions own shaky secondary to get on the field in games. It would have helped had he wanted it a little more too, but that's not a strong suit for Derrick Williams either. I cringed when they drafted him and he's done nothing but validate my disgust. One of my draft axioms: steer clear of skill position players from Penn State, Oklahoma, and USC until at least one round later than they're projected.

Opportunity smopportunity, I wasn't complaining about him not getting an opportunity or practice opportunity or whatever the Lions call it, I was complaining about the point blank fact that he did not get the playing time that I wanted him to have, regardless of the reasons. He didn't need to earn that playing time because the other guys did an even worse job of earning it. They branded themselves as certain to be useless players for the future and DW is higher than them. That's enough, it's his time and he was robbed of it by less deserving players that had no logical purpose as I know darn well what they are already worth, and that's not a roster spot on the Lions. It's just a waste of time and opportunity for our team to figure out how to get better and who to have here.

TSE you clearly have no idea what you are talking about, and it is also abundantly clear you have never been on a sports team before. Players shouldn't be given playing time if they can't prove they can do their job during practice. If Derrick Williams couldn't impress in practice against the Lions terrible secondary, then I'm sorry, he does not deserve a chance on Sundays either. To let him get playing time and targets without making him prove himself would be to basically tell the rest of the team, it doesn't matter how hard you work because it matters s*** to us. It kills the spirit of the team and makes players question leadership and the staff. Anyone who actually has participated in organized sports would know that.

It is abundantly clear that you are prone to making mistakes at quickly assuming incorrect information. I have been on many sports teams before actually. And DW did more than the other guys, those guys did MORE to prove that they should not be playing than he did. It's for the exact reasons of proving yourself that DW should have had the time. Those other guys have had YEARS experience beyond him proving that they are failures. Your comment makes no sense cause it's in support of my point.

Agreed with the Williams hasn't done enough to garner the PT argument.

TSE wrote:It is abundantly clear that you are prone to making mistakes at quickly assuming incorrect information. I have been on many sports teams before actually. And DW did more than the other guys, those guys did MORE to prove that they should not be playing than he did. It's for the exact reasons of proving yourself that DW should have had the time. Those other guys have had YEARS experience beyond him proving that they are failures. Your comment makes no sense cause it's in support of my point.

Your entire standpoint completely ignores what goes on behind the scenes. And no my points do not prove yours because I do not fundamentally agree that the only way for a player to prove himself is on the field. On the field a wide receiver's production is reliant on many other players, specifically the quarterback and offensive line. How productive can a third option, and when you factor in tight ends and running backs maybe even the fifth option, be on a team with shuffling quarterbacks and a weak line that gives plays no time to develop?

You don't seem to care at all about how players perform in practice. How hard they work behind the scenes. How good of teammates they are, how they help to make their case. This isn't just true of football, in any profession everything matters.

That doesn't even mention the fact that your argument ignores that the "other guys" who have proven "that they are failures" have actually been productive for other teams. Bryant Johnson was really the only WR who played ahead of Williams, and he may be a failure compared to where he was drafted, but he is a pretty good third WR in the NFL. He averaged over 40 catches and 500 yards a year before he came to Detroit, mostly as a third option. It isn't a coincidence that when he came to our porous QB situation his numbers took a swandive.

Well to that, you and I may have some slight differences of opinion on a few things, but the main thing is that you don't process information logically. You think I don't value how players perform in practice when I never said anything of the sort, you have formed that conclusion based upon a mish-mash of other things I said that not appreciating practice time is but one of many possible plausible conclusions, but not necessarily a correct conclusion, yet you assume it is, like when you assumed I've never been on any sports teams.

To make it simple, there are good players and bad players, and there is practice and there's real games. A player can be good or bad at practice and still be either good or bad on game day. Any of the 4 combos is possible. But the only thing that matters in the end is who does well on game days, cause that's what this game is all about, didn't you learn anything from Allen Iverson? He may not have been the perfect locker room guy and if he was maybe he could have been better than he was, but he didn't have to be a good locker room guy to still be better than the vast majority of his professional peers. Not counting DW and Burleson and CJ, every WR on this team had already sufficiently PROVEN that they are bad football players on GAME DAY. I don't give two craps what they do in practice, good or bad at practice means nothing if you suck during game day. So while all of our WRs were labeled as BAD on game day, we had those things certain, and practice to me is a mystery since I'm not there. I see DW as a mystery on game day, and same with practice since I'm not there. But it doesn't make any difference, DW doesn't even have to be good in practice to already have some chance of being a bad practice player and good game day player, he's eligible to be possibly useful for this team, and the other guys are disqualified. He earned the right to play without having to do anything because of the bizarre situation where he didn't DQ himself yet. And that's assuming he's bad at practice which I don't necessarily know. Either way we drafted him and we need a WR and he was our only chance to find a 3rd decent player at that position this year and we didn't even try, that costs us time and money and future flexibility with our plans, it makes no sense to not figure out what we have in all of our players, and we did find out what all of our WRs are worth, except for one guy, and leaving one guy not figured out is just dumb. We weren't doing anything with the season anyhow, but we could have been learning and gaining extra information in areas where we need to uncover more of the unknown truth.

DW shouldn't have been competing with these losers in the first place, we could have cut all of those guys and brought in a slew of fresh WRs and then since all of them would then be new unknowns, THAT is when you use PRACTICE as a tiebreaker to determine who gets their shot. Not guys with YEARS of experience and opportunity that they already got despite never proving themselves in the past. What's your explanation for them having jobs and opportunity then? How long are you going to let crappy football players screw up our team and be content with that because coach tells you they are good in practice? Practicing football isn't playing football, they are 2 different things, and different people approach them differently and with different motives and styles, you can't find out for certain who a player is UNLESS YOU PLAY THEM, and these other guys played themselves into obvious DQ status with certainty a long time ago! Again, look how good Legarrette Blount was, he got practice time before he was cut, but how did he all of sudden become useful in games if it was so obvious he sucked early on in practice? What a weird thing huh? Maybe he doest give a **** about practice and just likes to play football, that's how I had him pegged when I saw him lose his cool in that fight, and that's why I wanted him because he's a guy that loves and cares about the actual game, and you can't have a gamer without that love and passion, those guys are healthy gambles because you already have half of the equation in your favor, rather than two halves that are mysteries. Same with our WR core, we had the half figured out that they suck as players on game day, which is enough to forget that they exist and to move on to somebody new!

TSE I process information logically just fine. Since you chose to ignore a huge part of my argument, which is that Bryant Johnson was the only WR that truly got more time than Derrick Williams and he is not a failure by normal standards, I am going to ignore your entire inappropriately-long post as well. Especially since one of your points was:

didn't you learn anything from Allen Iverson

Well that's the problem, you like Bryant Johnson and so does Mayhew, you take him out of the mix and pretend he doesn't exist, then what happens to DW? Either he plays or somebody else is here, and that's what I'm looking for. Same goes with the rest of the players on our team that suck. There's a reason why we keep losing massive amounts of games per year, and that's because situations like this we need to move on from the deadbeats and take any chances we can get on young players that haven't had a chance yet. No more overpriced vets that aren't good football players!

And you're wrong in your contention that you do not process information logically, or you wouldn't assume that an incredibly competitive-natured person such as myself hasn't been on any sports teams (in addition to your claim that I have "absolutely no idea" what I'm talking about which I also see as a ludicrous claim). That is such a longshot thing to assume to be true. You put yourself out there on ridiculous claims that you can't back up and don't have any firsthand knowledge to even have a clue what you're talking about. That's setting yourself up for near automatic disaster, and you've made posts of that exceptionally low quality several times.