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I think this is FANTASTIC news, in any way you spin it.

It means that the Lions will spend what it takes to grab Nnamdi, so they are aware of their biggest need and will do what it takes to fill it. And if we don't get Nnamdi, that means he will still do what it takes to get Cro, JJ, etc.

I love this news. It basically means we are going to go into the season with a new no.1 CB whether it's Nnamdi or someone else.

Nnamdi, JJ, or Cro will be on our team next year. I think that's pretty obvious now.

You gotta love what is going on here in Detroit. They aren't pretenders like they were in 2007. Guys, we are the real deal! And players around the league see it and want a part of it. How awesome of a feeling is this?

Well this is the best place for Nnamdi to come and where I've been predicting him to land, so makes sense to me.

I'm for it. No team is without flaws. Getting Nnamdi eliminates our largest flaw by large. I don't know what it would take for him to sign here, but I sure hope Mayhew is counting his pennies.

Also, with Suh, our D-line and then Scrabble... what defensive players wouldn't want to play for Detroit? This could really change the perception of the Lions for players around the league.

I'm not getting my hopes up, but it's fun to dream.

Oh man this is a dream come true. Asomugha gives us the shutdown corner we need. If we could find even a couple decent OLBs our defense is going to play

We will get an LB in next year's draft, this year's FA money is going to Namdi plus one other good CB. That's the ticket we need to buy.

I think priority one should be resigning Chris Houston. With the resigning of Chris Houston, we could plug in Nnamdi, J.Joseph, or Cromartie and we have an awesome CB unit. Idk what I'd rather have, though. Nnamdi would be awesome, 'n all... but he could cripple the franchise in terms of cap when the new cba comes. Also, signing Nnamdi could also hurt our chances of resigning Calvin. I'd love Nnamdi, but I'd also love continuing to be able to sign quality FA's every year.

Adding Nnamdi would mean Cliff Avril is gone. I'd make that swap and Avril might be gone regardless.

I expect the Lions to use the money they have to spend to extend Calvin Johnson and Deandre Levy as much as they will on outside free agents. Assuming the salary spending floor is 90% of the cap, and the current roster (no Houston or Avril or other UFAs) comes in at around 75-80% (depending on the cap figure), the priority should be to take care of your own before they sniff free agency. A max deal to Nnamdi sort of blows that out of the water, but it could be the difference between 8-8 and 3rd place in the NFC North and 11-5 and a playoff berth in 2011, at the potential expense of losing some significant contributors in 2012 and beyond. That's a philosophical dilemma.

Why would Namdi mean we can't keep both CJ and Levy, or who else do you think we could lose? What if we traded away or lose other aging expensive vets, like Backus who is on his last year, and CW and KVB that could be traded, etc. Looks like we have lots of flexibility. And what would our financial outlook be if we traded Stafford last year, I still want to revisit that avenue and watch how many guys that alternate reality franchise pulls off compared to this one which still isn't managed very well.

TSE wrote:Why would Namdi mean we can't keep both CJ and Levy, or who else do you think we could lose? What if we traded away or lose other aging expensive vets, like Backus who is on his last year, and CW and KVB that could be traded, etc. Looks like we have lots of flexibility. And what would our financial outlook be if we traded Stafford last year, I still want to revisit that avenue and watch how many guys that alternate reality franchise pulls off compared to this one which still isn't managed very well.

The economics of what the new CBA will be will dictate that teams will only be able to keep 2-3 mega contracts, or else be like the recent Redskins and have 6 max contract guys surrounded by 30 complete stiffs and never sniff more than 6 wins. Nnamdi will get a max deal. CJ is going to get a max deal. Suh will get whatever $$ he wants whenever he wants it (likely 2013). Delmas is due a fat extension next summer, as is Levy (not as fat). Pettigrew will have his hand out too but I suspect they'll let him test FA. You can sacrifice some guys--Backus and/or Raiola make sense--but those are starters and those holes must be filled, most likely in the draft or with lesser-tier free agents. That's why you cannot spend so many premium picks on one position, you don't have the ability to be strong at too many other spots unless you get real lucky with some heretofore middling talents having career years or unearthing a James Harrison or Kurt Warner or Marques Colston. It's not impossible but it's not easy either.

Philly and Pittsburgh both do excellent jobs of extending core players and making tough decisions on others, but then they've drafted more consistently over time and have a winning track record that encourages good players to want to stay. Detroit doesn't have that. Yet. Let's see how Mayhew & Co. handle it.

Bartender wrote:I think priority one should be resigning Chris Houston. With the resigning of Chris Houston, we could plug in Nnamdi, J.Joseph, or Cromartie and we have an awesome CB unit. Idk what I'd rather have, though. Nnamdi would be awesome, 'n all... but he could cripple the franchise in terms of cap when the new cba comes. Also, signing Nnamdi could also hurt our chances of resigning Calvin. I'd love Nnamdi, but I'd also love continuing to be able to sign quality FA's every year.

But how much difference would it really make to you if we didn't sign Chris Houston but we got 2 new potentially very good CBs? To me we are obviously going to already sign one CB either way, so whether it's Houston or an option that the Lions like more than Houston, it shouldn't make much difference. Therefore, it doesn't have to be a priority at all, cause not signing him will just get displaced by a comparable option. The priority that's left should be to just get the best one FA CB that we can first, and secondarily then determine is option 2 better or worse than Chris Houston, and I think that it's roughly around 50% that it will be that option 2 available to us is even better. So we might be able to then use that for leverage to get Houston for less than he hopes for today, and give us 3 good CBs, one of which we can trade in a future year as well.

Nnamdi - Grimes - Houston

Then we're done and we win the SB

(well I mean the Lions would be done, but me I would still follow up with trading away 20 of our other players in effort to give us a better and leaner team that can dominate for much longer than what our core/shape will be able to produce)

Avril would still be restricted. Chris Houston would be the likely one that is gone.

I would love love love to see him in silver and blue, but wasn't the feeling that he wanted to win a SB? If that is the case, I don't think Lions are the choice. While they are improving, and we do have some great pieces, we aren't at that level yet. He would help, no doubt about it, but he would in reality be the missing piece to playoffs, not necessarily the Super Bowl (Although once you get into the playoffs, andthing can happen, Seattly, Arizona, and so on).

But if HE said that this was a spot he would like to land, then we NEED to get him.

Seems like we have a SB team to me if we sign him and Brent Grimes to give us a deadly CB unit along with what could be the best DL in the history of the game. We have some youth and upside at a couple spots at S and LB so why couldn't we have the best defense in the NFL with those guys? And why can't we have the best offense too? We have 2 basically 1st round RBs that are extremely young, CJ and now a complementary receiver that could also be worth a lot, in addition to an effective TE group, and then you add all that into having Stafford back and healthy and possibly the most awesome QB to ever live. That should be plenty.

I really want to agree with you TSE, but I think we still have quite a bit of holes before we can consider ourselves SB contenders. Holes like:

No Linebackers outside of Levy
No one to play next to Delmas
A undersized center
An injured right tackle, who I've never liked
A mystery right guard

When you add in that we are counting on the rookies to be major contributers, and the fact that Backus just had a career year, and might be in for a decline, it could lead to trouble. Then factor in Staffords shoulders, Bests toes/feet, and I get really worried.

I think we can push for a wildcard, but as far as a SB contender, the lions would have to show me something if/when the season starts for me to jump on that bandwagon.

If we get lucky, they will go to the SB, and you all can hang this post over my head for being a doubter

Well for LB, we might still get Keith Bulluck cheap, and he's relatively young and good. We also have a draft pick that isn't expected to do much, but it's still a better lottery ticket than the scratch offs you can buy at a liquor store. Plus, Ashlee Palmer is a wild card player that has shown some promise and he could be a surprise player to develop. Or what about Bobby Carpenter who had a lot of hype coming out of college but was never bad enough to get cut, and just couldn't fit in with a team before? Maybe he has had time to practice and learn the game and figure out how to apply his strengths to a role that can enable him to be a good player? That's a collection of 3 shots we have to fill one of the 2 dead spots that are opposite Levy, and that's still not all of our options for find a good LB. So if we have one spot on the team not filled with a potential superstar, you are going to get your panties in a bunch?

Delmas - We have had crap safeties across the board for a decade, but now we actually have one halfway decent vet as opposed to all the super crappy vets we had before. Coleman is no star, but he seems to me to project to be at least a minimally capable player beyond any other vets we have had recently. Also Spievey is a young player that will likely play a ton of S this year once we sign those CBs, so maybe this is his year to step up?

C - Gee whiz, Raiola has been at least consistent and healthy and gives us stability, and he's rightfully under contract for a couple more years. He fills a hole for the time being and he's not awful to the point that we are losing football games because of him. When his contract is up our needs will be perfectly filled so that we can draft our next C for the next decade in 2 drafts from now. Or next year we could trade maybe our 2nd Rounder and Raiola to get the best Center in next year's draft? Maybe we throw in a couple of other expendable players too if we have to.

RT - Game 1 isn't hear yet, how do you know we have an injured RT? And why don't you like him?

Mystery Guard? Hmmm.

And I don't think we actually will compete for the SB, but that's because I don't think Mayhew is going to land the CBs I want and then make a series of subsequent transactions throughout the season. Cause the way I see it, once we sign those 2 CBs, then I am trading 20 other players to bolster the LB and S or OL if I can, otherwise I would be shedding dead weight now for future draft picks and make my run next year going into the draft with something like 3 or 4 picks only in the next draft and all in the first round. And we could still compete this year by only giving up the guys we can afford to play without while still having potential to win and control the conference.

In my GM mock, it's just a formality that our draft next year is something like:
LT Matt Kalil
S Mark Barron
LB Teo or Burflict

And one more player, being either the other LB or the best DE on the board if not another comparable LB to those 2. And that's our draft. And we can get all of that by consolidating our 2-7 picks along with reshaping our current roster to something cheaper, younger, and more importantly, better.

Also, who's warm to the idea of trading Stafford now to a team we think might have the #1 pick next year so we can get Andrew Luck and have Shaun Hill start for us on paper until we get one of the many available QBs that are about to be passed around like used laundry and for the price of less?

I'm in. What teams will give me their pick?

Asomungha will be a beast with our current defensive line. They will put so much pressure on the QB that it should be much easier for our secondary. Asomugha however is going to cost too much. if he signs for 13-15 mil. i would be down but the projected 18 mill is just too much. We need another good LB, Bulluck would be nice. However if we sign Asomungha, i won't be mad, and i we'd be one discussing team. if Stafford stays healthy, then i think we have a legitimate chance at the playoff's and one draft away from a super bowl

Well there was a report that came out a few days ago that a "team official" said we won't be in the bidding. Oh well, not a big deal anyhow, there's plenty of quality CBs and NA has only marginal value if he really can command as gigantic of a contract as some predict. See I'm still in this fantasy mode that a new CBA is going to be logically structured with fair pay scales set up, so all of my posts regarding wanting NA are purely theoretical under the premise that a deal that makes sense to me is in place. In reality I'm predicting a 99% chance that I will not approve the deal, and thus NA would have subsequently disqualified himself from my options list anyhow once it was official that he can indeed bank at that massive level.