Lions should trade Matthew Stafford, keep Drew Stanton

[kellmellus50]

Good artical :
BY ROBERT MacDONALD /
OCALA, FLORIDA

Many think he's a promising quarterback, providing he can stay healthy -- which I don't see happening.


Read more: Lions should trade Matthew Stafford, keep Drew Stanton | freep.com | Detroit Free Press http://www.freep.com/article/20101224/S ... z19MJqBMrM

[ajaX82]

This article is laughable. I also have a strong urge to lock this thread as we have done this dance many times....

[kellmellus50]

the lions have an offensive system that has shown it can win with hill,stanton, or whoever is the QB because of the offensive players around him so the value of stafford to the lions is debatable and needs to be discussed.

[Piston Pete]

Trade Best.....keep Morris

Trade CJ....keep and make Nate our new #1 WR

Trade Suh....keep Williams and Hill.

Trade Pettigrew....we have Sheffler





Seriously. We need to keep the young studs we have and BUILD AROUND THEM.

[kellmellus50]

The problem with Best is that he dances around too much in the back fields waiting for the hole to open up then he will run through it.

While Morris runs straight ahead like a train and getting big yardage on his own.

So who's the better back this season its morris getting 4 yards a carry while best is 3.2

Jahvid Best 161 521 3.2 45 4
Maurice Morris 78 315 4.0 26 4

Now heres a back we could of have for free (waivers)but we passed on him for no reason
5.2 yards per carry thats the back we needed but we let tampa bay took him bad management by the lions.TSE should manage the lions he spotted this gem. In this game you do need to have a power fullback.

LeGarrette Blount 182 941 5.2 53 6

Bucs RB LeGarrette Blount is one of five players up for the NFL’s Rookie of the Week award for Week 15, following his hard-charging performance against Detroit

http://www.buccaneers.com/news/article- ... 2a83913ff0

[TSE]

Trade Best.....keep Morris

Trade CJ....keep and make Nate our new #1 WR

Trade Suh....keep Williams and Hill.

Trade Pettigrew....we have Sheffler

We should have never drafted Stafford to do it right at the first juncture in time. After we drafted Stafford, our next best play was to trade him before that season started, and after that it was best to trade him before the deadline last year and then before this year started and so forth. And it's still in our best interest to trade him, so I agree with the article. I would not however trade Stafford for a 2nd and 3rd round pick, unless it was for near the top of the rounds and I could do it after I saw which players dropped to those 2 spots, so it would have to be a post-draft trade to have any chance. Otherwise we have to just roll the dice and hope for the best with him.

We should also have not drafted Best, and the best strategy on what to do with him was to trade him before the season started as well, and now it's my hope that we trade him before next season. I like him a lot and I think we can get more for him than what he's worth and get a more logical filling of our need holes by coming back to RB after we sort out filling our other needs. Timing is crucial and if your timing is off you lose a depreciation efficiency as you always have 50 guys on your team getting older and using up their contract time, and it's about having the right rate of plugging holes as they open and we keep letting inefficiencies seep through.

CJ is definitely a valuable guy to trade because he's too good and there's no sense in having him if you aren't going to use him in the Super Bowl. We are better off taking future value instead of watching him waste away and giving us no return in terms of SB hardware which is what it's all about. CJ would have been great if we would have used the last 2-3 years to fix the team, but we did it too slow and we have to re-organize at some point. What do you want to do, have CJ be here for 15 more years where we don't make the playoffs? No thanks.

Suh is only a one year rookie and playing at a high level and we have time left with him to turn things around, so not really any point to trading him unless somebody offers a crazy deal. Nothing wrong with trading Pettigrew, a swap is a swap, one position for another, I would imagine a Pettigrew trade would be pretty neutral but still more likely a benefit because the dropoff in value from him to Scheffler or somebody else isn't as big of a win contribution factor as a better player at another key position is over his backup.

So yeah, I'm OPEN-MINDED about trading all of those guys except Suh, which would just require somebody to drop a monster offer on the table, but not expecting it to come.

[TSE]

Now heres a back we could of have for free (waivers)but we passed on him for no reason
5.2 yards per carry thats the back we needed but we let tampa bay took him bad management by the lions.TSE should manage the lions he spotted this gem. In this game you do need to have a power fullback.

LeGarrette Blount

fyi
According to the STATSPASS statistical service, LeGarrette Blount leads the NFL in broken tackles this season with 27.

Thanks for the vote of confidence Kell. Well I'm already planning on submitting a proposal to Mayhew/Schwartz/Lewand/Fords or whoever I can get in contact with over the offseason. I really feel like this is where I should be working as I'm more passionate about football than anything in the world, except for maybe having a job like President of the US, but barring anything that isn't practical, the Lions organization is where I should be. I spot gems like that all the time, every year, and every year we miss future keepers that are freebie players. It's not hard, it just takes an acute scouting eye and an application of logic to figure out what players qualify in making sense. In addition to scooping up gem players, there's another game calling staying away from anti-gems, those are guys that are a waste of a good opportunity and the more anti-gems you avoid, the more natural gems you will accidentally get lucky with in addition to the gems you scouted. Blount, then would be a gem gained by simply removing our other RBs off the roster in a trade where we get equal if not better value than what they are worth. I think I could trade Best or Morris for more than what I think they are worth, so there's a plus for the swap and then a plus for Blount being a nice surprise. If you can disqualify all the illogical players, then you are left with a small pool that as long as you make sensible opinions you have a juiced edge in making correct choices. The rest of the GMs are looking at 1500 players, and i'm figure out half of them that won't make sense for darn near certain almost, so that takes 750 reject players out of the mix that I WON'T be investing in while other teams will make the mistake of investing into them. You can't beat that, and you can't beat me in a professional football management battle.

And then you won't be able to beat Mayhew when he simply just hires me as an assistant. Despite my continued objection to many of his choices I think we would actually work tremendously well together as I work well with anybody, and somebody that has the power of the job and the passion to get better with the team is the kind of guy that I can get excited about and work with and fight with. All he has to do is accept the notion that I might actually know what I'm talking about and to hear what I have to say, that's it, and I will help him improve his drafts, his trades, and play on the field in certain areas of the game that we clearly struggle that I could fix if given the opportunity. If you want a SB as soon as humanly possible then I believe you have to hire me, cause I don't know anybody else that has plans like I have plans to make the caliber of adjustments that I can and would make. Think of how nice it would be to have a dynasty here where we are the unquestionable best team each and every year for the next couple decades. You wouldn't have anything to complain or worry about and I would not let you down.

Anybody have any ideas on best way to try and get in touch with the Lions brass?

[kellmellus50]

Before the season i was for drafting tim tebow Tebow’s 100.5 passer rating was the highest in team history for a pro debut and the highest among the NFL’s seven rookie quarterbacks who have debuted this season. Continued:http://www.theoaklandpress.com/articles/2010/12/31/sports/pro/doc4d1cdf4519ae1204460931.txt

[Piston Pete]

Your dream scenario might have just presented itself....

Stafford to Tennessee for Vince Young and their 1st rounder??

[TSE]

Oh believe me I've been thinking about Vince Young for a while now. He has a bonus due March 10 so they will probably just release him. I'm not sure how many teams are going to want to give up value and or pay that high salary that comes along with potential drama or what not. That's just one of the many reasons why I wanted Stafford traded this year so that we will have an open spot for a QB like Vince Young who might sign for a bargain deal (plus Stafford going out would mean that one more new interesting fringe QB would then open up to availability).

TEN also needs multiple QBs since Collins is a Free Agent and if they are getting Stafford out of this I want more than their 1st rounder as well. So the deal would be better framed as TEN picks 2 of our QBs, whichever 2 they will pay the most for, along with any other players on our team that they can use that we might be able to part with, and what in addition to their 1st rounder can we get?

[OB- wan]

The surest way to sustain winning football is to have a franchise QB. Manning, Brady, Breese, Big Ben...getting one of these kind of guys is worth drafting a potential franchise QB at #1 and you could still end up with an Aikman or Phil Sims for your trouble if you keep stacking young talent around him, which is the position Detroit was in when they picked Stafford.

I know every arm-chair GM can build an offensive line and defense that will crush people and the QB won't be as significant but the Lions are doing the smartest thing with their top picks right now. Calvin was the right pick even though WR was not the position of most need and picking a guy like Stafford is also worth the gamble of a huge contract if he pans out. ( a rookie pay scale should be in place) I don’t think I need to say anything about Mr. Suh landing in their lap.

The second 1st round picks were not as solid as the top picks but the jury is still out on them. They are not busts yet and they still show signs of hope for being break-out guys. Making drastic trades with any of the first round pick is preposterous.

Overall I think anyone cracking too hard on them about the moves they have made is not being fair.

[TSE]

I agree with all of your points, and because QB is so important that's why I want to use Stafford to get a quality player since another team will overpay for him in relation to what I think he's worth. Then we have an opportunity to get Andrew Luck or some other QB. Having a franchise QB is a gold mine, and my wanting to trade Stafford is because of how important that position is. Stafford could be a good QB too, but I think other QBs have higher odds of being the next all-time great.

And Calvin of course was the right pick, the only other player that could possibly have made sense for us to pick at that time was AP who I had one tiny notch below CJ simply because I value RBs less when the rest of the team is not complete and we weren't ready to add the stud RB at the point and with RBs having shorter careers and AP being a very physical player, it just wasn't logical to pass over the best WR prospect of all-time for him. You couldn't get much more of a no-brainer pick at the time. Although in hindsight our best bet would have been to trade CJ, but at the time I thought we were drafting CJ en route to fixing the team and being a SB contender in the near future, and we forfeited that opportunity, that's what's not fair, and now CJ's value of a superstar player has been realized as a big fat zero. It's a travesty beyond fairness and the best thing we can do now is use any and all players and resources as we can to salvage a justified team for the next season and beyond.

[Bartender]

I agree with all of your points, and because QB is so important that's why I want to use Stafford to get a quality player since another team will overpay for him in relation to what I think he's worth. Then we have an opportunity to get Andrew Luck or some other QB. Having a franchise QB is a gold mine, and my wanting to trade Stafford is because of how important that position is. Stafford could be a good QB too, but I think other QBs have higher odds of being the next all-time great.

And Calvin of course was the right pick, the only other player that could possibly have made sense for us to pick at that time was AP who I had one tiny notch below CJ simply because I value RBs less when the rest of the team is not complete and we weren't ready to add the stud RB at the point and with RBs having shorter careers and AP being a very physical player, it just wasn't logical to pass over the best WR prospect of all-time for him. You couldn't get much more of a no-brainer pick at the time. Although in hindsight our best bet would have been to trade CJ, but at the time I thought we were drafting CJ en route to fixing the team and being a SB contender in the near future, and we forfeited that opportunity, that's what's not fair, and now CJ's value of a superstar player has been realized as a big fat zero. It's a travesty beyond fairness and the best thing we can do now is use any and all players and resources as we can to salvage a justified team for the next season and beyond.

Trading Stafford is a good way to get Calvin to leave. It takes a lot of time for a QB/WR relationship to happen, and that relationship is key to having a dynamic passing attack. The relationship is a lot more than football, as well. They have to trust each other share the same brain. Calvin spent his first two years with different QB's starting for this team, and for his second two years, he's had a steady QB in this offense. Forget the fact that Stafford's been injured and there's been other QB's throwing to him, because Stafford is still this teams signal caller and that's more than we can say about 07 and 08. Think Rip and Chauncey... best friends on and off the court. They feed off each other. Chauncey gets traded and Rip has sucked ever since and really wants no part of this organization. Calvin would be the same way. He'd want out as soon as he could. This organization would be way too unsteady and erratic for him, especially when he could be in a place like Atlanta, Green Bay, New England, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Indy, San Diego... where they have a starting quarterback, whether how good or bad they are, and stick with that person.

Stafford has an opportunity and the skills to be better then Big Ben, Matt Ryan, and Joe Flacco... and those three guys aren't going anywhere on their team.

Players like stability. It makes them comfortable and creates chemistry. If you keep moving, trading, releasing players and bringing in new people at every position over and over again, than you will never have a team that wants to work together. We'll never be a winner.

We need a stable organization that adds pieces where pieces need to be added.

[TSE]

Well I don't know what Calvin's mind reads as, but he's already a threat to leave. I wouldn't be trading Stafford with expectations of getting worse at the QB position, it's to get better. Any time you have players on the team that like players more than you do there is a potential for clashing. When I say I want to trade Stafford it is assumed that Calvin is going to accept whoever the replacement QB is so longer as he is as good or better than Stafford, or if there is a downgrade then is that made up somewhere else, and that's built-in to my trade analysis so it's a non-issue. It has to be assumed cause if it is not then it makes the exploratory discussion a moot point and I'm covering my bases for in the event of Calvin not having a problem with how the GM does his job. I'm talking about hypothetical what-if scenarios that would never happen anyway, and if Calvin walks because he doesn't like the trade then we can consider trading him too and potentially come out better than if we kept him although my first choice would be to keep him and build onward and upward. However, every year since we drafted CJ it has been proven via hindsight that our optimal course was to trade him each and every year we have played so far and it's always going to be in our favor to trade him until we break through to the front of the contender-status line.

And I will agree that Stafford does have that opportunity, but any player has an opportunity. It's about how big the opportunity is. So I concede that you are correct and factual with that, but that doesn't matter, it only matters if you could have said that sentence as Stafford has a "likely" or "fairly priced" opportunity to succeed, which to me he clearly does not. You can't solve any problem with an unlimited budget. If your boss at works tells you to clean your desk then you could do it yourself, but why do that when you can just hire a cleaning company? Say one company offers cleaning service that is rated A quality for 50 bucks, and another has an A+ quality for a million dollars, which should you choose? Well if we just want the best and we want a Matt Ryan then we should pick the more expensive one as obviously there's more talent there. But is it really sensible to spend 1 million dollars versus 50 bucks to get a negligible upgrade especially when every dollar over 50 bucks comes as a DEDUCTION from the talent of all of your other positions on average?

[Icness]

Stafford's big money is paid already, he's already collected almost 2/3 of his guaranteed $$. The rest of his contract he's not even going to make the league average QB salary. So the $$ consideration is a moot point moving forward. Next year he'll make about $6.8M, which is less than the Texans paid Dan Orlovsky--who never took a snap--this year. The year after that he'll make between $5.75M and $8M depending on if he reaches some incentive triggers (#of completions, % of completions, # of TDs, etc.) That's a bargain if he does hit those triggers, becasue if he does the Lions will absolutely be a playoff team.

[Han Solo]

I still believe in Stafford and think next year he will throw 30+ TD's

[kellmellus50]

I still believe in Stafford and think next year he will throw 30+ TD's

thats if he stays healthy and i don't beleive he can go a whole season not getting injured .

[TSE]

Yeah i would be more impressed with him playing 16 complete games than to hit 30 TDs. The pre-condition to the stat is probably the hardest part of that prediction, although he could do the 30 in less than 16 games.

[cochiseuofm]

The QBs who got to 30 TDs this year were Brady, the Manning Brothers, Brees, and Rivers. Last year was Brees, Favre, Manning, and Rodgers only. Year before, Rivers, Brees, and Warner.

The point is getting to 30 TDs is tough to do, especially if you don't play in all 16 games. I doubt Stafford gets there next year, keeping him upright is definitely a much better goal to keep.

[Piston Pete]

30 TDs is more than our team (Stafford+Hill+Stanton) had combined all season long.