derek anderson to the lions?

Killer Kowalski put up a speculative piece today on the Lions making a play for Browns QB Derek Anderson.  He made several great points in regards to cap and contracts: Culpepper's renegotiated deal makes him a lot easier to carry through training camp, but cut him before the season.  DA's deal means the Browns are under the gun to get rid of him, if he's not going to start.  As the draft approaches, the Lions have some great ammo to make this thing work.

Looking at DA's size (6'-6", 230#) his arm, and his great success in 2007, he seems to be perfectly tailored to what the Lions hope to do.  Replace Braylon Edwards with Calvin Johnson, Jamal Lewis with Kevin Smith, and Kellen Winslow with . . . well, maybe 'perfect' is too strong of a word.  While I thought that DA and the Browns were, to an extent, doing it with smoke and mirrors, I would take a 26-year-old who did it with smoke and mirrors two years ago over a broken shell of a 31-year-old who did it with smoke and mirrors five years ago.

In an interesting twist, our new Tight Ends coach, Tim Lappano was the offensive coordinator at Oregon State when Anderson was the QB there.  Here's a great piece from the week before DA's first game starting for the Beavers, with some good quotes from Lappano about what he thought of the then-sophomore, as well as this one from Dennis Erickson:

"He's got unbelievable talent," OSU coach Dennis Erickson said. "I've been around a lot of them, and physically he has a chance to be as good as I've ever coached."

Nice.  Like the Karmelowicz hire, the pieces on this possible trade fit together really, really well.  If it happens, I think Mayhew will have done an unbelievable job of shoring up the QB position without leaning on someone we already know can't play (Culpepper) or has gone on a public anti-organization tirade (Kitna), burning the #1 overall pick, or otherwise handcuffing the organization's next five years to the wrist of someone we don't know can win in Detroit.