Tinderbox: Fireside Chat & Big CBA Post Coming

This Sunday night, I’ll host the latest Fireside Chat podcast, which will include an interview with Sports Illustrated’s Tim Layden about his new book: Blood, Sweat, and Chalk: The Ultimate Football Playbook: How the Great Coaches Built Today’s Game.  Besides being a very well-written book, right up my alley, Tim’s a tremendous interview.  Incredibly well-spoken, well-researched, and quick-thinking, he gave a lot of great answers to my stuttering, “um-“ laden questions.  We’ll discuss the Lions, the zone blitz, Rex Ryan, and the sharing of ideas between the college and pro games.  I’ll also review the first full week and first padded practices; I’ll be soliciting your stories from training camp, and the annual Lions Uncaged event at Ford Field (which, unfortunately, I won’t be attending this year).

I’ve also been working on an enormous Here’s What I Think About the CBA post; if I don’t get it up today, it will certainly go up this weekend.  It’s big.

Mike Florio of Profootballtalk.com wrote that there’s chatter that Louis Delmas’ groin injury may ultimately require surgery—and some folks in the Lions organization believe he should be shut down now and surgered before it gets any worse.  Florio, though, relays the fact one of his own sources  insists that Delmas will be 100% for the regular season in the same story.  Local Lions writers immediately set about debunking the article.  Killer’s Delmas story quotes Jim Schwartz:

"I (can't) spend all my time addressing rumors and stuff like that. My policy in training camp is that I'm not going to specifically comment on injuries," Schwartz said after Thursday's practice. "I've done a good job of letting you guys know when there's short-term stuff and when there's long-term stuff, and there's nothing that's changed with Louis. Louis is a short-term guy and we're erring on the side of caution. He got a pulled groin in minicamp and he's conditioning. I'm not going to take that bait, I think that's foolish of me."

Reassuring--but then, Florio's story ended with this scary paragraph:

Expect the team and the player to deny the possibility that surgery is needed. But then pay attention to Delmas' health throughout the year -- and whether there's eventually an "aggravation" that results in the player being placed on injured reserve in advance of a procedure aimed at fixing the situation.

Eep.

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