It’s a Marathon, Then a Sprint, Then a Marathon

Just after the new year, I started the Couch-to-5K running program.  It’s designed to get someone who lives a sedentary lifestyle ready to run a 5K in just nine weeks.  This Saturday I finished Week 5, day 3:

Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then jog 2.5 miles (or 25 minutes).

Whoever designed this program is a genius.  Every time the workout steps it up, I think, “Oh man, there’s no way, this is gonna kill me.”  Not only hasn’t it killed me, after most workouts I feel energized, powerful, healthy, alive.

This workout, the 20-minute run, is a big hurdle in the program; the longest run prior to that is 8 minutes.  The 8-minute ones weren’t a picnic, and I’d never run for 20 continuous minutes in my life.  Yet, come Saturday, my running partner and I settled into a slow-but-steady groove; still going after 15, 16, 17 minutes.

Lately, we’d been trying to “kick” to the finish of these workouts; pick up the pace for the last thirty seconds or so.  But, with all these walk/jog/walk/jog exercises, I’d spent about six weeks “running” and had never actually run.  Pacing myself has always been a problem for me, and I’d been fighting the urge to just take off for weeks.  But, when my partner said “a minute left, you wanna sprint?” I said "Okay"—and I took off.

In sailing, there’s something called a bow wave: the water being parted and displaced by the ship’s bow.  A ship’s speed is partly limited by this resistance; a normal sailboat can’t go fast enough to get up over this bow wave, and start sailing on the water.  However, with the right shape of hull, and enough power, a watercraft can hydroplane—skim on the top of the waves, free of the resistance of the water.

That's what it felt like during that run: I was skimming on top of the pavement, slicing through the air,  arms and legs swinging free, feeling only explosion under the balls of my feet as they touched, touched, touched the pavement.  Free from the slow-but-steady groove, free from the sustainable pace, I was completely unleashed and absolutely flying.

It dawned on me that sixty seconds of sprinting is an awful lot of sprinting, and my eventually my Emersonesque “transparent eyeball” moment fell back down to Earth with a lot of being really tired.  However, I was amazed—when the clock hit 00:00, I didn’t hack, cough, retch, or collapse, I just breathed really hard over and over and over.  I was spent, but I still felt energized, powerful, healthy, and alive.

It was those weeks of jogging, though, that made it possible.  At the beginning of the program, sixty seconds of jogging felt like an epic crucible: it seized my calves, made me cough and hack, and pushed me almost to my limit.  Just weeks later, though, I jogged for 19 minutes, sprinted about a minute more, and felt energized, not defeated.

So it is with free agency.*

The Lions’ out-of-character burst of activity in the wee hours of Friday morning added three solid pieces at three critical positions of need—and those additions made the team better.  While signings like Bryant Johnson and Grady Jackson certainly “filled”, at least on paper, holes in the Lions’ starting lineup, we can see that the sum of all those leftover parts didn’t actually upgrade the quality of the team. 

The Lions spent last year furiously churning the roster, scouring the waiver wire, signing practice-squadders, making trades, working out street free agents, signing and cutting guys left and right.  All the while, they were desperately hoping to find some foundational depth, youth, and talent; trying to supply the coaching staff with the raw material needed to build a winner.

If the Lions had made these same signings this past offseason, it wouldn’t have done them nearly as much good.  Replace Bryant Johnson with Nate Burleson, Dewayne White with Kyle Vanden Bosch, and Landon Cohen with Corey Williams . . . how many more wins do the Lions get?  Not many.

As Mike Rosenberg of the Free Press said:

The signings of Kyle Vanden Bosch and Nate Burleson and the trade for Corey Williams make sense, not just in a vacuum but in the context of what the Lions are trying to do. Finally, there is a plan.

Exactly.  With the 2009 draft class, and the entire 2009 year’s worth of coming and goings, the roster has taken shape.  There are some real assets for the future, and some cornerstones (Stafford, Johnson, Delmas) upon which to build.  These three acquisitions fit nicely into place—but that’s only because the past year’s worth of effort has built a place for them to fit into!

Now, there are still plenty of niches yet to be filled.  Commenters rightly christened the release of Patrick Buchanon, and allowance of Will James and Anthony Henry to leave, “Cornerback Armageddon”.  This Armchair-Linebackerian phrase fits perfectly—not because Buchanon, Henry, or James are devastating losses, but because there isn’t a single NFL-caliber corner on the roster behind them.  Four or five “good dime/okay nickel” guys, perhaps, but nobody who could be entrusted with covering an NFL wide receiver one-on-one. 

With top free agent corner Dunta Robinson gone to Atlanta, second-best corner Leigh Bodden wanting nothing to do with this franchise, and word on third-best corner Lito Sheppard, it looked as though the Lions’ options were between slim and none.

Instead, Mayhew did his thing, hammering out a deal to send the Lions’ sixth-round pick to Atlanta for newly-demoted-for-Dunta CB Chris Houston.  Moreover, the Lions are rumored to be entertaining a younger depth-type corner, Jonathan Wade from St. Louis.  Together with holdovers Eric King and Jack Williams, the Lions should have mix of experienced young veterans fighting for the #2, #3, and #4 cornerback spots.

This begs the question: when will the Lions fill the #1 spot?  Patience, friends—you can’t keep up a sprint forever, and this one’s already over.  However, the Lions will go back to the marathon: signing, trading, and releasing guys according to their plan, upgrading and remaking whenever there’s a chance.  Oh, and drafting.  Don’t forget drafting.

*I made you wait 500 words before I got to football.  Did you think I was going to pull it off?

Technorati Tags: detroit lions,nfl free agency,nfl,chris houston,johnathan wade,dunta robinson,leigh bodden,lito sheppard,atlanta falcons,running,trancendentalism

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Of Potholes and Veterans: 2010 NFL Free Agency

Yesterday, my wife and elder daughter were at the Breslin, watching the MSU women’s hoops team take out Northwestern.  There were only two tickets available, so my son ended up being an unwilling non-participant.  Given his love of all things motorsport, I figured a quick jaunt out to a sports bar for a big-screen viewing of the Daytona 500 would lift his spirits.

Along with my way-too-close-to-two-years-old-for-my-comfort younger daughter, we got a table right next to a big projection screen—with the 500, in all its red-flagged-glory, on glorious display.  That’s right; I took my kids out to watch the Daytona 500 on the biggest possible screen, and we didn’t see a lap of actual racing.

The good folks at Daytona ended up just pouring a bunch of Bondo in the hole and runnin’ ‘em anyway; any car guy will call that poetic justice.  However, their old-school solution produced some serious problems: the finish was marred by wreck after wreck. Four-time champ Jimmie Johnson at least superficially blamed his late-race DNF on the gerry-rigged surface.

Upon closer inspection, it turns out the Daytona Beach superspeedway hadn’t been resurfaced since 1978; three years before this blogger was born.  It seems preposterous that I have conscious memories of Interstate freeways being built with public funds, while the crown jewel of American motorsport rolls on dated pavement—but there it is.

It’s hard not to draw parallels to the state of the Lions’ roster; the “345” pounds of Bondo filling the middle of the defensive line comes readily to mind.  It became obvious during the season that the aging veterans the Lions were relying upon to patch the roster weren’t doing the trick; the core of the roster has to be rebuilt.

The core of a successful NFL team is its young veterans: the 25-to-30-year-olds who have honed their craft through experience, but haven’t yet lost their youthful athleticism.  I present to you all the core of the Lions’ roster, in ascending age order:

• WR Calvin Johnson
• DL Turk McBride
• OT Corey Hilliard
• LB Ernie Sims
• QB Drew Stanton
• SS Marvin White
• SS Ko Simpson
• TE Matthew Michaels
• DE Jason Hunter
• DB Kevin Hobbs
• SS Daniel Bullocks
• OG Manny Ramirez
• CB Eric King
• OG Dylan Gandy
• OG Daniel Loper
• OG Stephen Peterman
• LS Don Muhlbach
• MLB Cody Spencer
• WR Bryant Johnson
• TE Casey Fitzsimmons
• OLB Vinny Circiu

Wow.  I knew this would be brutal, but it surpasses even my worst fears.  Of the 21 players that met my criteria, you could release all but four of them without any impact on the Lions’ 2009 performance*, or 2010 team potential: Megatron, Sims, Peterman, and Muhlbach.

The criteria were tough to define.  Brandon Pettigrew is 25, but just finished his rookie year—and Ernie Sims is only two months older, but has already played four seasons.  I set the lower bound at “at least 24 years old, with three or more completed seasons”, and the upper bound at “no more than 30 years old, or 7 completed seasons”.

If that seems like a narrow window, it is; time is short in the NFL.  We already speak of the “aging” Larry Foote and his “diminished skills”—yet, he’s only 29.  His eight years of service just barely disqualified him from this list.

Further, the 2009 draft class has been pushed into starting roles far more quickly than they would have on any other team.  It’s undeniable that Stafford, Pettigrew, Delmas, Levy, and Hill are starting-caliber talents, but to varying degrees they all could have benefitted from the time and space to develop before getting thrust out into the fray.  They’re the “core” of the team, but only because the actual core of the team lays in ruins.

What can be done?  Not much.  The answer should be to pursue these types of players in free agency, but this is an especially bad year to do so.  The vagaries of the CBA and the 2010 uncapped year mean that the four- and five-year veterans who’d be coming into the open market are now restricted free agents; if tendered at a decent level they’re nearly unsignable.

Here’s a reasonably complete list of six- and seven-year starter-caliber veterans who’ll be unrestricted free agents come March:

• OLB Karlos Dansby
• DT Vince Wilfork
• MLB Gary Brackett
• CB Dunta Robinson
• WR Nate Burleson
• DT Aubrayo Franklin
• OLB Pisa Tinoisamoa
• WR Antonio Bryant
• WR Kevin Walter
• FS Will Allen

Wilfork and Franklin will be slapped with the franchise tag, taking them off the market.  Robinson will almost certainly be either tagged or re-signed to a monster deal, as the Texans have almost no one behind him at cornerback.  The 5’-11”, 235-pound Brackett doesn’t fit the Lions’ system at all, and the same goes for Tinoisamoa.

Burleson, Bryant, and Walter are legitimate options as #2 WRs, but it’s questionable whether Bryant or Walter represent a head-and-shoulders upgrade over Bryant Johnson.  Besides Burleson, Will Allen is another strong possibility.  A special-teams standout with experience at both free and strong safety, Allen missed most of last year with a broken thumb, and could be a nice complement to Louis Delmas.

Unfortunately, that’s about the extent of it: a handful of wideouts and a safety.  Any further attempts at rebuilding the young-veteran talent foundation of the Lions would involve either signing a restricted free agent, or making a trade—both which would almost certainly involve surrendering draft picks, with I don’t see Mayhew doing under almost any circumstance.

The more I look at the free agent market, the more I realize that, like Sunday’s Daytona 500, we’ll waiting a long time before the Lions’ roster is competitive again.  All we can hope for is that, like the 500, when they finally get there, it’s worth it.

* obviously, if they released Loper, Ramirez, and Gandy the Lions would have nobody to play left guard.  The idea here is that all of these guys are fungible; you can exchange a Dylan Gandy for a Rex Hadnot whenever you want, but a Jahri Evans is much tougher to come by.

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