Ty Schalter, Bleacher Report Featured Columnist

Six months after founding this blog—over two years ago—I received an e-mail from a Bleacher Report editor (long since gone). Said editor shared a link to a B/R article about Calvin Johnson, and suggested I write a post highlighting its awesomeness.

It wasn’t awesome.

I asked the editor about its lack of awesomeness, and indeed if he’d edited it. Further, I noted that with a few exceptions (like Greg Eno’s work), very little of the writing on B/R seemed to be awesome. He said the editorial staff was working ‘round the clock to buff out the scratches, and maybe if I was so keen on improving the quality of Lions coverage on B/R I should sign up and start writing—after all, anyone could.

I asked many of my bloggy friends (and bloggy role models) about Bleacher Report. I was vaguely aware that B/R had a less-than-stellar reputation, but didn’t know the particulars. I got an earful of the particulars. I decided not to start writing at Bleacher Report, but created a writer profile there . . . just in case.

Somewhere amidst all the Lions-y areas of the Internet, I befriended (e-friended?) Michael Schottey. Schottey was (and is) a card-carrying member of the PFWA, and as such had real pro writing and radio experience under his belt. He wrote about the Lions at B/R (and elsewhere) with both insight and skill, and pretty much was the antithesis of everything all the sports blog cool kids thought about Bleacher Report.

I found myself playing both sides of the fence: decrying B/R’s oceans of subpar content and lucrative syndication deals, while fiercely defending the quality of the work their best writers were doing. While the battle for blogger street cred raged on comment sections and Twitter accounts everywhere, B/R continually raised the bar for themselves.

Bleacher Report instituted an application process—no longer could anyone sign up for a free email, sign up for a B/R account, and see whatever they wrote syndicated to major websites within hours. As B/R became increasingly selective in adding writers, they also instituted policies against plagiarism, and instituted content and style standards—taking down substandard posts and banning the worst offenders. As the bottom rungs of the quality ladder were eliminated, Bleacher Report hired King Kaufman away from Salon.com to add a bunch of new rungs on top.

More and more excellent writers were coming to do great work on Bleacher Report, and the rest were being aggressively developed with amazing tools and training.  Finally, this week kicked off with what  newly-minted SI College Football blogger Holly Anderson called “Get That Paper Internet Monday”: Bleacher Report hired four of the very coolest Sports Blog Cool Kids, as well as their own Matt Miller, to be their national Lead Writers.

It’s a Murderer’s Row of OG sports bloggers: Bethlehem Shoals, best known for Free Darko; Josh Zerkle, best known for Kissing Suzy Kolber, Dan Rubenstein, best known for The Solid Verbal, and Dan Levy, best known for On The DL with Dan Levy. The sharper-eyed of you might recall that Dan kindly allowed me to guest-post on his blog, Press Coverage sometimes; I was (and am) a huge fan of his work. Dan’s intro post put it best:

In two months' time I went from feeling like I was doing Bleacher Report a favor by spending 30 minutes on the phone talking about their new program to sitting in their offices wondering how in the world I'm going to keep up my end of the bargain for a company I genuinely believe is going to be the next place everyone in our industry is going to want to work.

The only real problem with the way Bleacher Report has built their brand—something that has always been my point of contention—was that the back-end genius was always leaps and bounds ahead of the front-end product. To become the fourth-largest sports site in the country with no high-profile names writing for you, all while fighting a less-than-favorable (and perhaps a bit unfair) perception from certain media types, is beyond incredible.

The thing is, that back-end genius? It really is genius. And that commitment to improve? They went all-out to hire their harshest, smartest critics. They also promoted their own best and brightest; besides making Matt Miller a Lead Writer, they also bumped Michael Schottey up to NFL Associate Editor. He reached out to me—and in short order, I was trying to remember my old Bleacher Report password.

I shouted it out on Twitter already, but here it is, all dusted-off, updated, and officially official: my Bleacher Report Sportswriter Profile. You can check out my first post, there, too: “Jim Schwartz’s Detroit Lions Look to Stun Bill Belichick’s New England Patriots.”

Now this is the part I'm sure you're wondering about: the impact this will have on The Lions in Winter. I’m glad to say there won’t be one. TLiW was and is my very own; I write it because I need it. I didn’t chop wood and brew cider for three years just to let the little blue flame fade to embers.

B/R serves a different audience differently. It will still be me writing over there; you’ll see similar opinions expressed in both places. Occasionally, you might see differently-edited versions of the same article in both places. But, I’ll be writing about more than the Lions on Bleacher Report; I’ll also be covering the NFL as a whole. There will be lots of pieces there that wouldn’t fit here, and there will be lots of pieces here that wouldn’t fit anywhere else.

I've said and thought many critical things about Bleacher Report over the years, but today I sit blown away. These folks’ commitment to quality is remarkable, and the resources they put at writers’ fingertips are just as impressive. They are dead serious about doing what they do as well as they can do it, and I’m proud to do whatever I can to help them get there.

Technorati Tags: bleacher report,meta,writing,blogging

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Tinderbox: Sellout!

It looks like Operation Sellout was a huge success—the Lions have announced they’ve already sold out Sunday’s game against the Jets, without the help of an extension!  Admittedly, I have no idea how many tickets were snapped up by TLiW readers who weren’t going anyway—but if even one of you out there was inspired to purchase tickets by yesterday’s post, I deeply, deeply thank you.  I cannot wait for Sunday!

If you missed The Knee Jerks on Monday night, Greg and Big Al were kind enough to have me on as a guest!  I talked about the Lions, what inspired me to start the blog, and we also went a little bit meta about blogging, online sports reporting, and where people are going to get their sports news.  I had a ton of fun—and as always, wish I had more time!  Greg, if you don’t recall, kicked off Barry Week with his awesome contribution.

Finally, crucial thank Big Al, Zac at the Sidelion Report, and Phil at Mlive.com for helping spread the word about Operation Sellout.  I can’t say how proud I am of this fanbase that they put their money where their heart is.  The world is going to get its best look yet at just how big the bonfire’s gotten!

Technorati Tags: nfl,detroit lions,new york jets

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Barry Sanders: Man on Fire

The first entry of Barry Week comes from Greg Eno.  If his seminal Detroit sports blogs Out of Bounds and Where Have You Gone, Johnny Grubb? weren’t enough, he’s a longtime freelance sportswriter, co-host of Detroit sports talk show The Knee Jerks, and--oh yeah--is the Director of Public Information for the Wayne County Commission.

For the mortal pro football player, training camp is a necessary evil. It’s two-a-days in stifling heat, having to make football moves with a body that can dehydrate quicker than a kitchen counter spill attacked with Bounty.

The mortal pro football player has to prep his body—gird it for 20 weeks of exhibitions and regular season tilts, not counting any playoff action. For the mortal players, training camp is the ultimate battle of attrition. If it’s not a competition against another player for a roster spot or starting role, it’s a secret war against one’s self.

For the mortal player, the idea of starting a season without training camp is both exhilarating and terrifying. The latter usually wins out.

Pity the mortals.

Barry David Sanders wasn’t drafted by the Detroit Lions in 1989, he was unleashed by them onto the National Football League. And that unleashing came with Barry having not spent a single minute in Lions training camp.

In the first of several contract disputes Sanders would have with the Lions, Barry missed the entire training camp and exhibition season in his rookie year in ’89. His shoulders never touched pads. His feet never slid into cleats. I don’t know if he even picked up a football between April’s draft and September’s regular season debut.

No matter.

Sanders finally signed his first pro contract the Friday before the Lions’ season opener at home against the then-Phoenix Cardinals. Despite the game being less than 48 hours away—barely enough time for the ink to dry on Barry’s signature—the Lions announced that their new jitterbug running back would be in uniform and activated for the game against the Cards.

That Sunday, the first half came and went. Sanders teetered in the Lions’ bench area, shifting his weight from his left foot to his right, his helmet usually on. Sometimes he would sit down. Coach Wayne Fontes had said that Barry would play, though no one knew when, or how much.

The second half began.

The Silverdome crowd kept one eye on the football game and the other on Sanders, fiddling around near the bench. Sometimes they kept zero eyes on the game and both on Sanders. No one wanted to miss the moment when his number—20, after Lem Barney and Billy Sims—would be called.

Then it happened.

Fontes called for Barry. There came a rumble from the bowels of the ‘Dome that swelled as Sanders jogged onto the field. The Cardinals looked on, like gawkers at a bad accident. They weren’t sure what they were going to see, but they were pretty certain it was going to be bad.

The Cardinals were right.

On his very first carry, Sanders swung left, deked right, shot forward, and slithered away from half the Cardinals defense for an 18-yard gain.

Training camp, shmaining camp.

Three carries later, Sanders scored his first NFL touchdown. By the end of the game, there had already been a call asking for a sculptor in the house to help cast Barry in bronze for Canton.

The Lions lost that game against the Cardinals, and that was probably appropriate. Barry was pretty much the only reason you’d pay to see the Lions in 1989, or any other year for that matter.

Sanders didn’t need training camp—that was obvious by what he did to the Cardinals on carry No. 1. He also didn’t appear to need any blocking, not that he got much of it while playing for the Lions.

But in defense of the Lions offensive lines during Sanders’ career (1989-98), which would never be mistaken for those of the Cowboys or the 49ers, you didn’t block for Sanders so much as you tried to stay out of his way. Because no one really knew where Barry was going—including Barry himself.

Sanders ran with the football like a man on fire looking for the nearest source of water. You couldn’t create any running lanes for him because that’s not how he operated. He didn’t run North-South—he was a man who used the entire compass, usually on the same play.

Sanders’ runs on the scoresheet looked like typos. They would go like this: 2, -1, 1, -4, 3, 79, -3, 1, 27, 0. He was as inconsistent as a politician’s stance.

I think one of the best Barry Sanders runs I ever saw—and I was fortunate enough to see his entire career in my adulthood—netted him a three yard loss.

It was in Buffalo. The Bills’ Cornelius Bennett nabbed Sanders in the backfield and flung him toward the turf like he was trying to skip Barry across Lake Erie. Yet somehow, Sanders’ knee never touched the ground, though his fingertips did. Barry was forced into a 180 but never went down. Bennett’s jaw touched the turf before Barry’s knees did.

A couple Bills players came upon the scene and finished the play, for the aforementioned three-yard loss—some ten seconds later.

I will leave you with this. Barry Sanders, every game, did something that you’d never seen an NFL running back do. Every. Single. Game. For ten seasons.

He was the best I ever saw, and ever will see. Without Barry, Lions football over the past 25 years would have been even more insufferable than it already has been. Think about that for a moment.

Technorati Tags: nfl,detroit lions,barry sanders,greg eno

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Broadcast Gig: Guest Hosting The Knee Jerks!

Besides this Sunday night’s Fireside Chat, I’ll be again be attempting to fill in for Greg Eno in his and Big Al’s internet radio show, The Knee Jerks!  The show will be on at its usual Monday night time slot, from 7:00 to 9:00 pm.  I’ll be on during the show’s second hour, talking Lions with one of my favorite Lions bloggers—the aforementioned Big Al, from The Wayne Fontes Experience.  Hope you folks tune in!

Technorati Tags: nfl,detroit lions,detroit lions podcast,greg eno,big al beaton

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Tinderbox: Fireside Chat Lions Podcast Options

For those of you who have—or have not—been listening to the Fireside Chat podcast, there’s now a veritable cornucopia of ways to follow it:

• First, just click the "Podcast" tab on the linkbar beneath the main banner.  It'll take you to a page where the live stream window is permanently embedded—and a couple all-time favorite episodes are highlighted, too.
• Second, you can go to the Ustream Fireside Chat homepage, which includes all the groovy chat windows, schedule, archives, etc.  This is the best way to follow the show with all the bells and whistles—including interacting with me during the chat.
• Thirdly, you can open up iTunes, go to “Advanced -> Subscribe to Podcast”, and paste  in the URL for the episodes’ RSS feed:
  

  http://feeds.feedburner.com/thelionsinwinterfiresidechat

The Fireside Chat is currently being reviewed by Apple for inclusion in the iTunes store, but that method will subscribe you whether Steve approves of me or not! As for non-podcast content, more is coming soon.  I’ve been burning the midnight oil on the famous CBA post; my hard drive creaks and groans under its mighty weight.

As for news, it looks like we'll know a lot more about how close Louis Delmas is very soon, as he may play against Cleveland--and we'll see if he'll practice Monday.  Calvin Johnson tweaked his ankle today, but it looks like it’s not serious.  However, Jason Fox’s knee may have led to the Lions’ latest roster move: a claim of just-waived Giants OT Cliff Louis.  In Tom Kowalski’s words:

Lions' right tackle position getting interesting

Michael Schottey dug up a nice little scouting report on Cliff Louis from back in ‘07.  Obviously, Louis hasn’t yet hit that upside, but he clearly was on the Lions’ scouts’ radar all this time.  Is IR coming for Jason Fox?  We’ll see . . .

That reminds me of one last multimedia-related note: Michael Schottey was the guest on The Knee Jerks last night!  Three of my favorite Lions writers all talking Lions; great stuff.  Pop on over to The Knee Jerks to check it out.

Technorati Tags: nfl,detroit lions,detroit lions podcast,fireside chat,the knee jerks,mlive.com

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With Great Potential, Great Expectations

My car, nominally a Pontiac Vibe but functionally a garbage scow, needed to be cleaned out.  I drove to a car wash and began the process, in traditional “open up all the doors and crank the radio” fashion.  Only, instead of 80s metal or 00s hip hop, I cranked Ryan Ermanni on WDFN.  The host was setting the bar for the Lions—but did it in an interesting way.  He not only set a minimum number of wins, seven, he specified when they must win their games: at the beginning of the year.

I flashed back to my last post about expectations for the Lions' 2010 season:

The Detroit Lions are facing a similar crossroads. After the incredible burden of 0-16, the glorious celebration when that burden was cast off, and two straight offseasons of talent addition, the Lions cannot go into this season hoping to win a single game, or even win a game or two more than last. No, the Lions have assembled a talented roster, with legitimate talent on both sides of the ball. The veterans will be expected to play as they have, and the youngsters will be expected to produce up to their potential. A 3-13 season will be a disappointment, not a thrilling sign of what's to come.

In sports, expectations are a huge part of fandom.  There’s no clearer example of this than the most recent Super Bowl: New Orleans set up a massive Super Bowl parade—regardless of whether the Saints won or lost.  Meanwhile, when the Colts returned to Indianapolis, they were met by a crowd of . . . eleven fans.  Even if the Saints hadn’t brought home the Lombardi, they were far and away the best team NOLA had ever seen.  Meanwhile, Peyton and the Colts have set the bar quite high for themselves over the past decade or so—and last season, anything but a championship felt like a disappointment.

There are generational expectations, bars set by great epochs of success, spanning many players, coaches, and executives: the Yankees, the Lakers, the Steelers.  These fan bases simply assume they’ll be contending for titles year after year, and are livid when they don’t.  It’s these kind of expectations that lead Michigan fans to snarl that Michigan State football will never supercede Michigan football, “no matter how many times” in a row MSU beats U of M on the field (and yes, Wolverine fans, I have heard some of you say this).

Next, there are institutional expectations, inspired by dynasties beget by one player, coach, or executive.  A decade or more of perennial title contention caused the bar to be set there, temporarily.  The current Colts are a perfect example of this: they were mostly irrelevant before Peyton Manning, once blessed with Peyton became perennial title contenders, and may slip back into mediocrity when he’s gone.  For what it’s worth, I’d say the Red Wings are between this stage and the one above—though if they won a post-Lidstrom Cup, they’d get a promotion.  Coming down off of this high can be painful.  See: Cowboys fans who think the road to the Super Bowl always runs through Dallas—despite only 3 double-digit-win seasons since the onset of the Dave Campo Era a decade ago.

More fleetingly, there are annual expectations, which is as atomized as this discussion usually gets.  What happened last year, what happened in the offseason, how many “wins are on the schedule,” etc.  Talk right now is about what “you’d be happy with” in terms of number of wins: would five wins be acceptable?  Would you be pleased with six?  Is seven wins a run-naked-through-the-streets number, or would you keep your clothes on until the Lions won more games than they lost?

Ermanni touched on something I always think about when discussing expectations: the week-to-week grind of finding out what this year’s edition is really all about.  Every week, fans’ idea of exactly what their team is varies wildly from week to week.  We might, at the beginning of the year, say that we’d be “happy” with five wins, but when your team is 2-8 out of the gate, can you really be happy—even if they rally to a 3-3 finish?  Ermanni said he just wants the Lions to be in the mix, to be relevant, deep into the season.  That they have to “win ballgames”.

Really, what we're talking about here is a belief that there’s a point.  That it’s worthwhile.  That there’s a reason to tune in.  At the tail end of 2010, there simply wasn’t.  Once Matthew Stafford was shelved for the rest of the year, Lions fans knew that there was zero chance of victory, zero chance that the games would be worth while, and zero reason to watch.  So, Ermanni argued, the Lions have to come out winning.  Even if the end result is 6-10 or 7-9, if they’re at least not mathematically eliminated from the playoffs when Thanksgiving rolls around, Lions fans will be happy.

It’s a solid point; he’s probably more right than wrong.  However, one of the most interesting examples of shifting expectations was the Lions’ 2007 season.  Despite horrific road losses to the Eagles and Redskins, two of the most appalling on-field forfeits I’ve ever seen, the Lions got off to a 6-2 start.  Quoth Mike Furrey after a post-bye-week win over the Buccaneers:

The Lions are 4-2, media! You can kiss my ass!

The Lions kept winning, picking up two more Ws in spectacular fashion, including the last time the Lions kicked anyone’s ass, a legendary 44-7 whupping of the Broncos.  I would be remiss if I did not include this clip, so I will:

. . . brings a tear to my eye every time.

Lions fans were exultant.  The Lions were 6-2!  The playoffs were nearly certainty.  The division crown was well within reach.  Fans even started speculating about playoff byes and home field advantage.  Certainly, these mighty Lions could not be satisfied with a one-and-done run through the postseason!  No, they [embarrassingly premature smugness redacted].

The crash back to Earth was excruciating.  The Lions finished 7-9, and played some of the most God-awful football anyone has ever seen along the way.  The nine-turnover, nineteen-penalty 21-31 turd at Arizona bobs up to the top of the Honolulu Blue Port-O-John liquid that marinates the worst games ever.  Look at the weather: “72 degrees, no wind.”  The two teams combined to lose six fumbles.  How does that even happen?  As Greg Eno put it over at Out of Bounds:

OK, Mike. Ready? The Lions are 7-8! You can plant one between my back pockets, too.

So, did Lions fans walk away happy?  Were we pleased or content with seven wins?  Absolutely not—even though, had we been offered a guaranteed 7-win season at the outset, we’d probably have taken it.  I think the same applies this season: yes, we’d take seven wins; Hell, we’d be giddy!  And yes, there’s no doubt, winning a few of the first several, or several of the first eight, games would go a long way towards rejuvenating the fan base.  Hitting the halfway point of the season at 4-4 would do wonders for attendance, for spirit, for—yes—the blue flame.  But, who among us is ready for a 1-7 finish?  Who here wants to be eager to come home from church and mow the lawn because the Lions will be on?  Not I.

Yes, I’d like to avoid a three- or four-game losing streak to start the season.  Yes, I’d love for everyone to get amped for Lions football right out of the gate.  But, saying that you want the Lions to blow all their wins up front, because winning them in the back half “doesn’t matter?”  I can’t agree.  The only thing crueler than another double-digit-loss season would be to get a sniff of victory, only to get our faces pushed back into the garbage.

At the car wash.

Technorati Tags: nfl,detroit lions,denver broncos,philadelphia eagles,washington redskins,shaun rogers,mike furrey

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Broadcast GIG: Guest Hosting The Knee Jerks!

Those of you who’ve been reading for a while know I’m a big fan of “Big” Al Beaton, of The Wayne Fontes Experience, and Greg Eno, sports journalist/blogger, and their mutual podcast/internet radio show, The Knee Jerks.  Well, Greg has to take a week off, so I’m going to do my best to help fill in.

The show goes from 7:00-9:00, and I advise you to check out the whole thing, but I’ll be co-hosting the second hour, from 8:00-9:00.  Plenty of Lions, Tigers, and Detroit sports talk will be on tap, so listen in at www.thekneejerks.com!

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Fireside Chat #2: Matthew Stafford Interview

And now, what you’ve all been waiting for . . .

Crucial thanks to everyone at the AXE Hair team, who made this possible.  Second, I’d like to thank noted sportswriter and blogger Greg Eno, who gave me some awesome pointers on doing audio interviews.  Without his help, this decently-listenable interview would have been a laughably amateurish affair.  If you need any help getting your speaking or writing chops up, hit Greg up at www.gregeno.com.

Of course, get signed up for the AXE Hair Action challenge at the AXE Hair facebook page—and see if you can top Matthew’s Hair Action!  Finally, a tip of the hat to Matthew himself, who is a consummate pro, incredibly sharp, and a lot more polished at this than any 22-year-old ought to be . . .

. . . more thoughts later.

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key performance indicators

In business, the traditional ways of measuring success are with the broad overall goals: sales, revenue, profit-and-loss.  Are sales up or down?  Are costs up or down?  Is the profit margin higher this quarter compared to last?  Compared to the same quarter last year?  These are all different ways of asking the same question--the BIG question: whether the company is making money.  That’s the bottom line, after all; success for a business is defined by making money, and the traditional metrics of success all focus on that.

However, a business is more complicated than that (and forgive, businessmen out there, if I’m serenading you with the business equivalent of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”).  A simple evaluation based on whether the company is currently making money doesn’t provide any insight into whether the company is healthy and growing, whether that growth, if it exists, is sustainable, or if the company will still be profitable a year from now.  For that deeper insight, businesses look at more difficult-to-quantify, but possibly more valuable, ‘Key Performance Indicators’.  KPIs might be things like new customer retention, talent retention, customer willingness to recommend, etc.  If the business has had a tough quarter, that might be the result of broader economic trends or factors—but if new customers are increasingly loving the product and telling all their friends, the core business might be in a great position for growth.

Tomorrow, the Lions open a three-day minicamp.  This minicamp will be the first practice with pads, helmets, veterans, rookies, blocking, tackling, lifting, film, and everything else that comes with real, actual football.  This will be the first time that the Lions’ staff will get a chance to really evaluate most of the positions—you can’t evaluate the O-line, tight ends, or anyone on the defense when full-speed blocking and tackling aren’t allowed.  It will also be the first time that the rookies and veterans will practice and compete for jobs together—not rookies versus rookies, or vets versus vets, but the entire roster starting with a level playing field—in a drastic departure from the prior regime, there will be no depth chart until deep into training camp.

We won’t get to see this First Real Football in detail.  There won’t be any TV broadcast we can TiVO and replay.  There won’t be any live streaming play-by-play.  There probably won’t be any live Tweeting, either (since the Twitter-savviest Detroit sports journalist, Greg Eno, has informed me he won’t be there).  And of course, we won't have any of the typical measures of football success to go by--yards, points, wins, or losses.  So, we’ll have to wade knee-deep into the stream of quotes, blurbs, blogs, and articles that will flow through our favored information channels in the nights and days following these practices, and hope to catch some fish of truth*.

I’ve identified a few KPIs that Lions observers should watch with interest:

• The WRs vs. the DBs:  Calvin “Megatron” Johnson is awesome.  He’s completely sweet.  This is essentially the only known quantity on the Lions’ roster; we know that Megatron can and will match up against the very best the NFL has to offer—and will produce no matter how awful whoever’s throwing him the ball is.  This will allow us to measure what might be this team’s greatest on-paper weakness: the cornerback position.  Buchanon and Henry—and, if Henry slides back to safety . . . *gulp* . . . Eric King—lining up across from Megatron will give us a concrete idea of just how bad things will be for us at corner.  Will he dominate?  Most likely.  But the difference between him dominating, and him being completely unstoppable, could also be the difference between shutting down a Bernard Berrien—or not. 
• The interior OL vs. the interior DL:  Cliff Avril, in a recent interview on  Sirius NFL Radio, revealed that with DT Grady Jackson working out lightly at home, fourth-round rookie Sammie Hill has been running with the ones.  Hill, a very raw athletic talent, will get invaluable reps against smart, tough veteran center Dominic Raiola, and . . . a couple of other guys.  Raiola, of course, will be giving up somewhere between 20 and 40 pounds to the big youngster, but we’ll get a good sense of exactly how raw Hill is by how much of that size advantage Raiola will be able to neutralize with leverage, footwork, and technique.  Also, we’ll get a sense of which of the many mountain-sized men the Lions have acquired this offseason will be playing on either side of Raiola.  Young veterans Daniel Loper and Stephen Peterman are thought to have the inside track on the left and right guard spots, respectively--but Loper’s 6’-6” frame is probably better suited to tackle, and Peterman has been inconsistent at best throughout his career.  The Lions’ leadership is thought to believe that with the shift from a pass-heavy zone blocking scheme to a traditional, run-first, drive blocking scheme, will emphasize Peterman’s strengths and conceal his weaknesses.  Also, new OL coach George Yarno was Peterman’s OL coach at LSU, so he may be able to draw out the best in the former third-rounder.  Seeing how these two—or others—fare versus the Lions’ iffy, depleted, and very young DT corps will go a long way toward revealing just how much all these OL acquisitions have bolstered the line.
• The voice of the defense:  Lions fans everywhere jumped for joy when veteran MLB—and Detroit native, and U-M alum—Larry Foote forced his release from the Super-Bowl-winning Pittsburgh Steelers, and signed with the 0-16 Detroit Lions.  It was presumed that he’d be the “thumper” in the middle of the defense that the Lions seemed to have failed to acquire, and was also presumed to be the new veteran leader of the defense.  However, rookie S Louis Delmas took that role upon himself in the rookie-only minicamp, rallying his unitmates, and bantering constantly with QB Matt Stafford.  It will be interesting to see how these two interact with each other, and the rest of the defense.  Will their big-time personalities mesh—like Ray Lewis and Ed Reed in Baltimore, and like Foote and Troy Polamalu did in Pittsburgh?  Or, will they clash?  This weekend will be the first indication we’ll get which of the new prized cattle is wearing the bell.
• The impact of the linebackers: On a team rated a putrid, horrible, awful, wretched, nasty, rotten, worthless 65 overall in Madden 2010, the Lions still have the 5th-highest-rated linebacking corps.  The veteran additions—Foote, and former Spartan Julian Peterson—will join Ernie Sims to form the most athletic and aggressive Lions linebacking corps since the late 80’s /early 90s groups that featured Chris Spielman, Mike Cofer, and others.  Moreover, they’ll have the confining, one-gap, stay-at-home, short-zone leashes attached to them by the Tampa 2 defense taken off, and their jobs will be honed down to two things: running upfield, and killing people.  Ernie Sims, I suspect, will have a dramatic renaissance in this scheme, living up to his impressive potential.  Even though Peterson and Foote have limitations in coverage, their games are both beautifully suited to this new Guntherball scheme as well.  Also, look out for Jordon Dizon; Cunningham seems to like him as well, and he should see a lot of time in the nickel packages.  Since we know that tackles Jeff Backus and Gosder Cherilus—and new acquisitions like Jon Jansen and Ephraim Salaam—struggle against speed off the edge, hope for the outside linebackers to be very disruptive.  They will not be allowed to actually punish the quarterbacks at this stage of the offseason, but if the news comes back that the linebackers are overwhelming the offensive line, then that is good news indeed.

*”Fish of Truth” is a good name for a band.

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