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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Old Mother Hubbard: 2011 Detroit Lions Offseason

not looking so bare this year

Those of you who’ve been reading for a while have, I hope, been waiting for my Old Mother Hubbard series, where I review the performance of every Lion on the roster with a chance to make the next roster. It begins soon, enhanced with film grades from Pro Football Focus. I do my own film review, too, but they grade every snap—and moreover, they do it for the entire league.  As the Lions’ roster has improved, it’s vital that we compare it to the rest of the league for context.

Before, we knew that the Lions were at the bottom of the NFL in terms of talent. We knew the roster was flatly awful. But it’s been so long since we’ve seen truly competitive football in Detroit, judging the Lions against only themselves no longer makes sense. So, this year’s Old Mother Hubbard will try to compare every Lion’s 2010 performance to their counterparts across the NFL. If I do it right, it’ll be like a statistical combine, for veterans.

Ah, that’s right, the NFL combine—it’s this weekend. All of this year’s prospective draft picks—save a few at the very top, and a few at the very bottom—will be doing drills and jumps and lifts and sprints this weekend in Indianapolis. More importantly, they’ll be getting their medical evaluations, and be doing their personal interviews.

All of your favorite writers and reporters are down there to cover it live, from Michael Schottey to Dave Birkett to Peter King.  Also, follow Will Carroll, who besides being awesome knows Indy—and everyone in the industry. Also, follow me, @lionsinwinter—because if you like my blogging, you’ll likely like my Tweeting. Don’t forget to read Tom Kowalski’s articles (and watch his vlogs) at Mlive.com, and for general NFL-wide combine updates, the folks at Scout.com just kill it every year.

As for the NFL combine, you can follow it live at NFL.com, as well as on NFL Network. I always make time for the OL and DL position drills, and I suggest you do, too. Also, the bench presses are fun to watch; the strength coach who usually oversees it is a real character.

As for the Lions, well, I haven’t built out their shopping list for this season yet. But, for the first time in years, they’ll actually be drafting for depth instead of for starters. They’ll be drafting players to sit and learn instead of step in and start.  They’ll be drafting players now to be major parts of their future—you know, like real teams do. In a way, it’s not as exciting; without free agency, we’ll be desperate to hear about lots of new starters coming in the door. In another way, it’s much more exciting—it means the cupboard isn’t bare anymore.

Technorati Tags: nfl,nfl draft,nfl combine,detroit lions

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Three Cups Deep: Senior Bowl Recap & Results

For those of you who weren’t following my obsessive Tweeting on Saturday evening, but are interested in what went down during the Senior Bowl practices and game, I’ve got you covered. I put up a quick post earlier with some site names, but here are the links to the practice reports and game recaps you need:

• Scout.com’s Senior Bowl reports. This is a premium site, but I’ve been relying on the Scout.com staff’s Senior Bowl stuff for years. Comprehensive and accurate, as always.
• Michael Schottey, of the Bleacher Report, was at the Senior Bowl along with some of the rest of the B/R folk. Mr. Schottey isn’t just a football dude who was there, though—he’s very well versed in player evaluation. That link takes you B/R’s collective Senior Bowl articles, and there’s lots of good stuff there. 
• Wes Bunting, of the National Football Post, is a trained scout and very good writer; his stuff is mandatory reading.
• The guys from Sideline Scouting work their tails off, and it shows. I had their draft guide last year, and I was glad I did. Their Senior Bowl coverage didn’t disappoint, so go read it.
• Fellow Big Lead Sports site DraftZoo was in Mobile as well, and their head dude Hunter Ansley put up some really excellent practice recaps.

My own impressions? The game was a textbook example of what the game of football is really about: line play. When you have subpar quarterback play, and no offensive chemistry or familiarity, the coaches’ bag of tricks is emptied. In an All-Star game like this, the coaches can’t hide their quarterbacks’ limitations, and they can’t manufacture pass rush with exotic schemes (typically forbidden). Both phases of the game become about talent and execution in the trenches. The North was dominated by the South on both sides of the line, especially in the first half.

At least on Saturday, at least to my eyes, the best lineman on the field was Alabama OT James Carpenter. At 6'-4 3/4", 313, Carpenter's pass protection gave the southern quarterbacks plenty of time to throw. I was hoping to see the bigger Northern DEs like Ryan Kerrigan flash speed to go with their size, but Carpenter easily handled them. He also showed power in the run game and good athleticism.

I was also hoping to see MSU linebacker Greg Jones make a big impact, but he didn’t. Part of it was the South’s reliance on delays and draws in the run game; there weren’t a lot of opportunities for Jones to simply flow to the ball carrier and make the tackle. Further, Jones played (as far as I saw) entirely in the middle; I don’t see him as an MLB in the pros.

Stanford safety Richard Sherman really caught my eye. He’s nearly 6’-3”, played the run with physicality, and made a great adjustment to picked off a deep ball (called back for defensive offsides). He looked to be playing with fire out there, and having fun in the process.

One guy you’re likely to hear your fellow Lions fans drooling over is UNC corner Kendric Burney.  He made a lot of plays in the game after impressing all week. Despite his size, he plays with a lot of toughness and shows good instincts. Unfortunately, due to his size (and his lack of blazing deep speed), Burney is unlikely to be an immediate #2 corner except in a Tampa 2. He definitely played his best when the ball was in front of him; he could be an excellent #3 guy. Actually, his combination of (small) size, physicality, instincts, playmaking, and limitations remind me a lot of Alphonso Smith. He’s a player, but I don’t see him as a fit for the Lions.

Finally, keep an eye on Cal DE Cameron Jordan. After hearing folks rave about his practices all week, saying how much he stood out and how much money he was making himself, Jordan was mostly invisible in the game. This reminded me a lot of B.J. Raji, who entered Mobile as a late first/early second guy with upside and character issues, and left Mobile as a lock for the top ten, even though he didn't make an impact in the game. As Gandalf said about Gollum, I think Cameron Jordan has some part to play yet, for good or for ill.

Technorati Tags: nfl,nfl draft,senior bowl,michael schottey,draftzoo,sideline scouting,james carpenter,ryan kerrigan,greg jones,richard sherman,kendrick burney,cameron jordan

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Building Barry

The next entry in the Barry Week series comes from Michael Schottey. Besides his excellent work covering the NFL for Bleacher Report, he also manages B/R internships, guest blogs about the Lions at Mlive.com, and has his own Lions blog at BlueandSilverPride.com.  But, for the purposes of this post, the most relevant work he’s done is draft prospect scouting/evaluation—you can see his stuff at DraftTek, amongst other places.

Clearly, Barry Sanders was one of the most special athletes to ever grace the gridiron. The brightest star during an era Detroit sports wasn't exactly filled with marketable names or elite athletes. Barry was in a league of his own in so many ways. Arguments about the best running back ever will always ignite fanbases--Barry? Sweetness? Emmitt? Jim Brown?--everyone has their favorite. As Lions fans, many of us will always say Barry. Yet, even outside observers will almost always place the former Lion at or near the top of their lists as well. The NFL Network just put him as number 17 on their top 100 players of all time!

If Barry were still in his prime, he would likely be lighting up the league just as he did in the 90's. His talents translate to the football field no matter what era he would have played in. As time goes on, pundits will look to smaller, quicker, more agile backs and compare them more and more to Barry. While a total comparison of any current NFLer to the 17th best NFL player ever is a bit of a stretch, some athletes do certain things just as well. Using current running backs, which possess each of Barry's best attributes.

Strength:
An underrated bit of Barry's game, he was never going to run over players like Jim Brown did, but he did have impressive leg drive and upper body strength for his size. Every highlight reel is going to showcase Barry's elusiveness, but most of his better runs also involved yards after first contact, broken tackles, and ridiculous stiff arms.

Current backs like Peyton Hillis, Brandon Jacobs, and Adrian Peterson are much stronger than Barry ever was. However another back in today's NFL that has similar strength to Barry is Ahmad Bradshaw. This year, Bradshaw exploded into a lead back role with the New York Giants. While fans compare him to the much bigger Jacobs, Bradshaw is an underrated power runner as well. While he never is looking to run anyone over, Bradshaw--like Barry--can pull away from tackles and punish smaller defenders.

Speed:
Watching Barry, it always seemed like he was going faster than he really was. Remembering him, many might overestimate his speed. Speed was a huge part of Barry's game, but is wasn't as if he had a four-flat forty. He was fast, not all-time fast, not track-star fast, he wasn't the fastest Sanders in the NFL and he wouldn't be the fastest Lion today. Yet, his 4.37 40-yard-dash at the combine was impressive and when an athlete runs that fast, coaches and scouts take notice. When a football player continues to run that fast with pads and a football in his hand, he makes an impact.

CJ Spiller ran that exact same 40-time in Indianapolis last April. Moreover, he has a similar type of speed that Barry once used to electrify the league. Able to stop on a dime and immediately reach top speed moments later, the Bills took a chance on Spiller who has yet to make much of an impact for a winless team in Buffalo.

Balance/Agility/Elusiveness:
Yes, Barry is second to none when it comes to balance, agility, elusiveness, whatever you want to call it. It was his greatest attribute and even if his strength, speed, and everything else were diminished, his ability to evade defenders and stay on his feet would have kept him in the league much longer than he actually stayed. Saying anyone is more elusive or as elusive as Barry Sanders is blasphemy to Lions fans. However, it isn't as if no current backs aren't close.

DeAngelo Williams has been injured (either out entirely or limited by nagging injuries) for much of his NFL career but is always a consistent performer when he is on the field. Williams has that same type of ability Barry once had--not as much, of course, but it's close. Williams, at 100% is never taken down before the other team has him absolutely surrounded, and even then, like Barry, Williams can usually find a way to bounce it to the outside.

Leadership:
Leadership isn't something that is usually (ever?) talked about when it comes to Barry. Not only was he a quiet athlete who didn't do a lot of talking, many consider his retirement "too early" and "abandoning" the team.  Take note: leadership isn't always the kind that Ray Lewis, Drew Brees, or Donovan McNabb display. Barry carried the team on his back while he never had the help that other top backs had. He came to work and did his job.

Adrian Peterson--while not exactly loved by Lions fans--has that same mentality. He's not quiet to a fault, but he's not a big talker either. I had the privilege to cover Peterson while I did sports radio in Minnesota. In my years there, I never saw him address the locker room or yell at a player on the practice field, but everyone looked at the example he set with his work ethic and his play.

Does it all add up?
So, if you were able to play Doctor Frankenstein and add Ahmad Bradshaw's strength to CJ Spiller's speed; a dose of Deangelo Williams' balance and Adrian Peterson's quiet leadership, would you have a 2nd coming of Barry? Probably not. Barry, above everything else, excelled because he was the perfect combination of the attributes and he also had a runner's instinct that was second to none. For that reason (among others), Barry is one of the most unique athletes to ever play the game.

Technorati Tags: nfl,detroit lions,barry sanders

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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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Antonio Cromartie Being Traded to the Lions?

Last August, Gunther Cunningham was “flat pissed off” about Lions defenders wimping out on making tackles:

We had four guys on that play last week turn it down. Not miss it, turn it down, in my opinion.  You can coach and teach and all that, but it's about building an attitude. It's about an attitude that we're going to build on this defense, or they're going to have to deal with me, and I don't think they want to do that.

So it surprised me a little, and Tom Kowalski too, to hear that the Lions are at the forefront of the Antonio Cromartie derby.  Why would that be surprising?

Well, there's this: a brilliant, and hilarious, mock Facebook page that savagely lays bare Cromartie’s lack of tackling effort in the AFC playoffs.  How could Gunther, a lover of old-school, hard-nosed defense, possibly be okay with trading for a corner whose clean-jersey play is the stuff of Internet legend?

Here’s a scouting report on Cro, at the time of his draft:

We are all familiar with the fact from a personal standpoint that I like big corners. This young man definitely fits the criteria. He’s a unique physical talent. We looked at the opportunity at bringing a guy in here that is going to give us playmaking ability in the secondary. When you watch the tape on him you see his ball skills and it’s very impressive . . .

When you look at the skills and you see the body of work he was involved with you feel very confident and comfortable that the only think that it comes down to is the medical. The medical came back absolutely fine. I’m confident it wasn’t a difficult choice to make. It was very evident that he was the one guy there that was clearly our choice.

Who said that?  The Chargers’ then-Head Coach, Marty Schottenheimer.  Remember when Gunther built those legendarily nasty Chiefs defenses in the mid-to-late 90s?  Yeah, that was with Marty at the helm.  Marty is not only a longtime friend and colleague of Gunther’s, they share a passion for old-school football.

In 1997, when Marty and Gunther’s Chiefs had the #1 defense in the NFL, they did it with corners James Hasty and Dale Carter.  Hasty was a little smaller, and a little feistier, but take a look at Carter: 6’-1”, 194 pounds, didn’t put up great tackling stats (when they managed to even keep track of his tackles) . . . but picked off 21 passes in his first seven years in the NFL.

These numbers look very, very much like Antonio Cromartie’s career to this point, and I’d think Cunningham would consider Cromartie & Buchanon, with King competing with James and/or a rookie for the nickel spot, a big upgrade over Buchanon, James, and a street free agent. Remember, it wasn’t tackling that Lions corners Philip Buchanon, Anthony Henry, and Will James couldn’t do last season—it was covering opposing wide receivers.

The other thing you have to consider is the price.  Tom Kowalski and Michael Schottey are both saying that Cro might be had for as little as a fifth-round pick—and that’s simply a must-do deal.  There’s no way that the Lions could add a corner of Cromartie’s physical skills in the fifth round—and, as I’ve said before, cornerback is a spot where rookies almost never provide drop-in upgrades; the learning curve is very steep.

This trade would add a talented veteran at a position of extreme need for a minimal price.  Given Martin Mayhew’s penchant for pulling these types of deals off, is it really that surprising?  All we can do now is wait for the beginning of the league year (Friday), when Cro’s salary becomes tradable, and hope.

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The NFL Combine, the Wheat, and the Chaff

It’s begun: the annual NFL convention/festival where rookies-to-be are injected, inspected, detected, and infected with hopes of getting selected—and the fear of getting neglected.

I have no idea who named the event the "combine", but it fits.  I’m sure it was intended as a reference to the farm implement: a device that takes up crops, draws out the nutritious grain, and leaves the waste behind.  The correlation is obvious: separating the wheat from the chaff; the men from the boys.

To me, the name “Combine” has darker correlations.  Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is narrated by a character who sees “the Combine” in almost everything.  The Combine is his name for the engines of conformity that drive our culture: everything we experience, from children’s games to table manners, prepares us to slot neatly into our prescribed social niche.  Behavior that does not fit is discouraged, and those who simply cannot fit into the larger whole are weeded out—medicated, institutionalized, imprisoned, lobotomized.

Nobody is going to institutionalize a small-school cornerback who cuts a 4.69 40, of course, but it’s the same idea.  Athletes are weighed and measured in several dimensions; if they don’t measure up, their value falls.  Athletes are given a thorough medical workout; if an old injury spells bad news for the future, their value falls.  Athletes are interviewed day and night by journalists, scouts, coaches, general managers, even entire front offices; if they can’t handle the interrogations, their value falls.  Finally, they’re made to do drills: real football drills, often against each other.  If they make a mistake, or simply fail to impress, their value falls.

The NFL is a business–a BIG business.  There are 32 franchises worth nearly a billion dollars each.  The pressure for an athlete to perform isn’t simply from within, or from a coach he respects and fears—it’s from his owner and fans, demanding he justify their mind-boggling financial investment in him.

The combine, for athletes, is a five-day, full-body job interview; every step they take could be the one that costs them their chosen career.  Do they fit?  Can they hang?  Are they wheat—or are they chaff?

As a television observer, the most information doesn’t come from the 40 or the bench press—these often have little bearing on game strength or speed.  What I love watching is the drillwork.  Seeing these players in nothing but very clearly labelled Under Armor workout gear, going through actual football motions, you start to understand the jargonized language scouts have developed to describe some of the ineffable qualities of athleticism that separate the wheat and the chaff: short-area-quickness.  maxed-out.  suddenness.  stiff hips.

One of the most memorable moments of recent combines was watching Joe Thomas do drillwork.  He was so phenomenally composed, so perfect in form and execution.  Things other athletes were giving everything they had just to pull off, he executed with picture-perfect technique every time, maintaining balance and composure.

He was so plainly head-and-shoulders above every other tackle prospect there, I couldn’t believe it.  When he quickly established himself as one of the better tackles in the league, I wasn’t surprised.  It really focused how I think about the draft, and how fans latch on to “their guys”, many of whom they’ve never seen play.  You can check out all the numbers.  You can read all the magazines, websites, blogs, and forums.  But until you watch these guys compete on a level playing field, you can’t see what they’re really made of.

Peter King recently wrote an article poo-poohing the importance of the combine.  There’s a key bit of information in there, though: his source is a highly placed NFL exec, who notes that his draft board is 90% set before the combine, because they’ve already watched all the film.  They’ve already watched all the tape.  They’ve already scouted these players—in the case of top prospects, watched every snap they’ve ever taken.  The combine is for confirming what’s already known, or uncover what red flags aren’t known, than about finding out whether these players are wheat or chaff.

Finally, a couple of interesting links:

• @movethesticks
• Orange & Brown Report Live Blog
• Pat Kirwan's interesting prospects
• Michael Schottey, Lions Blogger (I'm not jealous!)

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