SideLion Report » 2011 » January

Final Grades for 2010 Detroit Lions

Zac Snyder — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 11:00:34 +0000

It has been a two week process but the final grades for the 2010 Detroit Lions position groups have been finalized. I went position by position and graded each group and then turned it over to the readers to have their say.

I gave myself the liberty of assigning pluses and minuses to the grades as I saw fit. The fan polls were limited to straight letter grades A, B, C, D and F. The idea is that the fan’s plus and minus grade would come out in the voting. I tallied up all the votes in each poll and calculated a weighted average on a standard 4.0 scale with an A being 4.0, A- being 3.7, B+ being 3.4 and so on.

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Brain Trauma: The Lasting Impact of Concussions

Zac Snyder — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 11:00:58 +0000

Player safety has become a big issue in the NFL in the last couple years. Football purists have bemoaned the special rules afforded to quarterbacks but most are united in the league’s effort protect all players against head injuries, even if not everyone agrees with the methods the league is using.

The February issue of the National Geographic magazine features an interesting article on the “Lasting Impact” that even small hits to the head may have on the brain. Researchers have stepped up efforts to analyze the hits to the head that occur in a football game on the college level and plan to expand the research into the NFL.

The image below is included in the National Geographic article and has been provided to me to share with SideLion Report readers. Each line represents the location and magnitude of one of the 537 hits to the head of a 21-year old defensive end at the University of North Carolina suffered in practice and games during a season. Click the image for a larger view.

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Lions Mock Draft Database: Senior Bowl Will Help Set Draft Board

Zac Snyder — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 18:36:53 +0000

The SideLion Report Lions mock draft database is inching towards 75 mock drafts from all over the internet. Previous revisions to the database have shown that there really isn’t any consensus on who might become a Detroit Lions at pick 13.

The player evaluation process that will take place over the next couple months will help sort that out. That process got underway this week with various activities at the Senior Bowl where some of the nation’s finest college seniors got to face each other in practice with the game coming up tomorrow afternoon. A number of names have trickled out of practice that could see themselves shoot up the draft boards. ESPN’s Todd McShay had favorable things to say about Texas A&M linebacker Von Miller and Colorado offensive tackle Nate Solder, two guys that play at positions of need for the Lions.

Nate Solder has definitely become a popular name at pick 13 with the mock drafts that have the Lions selecting an offensive tackle. Prognosticators that peg the Lions for a linebacker still think Akeem Ayers is the likely man while Brandon Harris is becoming a popular pick at cornerback. Here is the updated database:

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