Do the Lions Draft a QB First Overall?

The Question of the Day! (even though its January. And we haven’t even finished the Championship Playoff.) But it’s not like I have a Lions matchup to talk about so, here we are.

With Tebow declaring that he will stay with the Florida Gators for his senior season**, the primary choices at Quarterback for the first round are Matt Stafford and Sam Bradford. (anyone else get a chuckle out of the ‘Ford’ thing?) Bradford looked in a little over his head in the National Championship Bowl and apparently, Stafford and Bobby Lane went to the same High School. Fate?
**EDITORS NOTE: TIM, I THINK THAT’S A GREAT IDEA ~ Matt Leinart

…right.

Enter Matt Stafford and some hot chick (athletes get those, did you know that?)

Pundits are declaring that Stafford is ready to be plugged into a pro style offense, much like the unexpected success that was Matt Ryan in Atlanta and Joe Flacco out of the University of Delaware of all places. And here I though they were silly to put Matt Ryan on the cover of the PS3 NCAA Football game!

He showed me, the kid looked like a stud all season long.

For the Lions however, there is a special set of needs. By ‘special’, I mean that we need literally everything. We’ve got Calvin Johnson and I guess you could say that Kevin Smith showed us something this year. QB is not a position we should address first pick overall. Big, Nasty, Sack of Potatoes Eating Linemen. That’s what I want. Like an I.V., there is a continuing and mounting drip of evidence that first round QB’s, especially Heisman winners, don’t really pan out in the bigs. The best argument you can make is Carson Palmer and that is not currently going very well.

So really we need to delve deeply into the mind of the NFL Football fan, what really is this obsession with offense and boom bang wizz pop kablamo draft moves? Why was it that Ford Field was 80% Joey Harrington jerseys 6 years ago? Or the Rogers Jerseys 5 years ago? Or the Williams Jerseys 4 years ago? Or the M. Williams Jerseys 3 years ago (LOL you really wasted your money if you bought that crap)? I think my years are right, if not… you get the point anyways. What is this obsession of the common fan? It goes beyond even that… Jim Shwartz had his second interview today and said that he felt no franchise can flourish without a quality franchise QB.

I’m not really trying to negate that concept completely, but I still reserve my right to cite the NY Giants (Eli Manning : 5 of 24 on passes over 5 yds. nuff said.), I further cite the New England Patriots and their plugging in of Matt Cassel to a 10+ victory season after their star Tom Brady went down. Where are your “Franchise Quarterbacks” right now? Doing what you and I are doing. Watching the games on TV. Right Peyton? Carson? Mike Vick (I had to throw that in there, yeah I know, I’m a jerk)?

Donovan McNabb is a franchise QB, agree? I think he is, but don’t ask a philly fan. They hate him. He’s one of the few top picks that actually looks good, but philly fans booed when he was taken after Tim Couch. They wanted Ricky “sticky icky” Williams. They’ve been talking about chasing McNabb and Reid out of town on a rail, gagged and bound all season long. Amazing what winning can do, isn’t it?

Kurt Warner was never groomed to be a football god, he came from the arena leagues and until about 2 weeks ago, we all felt that he was going into the books as a product of a Mike Martz system powered by Faulk/Bruce/Hakim (just kidding, little Lions humor there, I meant the other guy). He was a journeyman place holder in NY. Would you argue that Roethlesberger is a game changing QB like Favre or Peyton?

I would tell you that he hands it off when he’s told too and he doesn’t turn the ball over and stress out the fabulous defense that he gets to play on the same team with. And for that, I love him.

The Lions have a guy that can hold down the position. Orlovsky is a vanilla cream pie. It’s not going to win any international tasting awards but if you’ve had a nice meal and you’re looking to settle in with some hot coffee and a tasty slice of pie, well that vanilla cream pie is going to deliver! Our own Dan didn’t give it away and he fed the ball to our rising super star Calvin Johnson. I like this.

I love simple fundamental football; Defense to win it, run to control the clock and if you have a star, give him the damn ball. Ask Bill Parcels. Ask Belicheck. Build a system, worry about flashy positions later.

Is Mayhew pulling off another move? Suckering some sucker into the bait like San Diego did to the Falcons in the Mike Vick draft move? I hope so. If he does, I’m taking a collection, we’re going to send Mayhew a nice gift basket full of fine cheeses and assorted nuts.