Detroit Lions: Free agency, the draft and dollars making sense

Is there a Honolulu Blue and Silver lining?

So how will Bob Quinn balance the books and make their money and draft picks count? It would seem like the best bet in free agency would be to sign players with potential that haven’t panned out so far and come at economical prices hoping that Matt Patricia can get the most out of them.

Considering how low Matt Patricia’s current approval rating is, that seems like a stretch. The only other answer is to continue the trend of signing former Patriots. A trend that the majority of us would love to see stop.

But if Richard Sherman’s point of view is a popular one, then what other choices will the Lions have? This is a slippery slope that Quinn and Patricia will either conquer or it will collapse on both of them as well as the Lions franchise.

Now here’s the irony. Last weekend Matt Patricia and his staff coached the North to a lopsided 34-17 win in the Senior Bowl. While after only one week of preparation and the use of watered-down game plans to make the game functional, the first half was a nip and tuck affair, but Patricia’s defense took over in the second half.

Yes, that’s right, a Matt Patricia coached defense was pretty dominant in the second half and won the game for the North. The players commented that they loved playing for Patricia and everything that has been so negative about the Patricia regime almost seemed like perhaps there might be a silver-lining moving forward.

Perhaps with a roster that is as talented as their opponents, since the Senior Bowl rosters were constructed to be pretty much even, or at the very least a front four that can rush the passer, maybe Patricia could lead the Lions to victory. Maybe…

But that leads us back to the same old conundrum of how do the Lions get the talent they need in order to give Patricia that chance? And why hasn’t that enthusiasm by the players at the Senior Bowl been more prevalent in the Lions practices in the Matt Patricia era? Sure they played hard for him this season, but where were the results?

While the heat will be on Patricia to make the Lions winners on the field next season, the real fire will be under Bob Quinn to make some shrewd moves this offseason both in free agency and the draft. He cannot afford to trade the Lions cap space for just a couple of ‘magic beans’ in free agency.

Unfortunately, we now live in an era where the money is almost always the bigger story than the players. Teams either manage it smartly and contend or mismanage it and lose. The Lions have to master their money and their spending dollars have to make sense. Otherwise, it won’t matter if Patricia can actually coach or not. The Lions will continue to lose and Mrs. Ford will be finding someone else to clean up the mess.