Lions, and Lions, and Lions – Oh My!
I don’t have much of a preamble to throw at you today, but I promise that today’s offering is 100% chock full of legitimate Detroit Lions news and analysis. I regret nothing about yesterday’s links.
Herman Moore was one of the Lions that didn’t get much respect during his career despite some dizzying stats. How important was he to the Lions offense you ask? Well in 1995, he was targeted 206 times. The team threw the ball 605 times that year. A whopping 34% of the team’s passing plays flew in Herman Moore’s direction. To put that in to more recent context; that’s two more instances than Calvin Johnson was targeted in 2012 when the record for receiving yards was set and Johnson was only targeted on 27.6% of the teams throws that year. In fact if you were to take Johnson’s most productive period, 2011-2013, Johnson was targeted 518 times, had 302 catches and 5137 yards with 33 touchdowns. From 1995-1997 Herman Moore was targeted 554 times, had 333 receptions and 4275 yards and 31 touchdowns. Obviously Herman Moore was not the caliber of receiver that Johnson was, very few have ever been, but the overlooked piece of the Lions offense who the team turned to on those many occasions where the line couldn’t open a hole big enough for even Barry Sanders to fit through was a great receiver. Today’s throwback Thursday video on the Lions site reminded me of the Upper Deck Herman Moore draft card that hailed Moore as a spectacular high jumper in his time at Virginia, and made me wonder what kind of numbers he would have put up today with his 6’4″ 210 lb frame in a league where pass interference is actually called, or if he had ever been given a decent quarterback. Also, Pat Somerall had the perfect football play by play voice, and the day he hung up the microphone we lost a national treasure.
Ryan Kelly is one of my favorite players in this draft. Were he to be the Lions second round pick I think the Lions line would be in a better spot, as it’s my opinion that getting interior push in the running game, setting up better down and distance combinations to limit pass rusher’s ability to come full speed is far more important to the pass blocking than getting a better tackle.
In some corner of the internet at some point in October I said that I think Emannuel Ogbah will be a better pass rusher in the NFL than Joey Bosa. I have never wavered in that stance and if he were to be the Lions pick at 16 I would be pretty pleased with that. Some prognosticators seem to think that he’s a second round pick, and if that came to pass for the Lions I can’t even put in to words how elated I would be.
Our new Quarterback coach seems to be well liked. When Peyton Manning, endorses a coach that has a tendency to mean he’s a good one. He’s been traveling the country watching pretty much every draft eligible quarterback’s pro day. One thing we will know if the Lions do indeed draft a quarterback: Brian Callahan knows exactly what he’s getting.
Paula Pasche did a Q and A today, and I really have to say that I was impressed by one thing. The content is solid, as it usually is with her stuff, but there was a question about power backs late in the draft, and she actually gave credit to he source she was using. So many journalists regurgitate scouting reports all but verbatim from an easily identifiable source and don’t give the people who did the heavy lifting any credit. I watch the NFL network too guys, but I try not to directly spit out Jeramiah, Davis, and Mayock verbatim without quotation marks, at least follow the rules to avoid plagiarism on a college paper. So a tip of the hat goes to Paula for not trying to pass off someone else’s work as her own. The Q&A is well worth a read if you haven’t been doggedly watching film since September, because you are not, you know: crazy.
Just to clarify, I’m not going to link you a scouting report I feel is just a rehash of someone else’s work. If I put a link on it, it’s because I found it added something to what I knew about the player, or brought a different slant from the hive mind while having truth to it, or was just a pleasant read, which most scouting reports are very much not. The whole point of this is that these are links I think you should read as a Lions fan, not just to toss every little thing on Twitter under #lions. Speaking of twitter, @a5hcrack is my handle, and I’m perpetually hitting /r/detroitlions in my free time. If you saw something worth talking about in Detroit Lions news, slap it up there or shoot me a link on twitter. Until tomorrow, that’s your daily dose of Kool-Aid.
