With today’s signing of second round draft pick, A’shawn Robinson, the Lions have wrapped up contracts with all 10 of their 2016 draft picks. Speaking earlier today, Robinson said that contract discussions were being handled by his agent and he had no news about progress. Evidently things wrapped up pretty quickly from there.
The days of rookie holdouts are pretty well gone, with the Collective Bargaining Agreement (ratified in 2011) rookie contracts are set within a relatively narrow band so negotiations go quicker and more smoothly. This also left money to be allocated to veteran players.
Having all 10 drafted players signed to contracts will allow the team to concentrate on the more important matters at hand such as beginning to install their new offense from the ground up rather than “on the fly” as they did last year after terminating Joe Lombardi. Jim Bob Cooter did an excellent job in helping to rework the offense last year helping the Lions to finish the season 6-2.
One of the big reasons the Lions finished out the season so well was as a result of the excellent play by quarterback Matthew Stafford in Jim Bob Cooter’s system. For a look back on Staffford’s great season, we turn to highlights created by the multi-talented Sandman. Seeing these highlights should help fans recognize how much our franchise quarterback has to offer.
