The Lions continue to underwhelm in free agency once again. That would be okay if they had a decent draft strategy, but history shows Millen doesn’t. Today, they have resigned George Foster to a 1 year deal. What?

I guess they have decided to give the ultimate under achiever another shot. They brought him in last year and he couldn’t have been any worse at right tackle than he was last year. Foster kept trying to give his job away, but nobody would step up and outplay his display performance until Damien Woody did towards the end of the season.

The only reason I can think of why they resigned him was as an insurance policy since they lost Woody to free agency. I guess they are keeping him around in case they can’t find someone else in free agency or the draft. All I can see is, we are in for another long season if Woody is anchoring that right side again.

In other news, Julius Jones signed with the Seahawks, so obviously he won’t be a Lion. That would have been somewhat intriguing but as I said in a previous post, I am sure his asking price for what the Lions wanted was too high.

There are also a bunch of internet reports out there about the Lions being interested in Pacman Jones. Come on, you can’t be serious. Millen might not be much of a GM, but he is a man o character and I can’t see him bringing that trash into Detroit. It would also go in the face of what Marinelli has been preaching about building a cohesive team with chemistry that starts in the locker room. Danger - stay away from him, which I think Detroit will smartly do.

Thursday afternoon, Coach Rod Marinelli and his new coaches, offensive coordinator jim Colletto and assistant head coach/passing coordinator (what a title) Kippy Brown met the press to talk about the Lions. There was some interesting tidbits.

Marinelli thinks the Lions are pretty close to putting it all together. Had they not finished the last half of the season as poorly as they did, I might agree with Coach Rod. Also, even when they went 6 - 2 in the first half, their losses were complete blow outs. The whole year, the team was ineffective on the road. While I think the team did make some good progress last season, it is going to take some significant changes this offseason to produce a playoff team next season. We won’t be able to change a few players and get there. We don’t need wholesale changes, but there are some key ones to be made. For the first time in a while, they may actually concentrate on defense in the draft.

Brown made some really good points about the offense. He thinks the team will be better without Martz because they will be more balanced and thus more effective. I tend to agree though I think we will struggle with Kitna at QB since he will continue to struggle on third down. One very good point he made was that the Lions were poor in the Red Zone and good teams have to be good in the Red Zone. Wow, finally some acknowledgment of the Red Zone issues. If Williams or Johnson or any of the other receivers are to become truly big time players, they have to step it up in the Red Zone. As a team, the Lions made too many mental errors and too many turnovers in the Red Zone and settled for field goals way too often. Simply increasing Red Zone effectiveness to more average levels of the NFL would be worth a couple of wins to the Lions.

Colletto talked a bit about the offensive lineman. One of the interesting statements he said was that the offensive line was better than most people give them credit for. Despite giving up the most sacks in the NFL this past season, I agree with him. We really aren’t that bad despite a very poor season for those guys. I hope we don’t spend too much time in the offseason “fixing” the offensive line. While Backus really struggled, he has been an above average performer with the Lions. One of the biggest problems we had was at right tackle but I like the solution of moving Damien Woody over there late in the season. It would be really exciting to see what he can do with a full camp and some time under his belt at that position. Unfortunately, he is a free agent this season and I would put it at no better than 50% that he stays with the Lions next season. You want to work on the o-line this offseason, resign Woody.

These guys all sounded positive (how else would they sound?) and on the same page as each other. I get the impression they really think they can have a good season next year. I hope so.