What's the Deal With Dizon?

With one full day of practice complete, the Lions are moving forward full speed ahead.  Well, almost all the Lions are.  Aside from Caleb Campbell, who was ordered back to West Point, Jordon Dizon is the only Lions rookie that wasn't participating in practice today.  It's not that he's injured or something like that, but for some odd reason he still hasn't signed with Detroit.

I don't want to get on Dizon's case too much since the details of what's taking so long aren't public, but I do have to say that this is starting to get frustrating.  Dizon is a player that needs to spend as much time in practice as possible since he will compete for the starting middle linebacker job, but he has already missed an entire day due to not signing his contract.

To make matters worse, there are no signs that talks are improving between Dizon and the Lions, so I'm beginning to wonder how long negotiations could take.  The quicker this thing gets done the better for both parties involved.

"We're comfortable with where we're at -- we're comfortable with what we've put forth and the effort that we've made,'' Lions chief operating officer Tom Lewand said on Thursday evening. "We need to get the deal done and get Jordon to camp.

"It takes two parties to conclude a deal.''

Dizon's agent, Peter Schaffer, said: "And we feel comfortable with where we're at. They can say they're comfortable, but they're not treating him fairly.''

Again, I'm not going to sit here and bash Dizon too much since I don't know what the problem is, but I will say that if Dizon is at fault, then my already-decreased respect for him will continue to go down.  Of all the rookies in this year's draft class for the Lions, Dizon is the one that should have the least amount of leeway just because of his drunk driving arrest.  He has already given the Lions a reason to worry before even stepping foot on the field, and now with stalled negotiations, he is on the verge of falling way behind his teammates.

I understand that things like this happen every year in the NFL and are a part of the game, but second-round picks really shouldn't be causing difficult negotiations.  That's not a slight against Dizon, it's just the truth.