he has something to prove to everyone. Go Stafford!!!! Go Lions!!!!!!

Good. Let’s now get on with the rest of the draft!

But I wonder what the incentives are. I hope they make it an open competition for the starting gig right away. Either that or cut Culpepper tomorrow, sign another back-up and throw Stafford to the wolves right away.

I just hope everyone shows some class and cheers for him tomorrow at the draft.

I has a blog

I’m glad we have him signed but $40 mil + is just too much. It was probably too much to ask to keep it under 40 though. At least it’s not 45 like somepeople expected.

Joey BlueSkies Part II. No 1st round pick will be the next great Lions QB.

Good sign… GO LIONS, I hope we can all Support him, A CONTRACT SHOULD NOT PREVENT YOU FROM TAKING YOU #1 PLAYER

And I expect to get flamed for saying that, but that’s fine.

You’re getting a kid who steadily improved from year to year despite playing behind a M.A.S.H. unit of an OL. A kid whose TD’s and competion % have gone up and whose INT’s have gone down. A kid whose coach says he’s easily the most talented QB he’s ever coached, and that includes Charlie Ward and Chris Weinke. A kid who says and does the right things. A kid who played in a pro-style offense in a spread world. A kid who was given 100% check-off privileges at the LOS.

And oh yeah, the moment he signs his contract, he has the strongest arm in the league.

Build a dang team around him, let him grow up with the other talent you bring in, and stop whining so much. Yeah the money is absurd but that’s not his fault.

The Lions brass has decided he’s our guy so we have to rally behind him and support him as our future QB. I wouldn’t refer to the rest of the draft as ‘salvaging’, Stafford is still a solid pick, he’s a huge need. But without the O-Line in place we could be headed into sack-riddled waters. Oher is a must (I heard on NFL network the Bills are interested, I hope this is not true) if we are to protect the QB now and into the future. We need a bookend Tackle. Trading up may be a necessary evil if we are to ensure Stafford’s jersey doesn’t look like a Cleveland uniform.

dreams are out the window…

unless 2 people made a mistake!!

More guaranteed money than big albert haynesworth!

I threw up a little in my mouth when I heard Stafford signed for the much $. I’ll support him starting tomorrow but for now, I feel like Ralphy when he got that bunny suite for Christmas.

are two camps of how to find a qb in the NFL. One is getting the high first round franchise qb ala Rivers, Eli and Peyton. The other is finding a value pick, which the lions needed to do. Defense wins championships. Look at Kurt Warner, Big Ben, Kerry Collins, Flacco. All VALUE. Not prima donnas with enough money not to care about anything.

 I believe Stafford may have been there at 20 if we would have passed on him, But then there is Mike Mayock, who I believe is a much better talent evaluator and said “lions have no business taking stafford”. Curry was the safe pick a terrible franchise needed most. Sorry, but I will get behind stafford when he proves to me he deserves even a dollar of that contract. So drop the “he’s our qb, get behind him”, when he plays worth a damn in the pros and proves that he is not the next joey.

This is such a typical WF JR. pick. All flash. No substance.

Am I the only one that feels like the front office stabbed us in the back. They took a poll on the official NFL website and Stafford was 3rd pick behind Smith and Curry. WTF! After a 0-16 record, what would it hurt to try to do something for the fans besides putting bubbles on steroids.

Just can’t take all this pissing and moaning….

Not like we all couldn’t see this coming for months. Why the shock and awe? Just can’t believe all the negativity here. It’s not like you have to love the guy, just support the choice of the franchise that put in COUNTLESS hours of scouting, meetings and interviews to come to this moment. It’s not like Mayhew and Schwartz are sitting in a room right now popping champagne saying “Hehehe… we’ve finally pissed off all of our fans by drafting someone we know to be a bust!”.

The front office believes they just signed the best player in the draft and the one that gives this franchise the best foundation for future success. If you believe anything other than that, there is nothing I can say to make anyone feel better about the situation and Stafford. As for the contract… we saw that coming too. He’s a quarterback and he’s the top pick… it’s gonna be big and break all records. No surprise.

It’s just reached fever pitch on here the last few days with the Stafford outrage and I, for one, will ignore it and sit back and enjoy the day tomorrow. I’ll probably go out and get my Stafford jersey soon, too. Funny… I feel like the backstabber here. How odd. Have fun complaining, guys… I’ll check back in tomorrow and see if the mood is any better. It’s just not any fun reading this stuff.

Drews

The draft doesn’t start for me until 6am Sunday (l’m 14 hours ahead of you guys), so I have to wake up early just to get on top of the comments here before the draft starts. So if I’m a little incoherent before the draft, it’s because I’m still waking up.

OR NOT

Now that the initial shock has somewhat eased up, I’m not mad at the Lions. I’m mad at myself for beleiveing the front office would do something that the majority of us fans felt was the right choice. These are the exactly the same gusy that in one way or fashion picked Dizon, Stanton and a few other bench warmers. Bottom line, these were Millen’sboys.

I knew it was going to happen, but I thought the Lions would have negotiated a better contract. They had Curry for a better price and decide to give Stafford a rookie RECORD when we all know damn well he’s going to have a lousy record because there is no frickin’ team around him and he’ll be the blame.
He might be great like Manning, but I’m referring to Archie
You don’t build a team QB first, at least have some pieces in place for him to have some success

I really hope he pans out for you guys.

stafford will be an excellent quarterback and has 20 times the field general skills of joey blow skies , and he will have culpepper to learn from …if it wasn’t for joey jeckel and harrington hide , we wouldn’t be pissing and moaning all night about what we can’t control….I just hope we don’t trade drew stanton and he comes back and beats us on thanksgiving day !!!!!

You just never know. I wish Stafford the best of luck, and hopefully the Lions will be a force in the NFL sooner than later.

I for one am glad that we brought him on board. I think he’ll turn out to be a very good NFL QB, and if we can put the pieces in place around him this year and next, I think we’ll be in great position to start making playoff runs by 2011.

I don’t know if Stafford will be good and like everyone else I would like a resonable rookie wage scale, but since there is no such scale and since the Lions believed in Stafford, signing him early was smart.

Once he was made the #1 pick, there was no way he wouldn’t get a record-breaking deal. Now it’s done and everybody can get on with the work. (Like Matt Ryan last year. His deal doesn’t look as ridiculous now, does it?)

Remember two years ago? JaMarcus Russel was the #1 pick but contract negotiations lasted into the season essentially meaning he lost his rookie season – and in the end he STILL got a record contract. Now THAT was bad management.

I’m not a Lions fan, but I hope this works out for you. Good luck!

EVERYON hates the pick…LOL.

Frickin Lions fans. They LOVE the absoulte wrong pick that will set them back for another 5 years, but get the guy that potentially could actually make them a contender and they hate it.

Congrats on getting the top QB, you deserve to start winning. I hope Stafford proves all of you wrong. This is the right thing to do, and also getting him under contract will go a LONG LONG way toward getting him on the field.

BUt the rookie wage scale NEEDS to be in place. Yea, Stafford is a legit #1 overall pick, but damn no way he shold be getting this kind of contract without throwing a down.

O-line has about the same potential. At least Stafford has the option to chuck the ball to Calvin and prey on the way. Hopefully we can pick up D-Line, LT, Tight end and some depth at running back. If we start a rookie QB Kevin will get busted up.

the lions have ruined yet another draft

… but according to Billy Devany (GM for the STL Rams) there has been a “flurry of activity” since the news officially came out that the Lions and Stafford have agreed on a deal. Meaning that teams are climbing all over themselves trying to get the players that they want. What’s twisted about this is that the Lions took the one guy that apparently no one else was that interested in. I don’t buy that no one wanted that #1 pick because of the financial implications, because anyone who thinks that Sanchez is going to come cheap is out of their minds. All this confirms is that the Lions did what they all expected they would do, and the reason the #1 pick had no value is because no one was that concerned the Lions would take the players they really wanted. Way to start the draft with a bang Mayhew!

The guy hasn’t even taken a snap and everyone hates him and the pick. Let it play out. We may not like it, but let’s give him and the rest of the Lions, who have otherwise done a remarkable job this offseason, a chance.

I just did some quick math it will take me over 641 years to make what he made in guaranteed money! Does anybody in their right mind see a problem with this system?
I don’t dispute them making money but come on!

Everyone is saying draft defense, yeah they were horrible the last couple years but with some of the pickups in offseason it shows promise. I think it was more of a system failure than personnel. Look for a dt with one of the next 2 picks. I’d be happy with a top 20 defense in 09.