Wednesday Notes: Locker Room Curse Not True

by Sean Yuille on Apr 8, 2009 4:16 AM EDT in Detroit Lions Notes

The Lions are going to do a mock draft by having fans vote on the picks. Voting for the top pick begins on Friday and ends on Monday, so make sure to head over to the team's official site and vote for ~~Aaron Curry~~ your choice.
Jeremy Maclin is scheduled to visit the Lions.
Remember that AP article I linked to earlier this week about how no team had ever won a basketball game at Ford Field after using the Lions' locker room? Well, it turns out the whole "curse" was complete BS. As it turns out, Kansas, last year's eventual national champion, used the Lions' locker room for both of its games at Ford Field. Kansas won both games, so obviously no curse exists. (HT: battlekow)
Julian Peterson was recently interviewed by a Seattle radio station.
Because of the Jay Cutler trade, we went back and made some adjustments to the SB Nation Mock Draft. I didn't change my pick of Peria Jerry, and I also kept my second-round pick the same. It will be posted at 6 p.m. ET today on Mocking the Draft.
SI.com pulled its story about B.J. Raji testing positive for a drug at the combine. Raji's agents and Raji himself have denied the report in the last couple of days, as the NFL has apparently "assured" him that he didn't test positive.
ESPN has a draft machine that allows fans to easily make their own mock drafts. (HT: James L)

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Fan voting...why?

Why risk publicly acknowledging in the Lions’ own website that the fans are against drafting ~~Stafford~~ a certain prospect, unless they don’t intend to take that guy anyway? Seems like a bold move.

Just a crazy idea…Schwartz is an Economic guy—I’m sure he’s familiar with the “wisdom of the masses” concept: large numbers of people together are more accurate than small numbers of “experts”.

As an example (this has been done, I don’t remember the details), they had 100 or so villagers guess the weight of a cow and averaged the guesses, and they had 5 butchers (guys who regularly weigh cows) guess the weight and averaged the butchers’ guesses. As it turns out, the villagers’ average was closer to the cow’s weight than the butchers’ average more often.

Maybe there is some value in a hundred thousand or so fans’ votes in predicting who the best pick is (not in place of all the good scouting they’re doing, but as a supplement to it). If they’re absolutely 33/33/33 undecided among Smith/Stafford/Curry, give the fans what they want—they’ve got a lot of work to do to bring us back into Ford Field.

2. They already know who the fans want and already intend to take that guy. Because the majority of Lions fans also want that player, this poll is a way to show the fans that the team is giving them what they want.

by n4ry4 on Apr 8, 2009 8:32 AM EDT reply actions

They do this every year

It’s not a new concept.

Pride of Detroit, SB Nation's Lions Blog

by Sean Yuille on Apr 8, 2009 2:54 PM EDT up reply actions

It seems fairly..

obvious to me that the Lions are looking for political cover with this mock draft. This could manifest in two ways:
-The Lions take Stafford, and enough Non-Detroit fans sign on and vote that it makes it look like the Detroit fan base actually wanted Stafford. Then Mayhew doesn’t have to worry when he selects Stafford.
-Mayhew doesn’t take Stafford and uses the pick on someone else over Stafford in the mock, turning his back on the pundits and embracing fan choice.
Since both of these are opposite options, I think the mock is fairly useless. That said, I WILL NOT TELL all of you guys who I am voting for. Now, on a completely unrelated note, I am going to have some delicious CURRY for dinner on friday night.

by damnitdamnitdamnit on Apr 8, 2009 11:19 AM EDT reply actions