I just saw an interesting blurb on ROTO :  

 

Brandon McDonald has lost the Lions' nickelback job.

Starter Eric Wright is expected to move to the slot in nickel packages with Aaron Berry or Alphonso Smith playing outside. While the Lions have shown major improvement at linebacker, the secondary remains the defense's Achilles' heel heading into the season.

 

It's taken from this FREEP article .  It sounds like the only factual part of the article is McD is out as nickle.  They're making the assumption it would be Wright going in at nickle on those downs and then Berry or Phonz in on the side.

This just doesn't make sense to me!  

I can't see how they would disrupt Wrights game like that by making this move.  Even Wright doesn't seem to understand why they'd do that either.   Wright had a good showing at RCB in the preseason I never imagined they'd mess with that thought process, even if only on limited downs.  To make this even more confusing, I thought McD had a very good showing in the preseason too!  These aren't  the only parts that has me scratching my head either!  Phonz showed up sooooo much better in the nickle role than on the outside last year.  I can't imagine why they would be having Phonz come in part time on the sides rather than at nickle.   I don't see how Berry ties in to this other than giving him more experience and/or perhaps in roles where they need a more physical style.  That just doesn't fly with me.

So in short, these are some of the questions I'm left asking:

- did McDonald do something egregious in practice this last week?

- did Phonz really come on strong since taking off the boot?  (I know delusional's answer :) ) 

- is this more about giving time to Berry or Phonz on the outside than it is about getting Wright at nickle? (I don't buy that..)

- is Freep just embellishing over McD not in as nickle which leaves Wright at RCB and Berry or Phonz are actually playing nickle?

- stfu and wait until Sunday to find out!!

I'm looking forward to hearing all of your opinions on this.  Perhaps you can make more sense of this than I,