00:00Get some feedback on where the Lions stand in the NFL after the draft.
00:04John did not have them in the power search just outside.
00:06Says this is the team to win the NFC North.
00:09We got Bruno Mars tickets to give away this hour on the show.
00:13You're going to be listening for Locked Out of Heaven by Bruno Mars.
00:17When you hear it, call in, win a pair of tickets to see him at Ford Field on May 9th.
00:23Tickets on sale, Ticketmaster.com.
00:25It's coming up fast.
00:28By the way, at the last stop for me, when we had the Costa Lock, we used an interlude of
00:33Locked Out of Heaven as part of the sounder.
00:38So anyway, we got some text to get to on the Lions, but also let's address what you heard in
00:44the update locally.
00:45Jameer Gibbs gets his fifth year picked up and Jack Campbell doesn't.
00:48And I believe Brad Holmes addressed in his press conference the question about are you working on a contract for
01:00specifically Jack Campbell?
01:01And he said, I think he said that there were discussions already happening about extending him.
01:07The reason they didn't pick up his fifth year option is because, for whatever reason, the NFL loops in outside
01:16linebackers as well as inside linebackers.
01:19And he would instantly, if they picked up that fifth year option, be the highest paid inside linebacker guaranteed for
01:26one year in the NFL.
01:29Now, he may ultimately be the highest paid linebacker in the NFL, but it won't be a fully guaranteed.
01:35It won't be fully guaranteed for one year, right?
01:39It's it's they're going to get a deal done.
01:41Jack Campbell is going to be here for the foreseeable future.
01:44But what does that cap?
01:46What do the capital implications mean when they sign him?
01:49Do they sign him to a four year deal, five year deal?
01:51Like it's it's I don't know, but they will get, I think, one done before the season begins.
01:57But yeah, I would say training camp is kind of when you expect that deal to get done.
02:01Yeah.
02:01And Fred Warner makes 21.
02:03The next guy normally gets more than the last guy.
02:06And he's an all pro.
02:07He may get 22 a year, but it would be a four or five year deal.
02:11Not fully guaranteed.
02:12And the larger cap hits will be later as opposed to the fifth year option where it would be right
02:17in your face.
02:18I get why they didn't pick up Jack Campbell's fifth year option.
02:21I have zero hesitation or doubt that he will be a Detroit lion for a long time.
02:26The Gibbs thing was the right decision because the running back fifth year is only 14 million a season.
02:32Right.
02:33So you can pick up that fifth year.
02:35Do you think they're going to do the right thing?
02:37And the right thing being not get an extension done this offseason.
02:41Correct.
02:42It's funny.
02:42It's the opposite of Jack Campbell.
02:44We want to see the Jack Campbell extension get done tomorrow.
02:47I don't want to see a Gibbs extension get done until at least after this upcoming season.
02:51I want to see as he takes on more of the workload as they put another 300, maybe 350 touches
02:59on his body.
03:00How does he hold up?
03:02And I'm not worried about getting burned because I can use the fifth year, use a franchise tag and not
03:09make a big time financial commitment to a position.
03:13Nothing personal against Jameer, but a position that grinds down quickly in the NFL.
03:18Right.
03:19What's the expiration date?
03:20And if you're looking at it and going, well, that expiration date, maybe it's year seven, year eight.
03:26Eventually you sign them to an extension, but you have some assurances that he can withstand the workload that he's
03:33going to have to do this year.
03:35And there's things around him, too, that I think impact this.
03:38First, what's he look like with this offensive line?
03:41And I think what's he look like without Montgomery?
03:45I think, yeah, because I don't think it is not David Montgomery.
03:48Exactly.
03:48I think they should see what kind of running back he is in these in this new world that they
03:54have this new roster.
03:55I think it's foolish to sign him this offseason.
03:59Agreed.
04:00I don't understand why they would be considering it, but they are considering it, right?
04:05It's simply to say bucks down the road.
04:07That's the only reason to do it.
04:10They've prematurely signed a lot of other guys, and I think you can question some of those.
04:14With mixed results, right?
04:15So at the time, we felt good about almost all of them, but that carries risk.
04:21So Kirby Joseph, you sign him.
04:24He's an all pro.
04:25No one's faulting you, but you do it early.
04:27Something happens with his knee, and it's wonky, and there's a chance you're going to have to eat some money
04:31if he can't get on the field.
04:33Same thing with the Lee McNeil.
04:34Again, no fault of their own.
04:35They could have waited to the end of the season.
04:38He blows out a knee.
04:39You're getting a hell of a discount.
04:40Instead, he's rehabbing while he's an expensive player on this defense.
04:44There's always a risk in doing it early.
04:46It's not like it's, well, we get the deal done, and we save money, and there's no drawback.
04:50The drawback is, what if I pay my running back and knock on wood, he ends up with a fairly
04:58serious boo-boo.
04:59You don't want to go down that path either, especially not when you have cheap years still under your control.
05:05The ideal path moving forward for the four guys that were drafted in that 23 draft is you sign Jack
05:14Campbell to an extension before the season starts.
05:16You wait until next year to do anything with Jameer Gibbs, and it may still even be a year early.
05:23It depends on what his agent wants, what he wants, and what those contract terms look like.
05:28And then with Sam Laporta and Brian Branch, now you've got to wait to see, can you stay healthy?
05:37What does Brian Branch look like when he comes back?
05:40I don't think that you'd, in fact, I would not sign either of those guys to extensions until I see
05:48what it looks like when they're back.
05:51And if you let one of them walk, let me ask you this before I give you my answer.
05:54Out of those three, if, let's just say they proceed as we think, Jack Campbell gets signed this year, Jameer
06:01Gibbs, they do some type of extension next year.
06:05Which one of those guys do you let hit free agency?
06:09Do you let walk?
06:11Laporta.
06:12I agree.
06:13Okay.
06:14Just to give people a little more math, I know it's early in the morning.
06:17I don't want to number geek out.
06:19The running back math, this is just purely a business thing with Gibbs.
06:24The top running backs in the NFL right now are Saquon Barkley and Christian McCaffrey from a financial standpoint.
06:31They make $19 and $20 million a season.
06:34Jameer Gibbs' fifth-year option will pay him $14.
06:37He's under that this year, $14 the following year.
06:41The projected franchise tag is $17 the following year.
06:44You have three years where Gibbs makes less than the elite backs.
06:49If you want to do the deal today, his agent's going to say, I want more than Saquon, more than
06:54Christian McCaffrey.
06:55Should you take another thousand touches before making that decision?
07:00I think you should.
07:01Yeah.
07:02And, okay, let's just be honest, too, because people are going to say, well, why would he do that?
07:07All right.
07:07Everyone wants a long-term deal.
07:09You want more money in your contract.
07:11But, in essence, it may not be guaranteed this year, but I think we believe he's going to be on
07:16the roster and he'll make a week one start.
07:19Yeah.
07:19He'll be compensated quite handsomely.
07:21So, then his guaranteed salary, which it does become guaranteed for that fifth-year option, is $14 million.
07:28It would also be fully guaranteed if he gets franchised at $17 million.
07:33So, in essence, right now, he's got three years of guaranteed money.
07:39Now, the guaranteed money for that franchise tag is not there.
07:44If he were to get hurt this year, if he were to get hurt next year, it's not guaranteed because
07:49he's not been tagged.
07:50He's not there.
07:52Yeah.
07:53So, right now, in essence, he's guaranteed for this year and next.
07:56And that's it.
07:58Which, I think that's the Lions protecting themselves.
08:00If they go out and rush to extend him, they are not doing that.
08:02They're putting themselves at risk.
08:04If Brad Holmes, and we talked about this at the beginning, if he's going to operate differently,
08:09and we could clearly see that there's a little bit of a difference in how he's operating this year,
08:14he took an edge in the top two rounds.
08:17He took an offensive tackle.
08:19He brought in Cade Mays.
08:20Like, he's addressing some of these, you know, quote-unquote, you know, blue-collar positions.
08:26Yeah.
08:27Is that you learn from, hey, we extended these guys.
08:31They got hurt.
08:33Maybe we should wait.
08:34We can still, you know, draft, develop, and sign.
08:37We just don't have to do it as early as we were doing it.
08:41Some texts coming in.
08:42Jack Campbell should be the first guy re-signed.
08:44I imagine he will be the first of this group to get a long-term deal, especially because they are
08:49incentivized to do it,
08:50because they don't have the fifth-year option.
08:52They, you know, will get it done, I would think, this summer.
08:55Why rush the Gibbs signing?
08:57I don't think there's any other running backs who will become the highest paid next year that drive his value
09:00up more.
09:01Well, Bijon's the one to watch.
09:02But if they do what we do, which is let it play out, then you're right.
09:08There's really no one you're waiting on.
09:10The Lions are not winning the NFC North.
09:12Their championship window is closed.
09:15See, I disagree.
09:16I think that they wasted a year last year, but I think they've maybe not hit a full reset,
09:22but they've done a good job of being better in the trenches on both sides of the ball.
09:29So, Texas, how in the world do you guys like the Lions draft?
09:33Is it because they took a couple Michigan players in Moore and Rolder?
09:37They're going to be average at best.
09:39Blake Miller was a reach at 17.
09:41This may have been Holmes' worst draft.
09:43Pair that with last year's draft, this team is on the downward slide.
09:46Well, I mean, we'll see what that production looks like as we get into next year.
09:52I don't give a damn where any of these guys went to college.
09:54I don't either.
09:55And I know that's probably directed more at you than me,
09:57but at the same time, guys, Blake Miller wasn't John's first choice at tackle,
10:03but he was one of the tackles we discussed as a plug-and-play guy.
10:08Derek Moore wasn't your first choice at edge.
10:11That may surprise people because of where you went to school and where he went to school.
10:15He wasn't your first choice at edge, but he is a guy that feels plug-and-play.
10:19These are premium positions that had gone under-addressed that they used their top 50 picks on.
10:26I don't care where they went to school at all.
10:29No.
10:30If they had taken a Buckeye tackle linebacker, unfortunately, those guys were gone in the first round.
10:39That's the difference of what the Ohio State Buckeyes fielded last year versus Michigan fielding last year.
10:46Then they had half of the top 10 or 11 picks.
10:48They had 11 guys drafted in this draft, which, okay, you know, there's other drafts where Georgia's had more, Michigan's
10:53had more,
10:54but the high-level talent that was taken from that Buckeye team is somewhat remarkable.
11:04How about this text?
11:06For what it's worth, the Lions are the favorite on FanDuel to win the division today.
11:10That's from DonDon.
11:12Okay.
11:12And the Twitch comment says the same thing.
11:14The win total, Lions and Packers are tied with the highest win total in the NFC North today.
11:19I didn't think we were going out on a limb saying we thought this team would win the division.
11:25The pushback is from people who may still be scarred from last year.
11:28Right.
11:28I mean, it's scarred because you lost both times to Minnesota for quarterbacks that can you name one of them
11:35right now?
11:36No.
11:38All right, guys, you can't nine.
11:40Nine.
11:41It's the oh and four against the Vikings and Packers.
11:44Yeah.
11:44I mean, just don't forget.
11:46This was a nine and 18 last year with all of its problems.
11:49And we do radio in Detroit.
11:50But if you were doing radio in Green Bay, you go, hold on.
11:52We lost two offensive linemen.
11:54Our best pass rushers coming off a torn ACL.
11:57We lost our other pass rusher.
11:58I know Gary faded at the end of the year, but we didn't exactly address those positions.
12:05And the division champs from last year, the Bears, they didn't get anything up front for their pass rush.
12:11They were led by their defense and their defense got worse.
12:14Yeah.
12:15Lions are also sitting somewhere between seven and ten in terms of Super Bowl odds.
12:19So just outside the power surge.
12:21Yeah.
12:23Yeah.
12:23You got your pulse on this.
12:24There was absolutely no way I was going to put them in the top six.
12:27I think they could work their way into it.
12:29And like I said, depending on what this offensive line looks like, what the defense looks like, who are the
12:35safeties going to be?
12:36And I mean, let's see when the schedule comes out.
12:39Who are they're playing in the first couple of weeks?
12:41Schedule comes out early May.
12:43Yeah, I believe so.
12:45Major event in the NFL, finding the order of the teams you already know you're going to play.
12:49It's so bizarre.
12:51We'll talk about the Pistons.
12:52They'll play tonight in a gotta have it season on the line game.
12:56They'll throw the kitchen sink at the Orlando Magic.
12:59What the hell is the kitchen sink for this team?
13:01What do they have left?
13:02It's 97-1.
13:03What do they have left?
13:03What do they have left?
13:03What do they have left?
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