Lions linebacker shuffle update (as far as we know)

By Os Davis  |   Thursday, November 02, 2006  |  Comments( 1 )

Detroit Lions
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Are they ranked No. 32 yet?

As though the hapless Detroit Lions needed another problem, what with deadshot, dead hot, dead quick Michael Vick coming to town on Sunday...

Nevertheless, a little twisted malevolence from the football gods has caused the Motor City guys their fair share of injuries, requiring adjustments to a team that hasn't been defined since poor Barry Sanders was running the ball. Those injuries have taken place mostly on the defensive line, and the bye week has been spent a shuffling and reshuffling of starters to face that ridiculous Atlanta Falcons running game matched only in speed by the issuing and reissuing of Lions' press releases.

Said PR material never failed to roughly read, "X will start in place of Y, who moves to Z's position. In the preseason, coach Rod Marinelli had Z at OLB to blitz the QB. Z had to adapt PDQ, not E-Z in the NFL and so Detroit has six L's..."

Truth be told, this season's Lions have been SOL at Marinelli's well-hyped specialty, barring the play of masterful first-round selection Ernie Sims.

Sims will be starting on the weak side; this much is 100 percent certain. (And won't it be fun watching the rookie chase that zephyr called Vick for four quarters? Sure, from the perspective of a non-Lions fan's couch.) Otherwise out there on a three-man front, as far as this writer can make out, as of this writing, it'll look something like the following.

Paris Lenon, who had been on the strong side in lieu of injured Alex Lewis, will be back in the middle. The five-year man has spent much of his career at an MLB spot, but necessity dictated this move.

In a base 4-3, Teddy Lehman would start over Lenon. Unless he doesn't. Lehman will reportedly see much playing time against Atlanta, his first game-time action since a foot sprain suffered in Week 8 of last year. (Whoever thought the Mariucci Era would be looked on nostalgically?) Lehman is currently on the - get this - physically-unable-to-perform list, but his imminent start is merely indicative of this Lions season.

Finally, Lewis will be returning to the strong side. Drafted in the fifth round in 2004, Lewis may actually represent a decent pick by GM Matt Millen and Co., but at his current rate of injury, we may never know. This LB has played less than six quarters since named to the roster in his rookie year. Lewis was injured in the first quarter of the 2005 opener and placed on IR. Impressive enough in camp to get the starting spot on the strong side, Lewis went down in Week 2 against the Chicago Bears.

Hitting the pine at kickoff time will be Boss Bailey, a bit of a bizarre choice on the face of it. Bailey was reportedly moved from the strong side to MLB in order to exploit his speed for the Tampa 2. As Bailey is certain to see lots of play regardless of a start, the verdict on whether this experiment was a failure is on hold, as is the Boss himself. After coming out as a second-round pick in 2003, Bailey ran up 88 tackles. He then missed all of 2004 and five games in 2005 due to - what else? - injury.

And all word out of Lions land this week has Marinelli stating that "everyone would play," echoing a hapless Little League coach who is actually a high school history teacher coerced into a little volunteer work. However, the "everybody plays" dictum is probably the best policy in what figures to be one of the biggest laughers since the discovery of NO2. "It's going to give us some real good depth," Marinelli said.

Right. For the future. In Detroit.

Insights into just what in the name of Potsy Clark is going on with the Detroit Lions at RealFootball365.com
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About Os Davis

Os Davis has taken a twisted route to get to RealFootball365.com in his nearly 17 years in professional writing, working in any number of capacities in the sportswriting, news reporting and film criticism worlds. In print media, Os has served as editor at a few publications, including Albuquerque's...
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