Drew Sharp at it again - Trade Calvin

This is a stupid idea. There's no need to stockpile draft picks if every draft pick is going to be a bust, anyway. Why not keep the good players you actually have on the team? You don't want to be the Pittsburgh Pirates of the NFL.

should retire to columbus, and leave us the hell alone.

prove their stupidity on a regular basis? Yeah, let's trade every good player we have a collect forty 3rd-6th rd picks and build a team of players that wuld be practice squad guys for the Colts or Patrio... Oops, we already have those guys. Never mind.

Matt Millen thinks Sharp is a genius.

For picks 1, 2 , 3, 4 . Larry Fitz & Braylon. Unless you can make that trade please lay off the crack pipe and stop trying to find ways to trade away your best player and a future HOF. In my opinion if CJ was on any of the premier teams he would be considered the best WR in the NFL. And as I stated in that earlier thread, the only bitch I have with CJ is he doesn't seem to be able to stay healthy. He has the Moss speed & hand, a T.O. type body and no fear. The O is already a joke so don't make it worse by getting rid of Staffords only real weapon. I have a great idea, how about we just keep drafting smart & let the system take care of itself for once. We have no talent at a lot of critical positions & we have to give the new regime time to build what MM wrecked. Like the guy who posted the last thread about trading CJ for the 1st pick & our 4th, its just moronic. Hell we traded a half ass WR to Dallas for 3X that, you don't think Calvin is worth more than a couple draft picks straight up? You bet your ass. I don't think people actually realize how good Calvin is. Sad.

mike valenti has been yelling and screaming about this trade all week, can we put him and drew sharp on an island together somewhere?

I hear everyone's cries about not trading your best player, etc. and all that. But seriously...this team is at least three drafts away from respectability. Wouldn't you trade your best player to put you 1-2 drafts away from respectability? Honestly if you could land Graham, Mays, a DT, Derrick Morgan, wouldn't you trade CJ? You'd fill four holes and create one. a net move of plus 3 and you'd might give your salary cap situation an upgrade. I doubt they'd do it. But if you could get the kind of King's Ransom we got for Roy...wouldn't you at least think about it?

Only way I would trade Calvin is if you could fill 2 other holes on the roster, plus some first day picks. But I don't see anyone willing to give that up. He's a franchise receiver that isn't even 26 yet. He's still got so much potential to fulfill.

Sharp was so smug and arrogant in that segment that I had to change the channel. Allowing him on national TV as a representative of Detroit media is a PR disaster for the city. Detroit has a bad enough image without Drew Sharp being a poster boy for all that is bad about Detroit. Luckily for Detroit and UM, Dana Jacobson gets a lot more face time in one year than a hack like Sharp can dream of getting in his entire life.

post - but here is a good fisking of the Sharp article. http://thebiglead.com/?p=31804 One thing that Sharp fails to realize is that WRs don't get traded for first round picks (unless you are Jerry Jones) - the Raiders only got a fourth rounder for Moss and I think the Browns got a third rounder for Braylon. As great as Calvin is, I don't see a team giving up more than a second round pick for him, best case would be a late rounder.

There could be one of these threads for every one of his columns. Not only did he write this gem arguing that the Lions should trade Calvin (mentions no specifics, just trade him because we got picks for Roy Williams so we'll get more picks for CJ because every NFL team would do that, QED bitches), his latest is basically "Don't deify Chris Henry, people think he turned it around but then that thing happened this week, was he jumping into the truck to GO EAT BABIES AND SMOKE SOME DRUGS OMG TEH CHILDREN! WE. DON'T. KNOW." Who was deifying Chris Henry? Does the Free Press even have a sports editor? [/rant]

To me this sort of goes along with the idea that everything has a price. Yes, they should trade him, if they get enough for him. If they don't, then they should not trade him. How can you argue that they should trade him without knowing what you are getting for him? Now, one could argue that wide receiver talent is either (1) systematically overvalued or that (2) Calvin Johnson would be overvalued by a particular potential trading partner. I actually tend to think that WRs are pretty replaceable, with a few exceptions, like Randy Moss. I tend to think this, because it seems that the great offenses always seem to come up with great receivers, no matter how many of them leave. Look at the packers, going from Sharpe to Brooks to Freeman to Schroeder to Walker to Driver to Jennings. They weren't just lucky, IMO, they had a great quarterback and great offenses that would have made a lot of decent receivers look really good.

If the Raiders would give up 3 first round draft picks and a good LB or Dlineman, I say we give Al Davis the shiny toy he wants.

How about they trade Matthew Stafford while they're at it?

I think Valenti and Sharpe overuse the dark side of rhetoric way too often but I totally agree that Calvin Johnson should be traded if, and only if, such a trade makes sense. I love Calvin Johnson, and I think he's the most valuable wide receiver (present and future value) in the NFL right now. But having him is like living in a cockroach infested house in a slum and eating SPAM everyday while driving a brand new Escalade with a kick-ass stereo system and fresh dubs. It just doesn't make any sense. At all. Here's why: 1. Calvin Johnson's usefulness to the Lions is hampered by the Lions themselves. He was awesome in 2008 (1300 yds with 12 TDs). Calvin Johnson out-produced Reggie Wayne last year. I doubt he'll be able to do any better than that. Yet, the lions didn't win a game on 2008 despite his awesomeness. OK, he didn't have a QB...is Matt Stafford ever going to be better than Peyton Manning? Of course not. So, if the Lions can't win a single game, against ANYBODY, when Calvin Johnson is performing better than elite NFL wide receivers, then the Lions obviously have roster problems that overwhelm his talent. The Goal of football (sports in general, really) isn't to have the best players, it's to have the best team. What is the point of having an elite player if he can't help you make the playoffs or even win ONE. SINGLE. GAME? 2. Calvin Johnson is so awesome that one of two things will happen when his rookie contract expires. Either we can't afford to keep him when someone with enough money bids on him and we get nothing for him (highly unlikely), or we franchise him and spend probably $8-$10 million; on a wide receiver! Sweet, we'll have one of the top 5 best receivers in the league and our offense will still suck (highly likely). 3. The poor management argument is terrible. So, we should keep CJ since he's actually awesome and we cant trust the front office to make use of any draft picks we would get for him but we trust them to rebuild the rest of the roster while being hamstrung by an over-loaded salary cap? The second situation is much harder to fix. CJ must be traded this year or next year for as much value as possible. Or the Lions better hit on every draft pick/roster move they make in 2010.