NFL Draft & My Hatred of Sean Baligan

The best part of the Lions winning their fourth game in a row on Sunday was that it saved us probably close to $25 million dollars.

A loss would have made the Lions 5-11, and had them drafting in the 6th position in April. Last year's #6 overall pick - Russell Okung - signed a 6 year contract worth up to $58 million, with $29 million guaranteed.

But by beating the Favre-less Vikings, Detroit finished 6-10, and because of the strength of schedule tiebreaker they'll draft 13th. A single win moved them up seven positions in the draft. Normally that would be a bad thing, but in the rookie-crazy NFL it's actually a good thing, especially because there wasn't a top 10 prospect that Detroit was dying to get.

Last year's #13 pick, DE Brandon Graham, signed a 5 year deal for $22 million, with just $14 million guaranteed.

6 years and $58 million ... or 5 years and $22 million?

I don't have to be an accountant to tell you that beating Minnesota was a big deal.

The best part of all - Detroit likely would have targeted the same player with the #6 or #13 pick. That would be Wisconsin's LT Gabe Carimi. He should be available at #13. And the decision should be easy, because elite CBs Patrick Peterson and Prince Nakamura will be gone within the first 10 picks. There will be plenty of available talent remaining on the board at #13, especially in a draft class which is particularly deep at the OLB/DE positions, but my hunch is Detroit takes Carimi and makes him an immediate replacement for Jeff Backus.

Now that the draft order is official, I'll be conjuring up a Mock Draft at some point. But we've got four months to go, and the Kipers and McShays of the world will be busy Mocking the draft into oblivion. In any event, beating the Vikings was huge. As in, $25 million dollars huge.

....

Went 9-7 this week in the picks, despite going 6-2 in the early games. It didn't help that the Bears and Titans surprisingly decided to try, or that Atlanta and San Francisco ran up the score in meaningless blowouts. If I had picked the games straight up this week, I'd have gone 13-3. Oh well...

Season Total: 138-114-4 (54.7%)

Which means of the 10 "experts" on Mlive.com/lions, I picked the NFL regular season better than 9 of them. Only Tom Kowalski beat me, with a 141-111-4 record. Since Tom is the premier Detroit Lions reporter in the entire world, I guess losing to him by 3 games out of 256 is acceptable. I'm pretty happy about beating the other 9 guys. Maybe the GR Press should give me my job back?

As for Sean Baligan, also known as the worst radio host in the history of the world, I outpicked him 138-114-4 to 128-124-4. At least he snuck above .500 in the final week. Good for him. No, really. Honestly. Seriously. Honestly.

Ugh... I know I haven't ranted about this much in the past, but how freaking terrible is the Sean & Terp show on 96.1? It is beyond terrible! It's wretched. It's so bad that I've been compelled on numerous occassions to email and/or call the producers of the show and complain. I've even emailed Sean personally to beg him to stop repeating every sentence fifteen times while inserting the word "honestly" three times per sentence.

In his response, he tried to be charmingly argumenative, but it failed miserably. Just like when he's on the air. He also made some comment about how 'it's not cool to say a guy should lose his job.' Yeah, you're right Sean, it's okay to completely and totally suck at your job. That's what America is all about. Let crappy guys keep their awesome jobs just because they have kids. Bullcrap. Being on the radio isn't your right, it's a privilege. There are a million guys who would love to have your job, and at least 95% of them would be better than you are.

By his logic, I should be allowed to sit at work and bang my head against the desk all day while wearing a toga and screaming obscenities, and not lose my job. Just because I have a family. If I did that, I would actually be better at my job than he is.

Here's the clincher: Sean & Terp is SO painfully bad that I've resolved to listen exclusively to the HUGE show on 107.3 during my afternoon drives home. Do you have any idea how bad the HUGE show is? It's utterly worthless. You can listen to it for 60 minutes straight and not understand a single word. You literally cannot distinguish between the actual show and the commercials, because HUGE does every commercial on that station. It's worse than words can express.

And yet I choose HUGE over Sean & Terp. It's like I'm dying of thirst, and I have to either drink deisel gasoline or my own pee. I choose the gasoline. Can't Grand Rapids find a sports-radio alternative that is at least the equivalent of drinking prune juice? That would be a huge (pun intended) improvement.

...

Stay tuned for NFL playoff picks, and the NBA Top 75 which is nearer to completion. And of course, GO LIONS. They just won 4 straight for the first time since Charlie Batch.