Detroit Lions hoping for some rules changes
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All right, what's happening, everybody? It is Matt Derry, and it's Locked On Lions on the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Today is Wednesday, March 19th, and a Thursday, March 20th. Thanks for making us your first listen and checking us out wherever you get your podcasts tomorrow.

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to the NFL's competition committee and the owners for next month's owners meetings in Florida. We'll tell you what the lions want to see happen coming up momentarily. Al-Kadim Muhammad is back. Yes. Brad Holmes is bringing everybody back, but Muhammad did not play poorly last year as a backup edge rusher. He is returning on a one-year deal. We will discuss that as well. Also a draft note, somebody that we have discussed this week, I just had surgery and,

Vikings quarterback situation is more clear now. We'll get into that as well. Coming up right here on Locked On Lions. Today's show is brought to you by the Game Time app. Download Game Time, create an account and use the code LockedOnNFL for $20 off your first ticket purchase. A shout out to our everydayers that are out there. I missed an everydayer that hit us up on SpeakPipe for call of the day. And you go to speakpipe.com slash dairy podcast page today.

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All right, so this is interesting. All right, there are three rules that the Lions want to see changed, and one of them has everything to do with how the Lions play. All right, and I'm for it, and I'm for the petty, and I'm for the Lions trying to get every advantage that they can to win football games. They won 15 out of 17 games last year in the regular season. All right, so let's start with this one first, and then I'm going to get to the one that's most important.

Number one, the Lions want to change the playoff seating and have put in so that the wildcard teams with a better record get the higher seed over the division winner. We saw this play out last year. Lions and Vikings were both 14-2. They were getting ready to face off in Week 18. And if the Lions would have lost that game, and look, the Lions blew out the Vikings that day and they beat up on Sam Darnold. That forced Minnesota to have to go on the road to play in the playoffs as the

What were the Vikings? The five seed and the Lions were the one seed, of course. The Lions proposal is that automatic bids for division winner. There are still going to be automatic bids for division winners, but the order of seeding is completely determined by record. So winning the division no longer automatically means that you'll host a playoff game.

So the Vikings, under the Lions rules that the Lions want for this year, if that happens again, the Vikings would host, was it Tampa Bay last year? The Vikings would have hosted Tampa rather than having to play in Tampa. Was it Minnesota, Tampa Bay? No, it was Minnesota and the Rams. The Rams were four. The Vikings were five. The Vikings had to go to the Rams and all hell broke loose. They lost, played poorly, et cetera.

All right. So the Lions would like to see wildcard teams getting a higher seed than the division winners, despite the record. Again, Vikings won 14 games this past season and had to go on the road to play a playoff game. Now to face a Rams team that won nine games, 10 games, whatever it was.

All right, so the Lions are proposing one of three rule changes. That's the first major one, this playoff seating fix. See if that goes through. The other one the Lions are proposing is players placed on the injured reserve list before a cut down date do not count against the team's 90-man roster limit. So currently right now, any player who's placed on IR before the cut down date counts against the 90-man roster.

And these players are not eligible to come back from IR. A lot of them are out for the year. So the Lions are proposing that they do not occupy a roster spot once placed on injured reserve. Not a bad rule. Probably should be changed. We'll see if the owners and competition committee agree with all of that. Here's the big one. And this one has everything to do with how the Lions play. The Lions want to eliminate automatic first downs on illegal contact penalties. Illegal contact number whatever, 21.

Number one, number 15, and also eliminate automatic first downs on defensive holding. So again, if it's third and 15 and there's a whole, a defensive holding call on the lions, which is a five yard penalty, it would still be third and 10 and they would replay the down.

Again, currently these five yard infractions carry a stipulation that the offense be awarded an automatic first down. This can prove costly on third and long situations, despite the relatively minor infraction. Reading that off of our friends at Pride of Detroit. Here's what's interesting about this whole thing. So the Lions are against automatic first downs for legal contact by a cornerback or a defensive back and defensive hold. Mostly it is corners, right?

That are the major infractors here, if that's even a word. And this was very, very interesting that was brought up online today. And I have the stat and I have to find it right here. Here we go. Warren Sharp from Sharp Football brought this up today.

Since 2023, the last two seasons of NFL football, the Detroit Lions have the most holding penalties and illegal contact penalties in the league. They've got 26. Second most are the Jets with 23 and the Titans with 23. If you have watched some of the film of DJ Reed, whom the Lions have just signed to be their top cornerback, if we all watch Terry on Arnold for the first few weeks of this season, we know

And watch DJ Reed's tape. He's grabby. DJ Reed grabs. Good player. Getting $16 million a year. He's going to fill in nicely. Love the signing. But he's grabby. Terry Arnold, we know, likes to hand fight. He's grabby too. So the Lions play tough.

Bump and run, man-to-man coverage. They grab. They hold at times. And look, officials, especially side judges and back judges, are not going to call it every single play. The Lions are physical. That's how they play. They grab a little bit. Hence, they've had the most holding and illegal contact penalties of any team in the league. So they're proposing that, hey, we get busted for more of these. We don't want, we think, a third and 20 defensive holding

Should just be replay the down third and 15, not automatic first down on a five-yard penalty. And the Lions are proposing that. I think what's going to happen is that they're going to lose this one. I think they have a better chance of winning the reseeding with the wild cards if they have a better record than this one. I think that the league is not going to give the Lions what they want here. Look, the Packers put in for the tush push to be banned, which is ridiculous. If you don't like it, stop it.

Um, but yes, illegal contact the last two years, the lions have had the most hands down and that's the way they play. And I, I like the fact that the lions are trying to fix the rule in their mind. They want it fixed. Yeah. If it's pass interference down the field, 35 yard penalty spot of the fall. I love that. I wish college would do that. Right.

A team's going for the home run ball and a guy gets tackled, a receiver gets tackled. In college, it's a 15-yard penalty. It should be a spot of the foul penalty, an automatic first down. But illegal contact, a little grab, a little hold. Lions say, if it's a five-yard penalty, why should it be an automatic first down? And they want it changed. So there you have it with that one.

Coming up next, ladies and gentlemen, Al-Kadin Muhammad is back. What does this mean for the Lions in the draft and the rest of free agency? I don't think anything. We'll discuss that next right here on a Wednesday. Locked on live.

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Download game time today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. I'm back on a Wednesday edition of Locked On Lions, everybody, on the Locked On Podcast Network. Thanks for making this your first listen. Check us out wherever you get your podcasts, middle of the podcast, and one of my lights goes out.

So, uh, bear with us. If you are watching our lockdown lions, YouTube channel, we appreciate all of you for doing that. All right. Lions make a move today. And again, we kind of joked about it before, but the lions are bringing back a lot of their former players. A lot of the players that run one year deals last year, such as we mentioned yesterday, Pat O'Connor, Craig Reynolds, come on, Craig. Um, uh, Shane Zylstra, the flying Zylstra brothers, um,

Lions are bringing back a lot of their core depth pieces. Guys that are second string, third string, but are great culture fits, good in the locker room, know the system, and are back.

Well, today, the Lions, according to Adam Schefter, have given another one-year contract to Al-Kadin Mohamed, the edge rusher who got a lot of playing time last year due to all the injuries that the Lions had along and across the defensive line. Mohamed had 11 tackles, three sacks,

five quarterback hits, and even started a few games for the team. And I thought was a guy, when we went through the list a couple of weeks ago of the players that I wanted the Lions to re-sign, why wouldn't you bring back Al-Kadim Mohamed, who of course was in New Orleans when Dan Kimball was there years ago, solid veteran, good player,

Um, going to be cheap, probably not going to be a guy that's going to start for a lot of teams. And, but at least we get an opportunity with the lions to, um, again, be a edge rusher that could make the team. And if not, you stash them back in the practice squad, but a depth piece that has shown at least in some limited time. And again, three sacks that occasionally he can get to the quarterback.

So Muhammad is back. The Lions are bringing back just about everybody. And it's a lot of cheap deals. And it's a lot of guys that look, if Al-Kadin Muhammad has to play a lot next year and racks up sacks and gets a bunch of quarterback pressures and hurries, he's going to get a bigger contract somewhere else. You're paying these guys and putting them on one-year deals so they can prove themselves to get larger contracts and likely leave the organization after the season. There's only so many contracts

Guys you can keep, as we've talked about. I know there's been a lot of discussion. I was listening yesterday to, or yeah, it was yesterday, to Valeni and Rico talking on the ticket about, oh, we got to go get Trey Hendrickson and screw the money. No, if you trade for Trey Hendrickson, which sign me up, I would love the Lions to trade for Trey Hendrickson from the Bengals. But again, he's going to command 30 million a year on his next deal.

And so is Aiden Hutchinson. Are you going to pay two players along the defensive line, 65 million per season and re-up Kirby Joseph and have to sign DJ Reader's replacement next year after he leaves and figure out a way to re-up Jamison Williams too, whose fifth year number, if you pick up his fifth year option is likely around $20 million. You can't keep everybody.

The Bengals are keeping Joe Burrow, T. Higgins, Jamar Chase. They are not keeping Trey Hendrickson. Now, they've made some more mistakes. The Bengals front office is not the Lions front office. But you see my point here. But getting Al-Kadin Muhammad will not change anything about how the Lions approach the rest of free agency. If there's some guys that end up, you know, look, Zedaria Smith could be a guy they bring back in a lot less money.

That won't have any effect on Al-Kadim Muhammad. If Muhammad's not good enough, they'll cut him. He's on a one-year deal, probably making very little money. But keeping your own, having a guy back that is a good, solid depth piece. And I've said depth piece 50 times, but you know what I mean? I don't dislike the signing. But if Al-Kadim Muhammad is starting every game and is your best edge rusher opposite of Aiden Hutchinson, we have a problem.

You've got to draft somebody else. The lions have Marcus Davenport back. They've got Muhammad back. They've got Pascal back, but they still have to do better. And at 28 or 60 or whatever, if there's a player there, we talked about James Pierce yesterday. We've talked about Shamar Sanders. We've talked about Mike green. We've talked about Jihad Campbell. We've talked about the kid from Boston college, Donovan, as a Rike, all these guys, you know,

somebody has to be take the lions have got to draft at some point, somebody that comes off the edge and can get to the quarterback. That's where you win. You went up front. So I think it's, it's certainly interesting. Speaking of the draft, Jihad Campbell, we talked about two days ago, Monday, and the fact that Dave Burkett in his mock draft at the free press mock draft 2.0 is

did have the Lions selecting Campbell at number 28. We know Brad Holmes likes to draft Alabama players. Terryon Arnold, Jamar, uh, Jameer Gibbs. Oh my God. I almost called him Jamar Gibbs. Oh my gosh. No, I just pulled a, uh, oh God. Uh, who was it on Fox that called him Jamar Gibbs this year? Oh, is it Strahan or somebody? Can't believe I just did that.

Jameer Gibbs, Jamison Williams, Terryon Arnold, Brian Branch, plenty of Alabama players have been on Brad Holmes's radar. Jihad Campbell is a really, really athletic. He's a killer out there. A linebacker can play everywhere. We talked about it Monday. Well, it came out today that Campbell admitted Jihad did that he had tore his labrum and decided to have a left shoulder surgery right after the combine.

He hopes to be ready for the start of the season. I don't think this will affect his draft status at all. This is not a leg injury. This isn't an ACL. This isn't an MCL, PCL, any of that. What is interesting is Jordan Reed from ESPN remarked on this report today and said he still has Campbell at number 14 on his big board, 14th best player on his board.

Um, and, uh, Booger McFarland also on Twitter today added, there's no way that Jihad Campbell would get past Tampa Bay at number 19. Now Booger played for the Bucks, uh, knows his stuff, certainly has covered the SEC for ESPN and ABC. So while Dave had him in his mock fall all the way down to 28, at least according to, uh, Booger McFarland, there would be no way in his mind, um,

that Campbell would fall past Tampa Bay at number 19. And remember, Tampa Bay for years, whether it's been Levante, David, or any of the guys they've had at linebacker, love the athletes and those types of players at linebacker. Bucks have had great, like Derek Brooks, they've had great linebackers in and out of that program going back to Tony Dungy, John Gruden, and now Todd Bowles. So yes, G.I. Campbell would fit the narrative of Tampa Bay,

The question for the Lions is, would he somehow fall to 28? And would Detroit grab him? But I think Dave was on to something the other day saying, if he's at 28, he's clearly going to be the best player on the board. Left, and Brad Holmes, as we know, has drafted the best player available, no matter the situation. But torn labrum in the left shoulder, would that be a red flag for the Lions? I don't know, because it's not. Let's say he wouldn't be ready until week three or week four or week five. That could be the scenario with Aleem McNeil as well.

But if they love the player, know they can get five years out of them, they would wait for him, in my opinion. All right. The Minnesota Vikings have made their quarterback decision, according to reports. And I would say that it is bad news for the Lions. And I will explain, not that I'm going to lather up J.J. McCarthy, but I'll explain coming up next, right here on Locked on Lions.

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Back with you on a Wednesday edition of Locked on Lions. Thanks, everybody, for making us your first listen and checking us out wherever you get your podcast. Do not forget, after Wings games, after Pistons games, coming up after Tigers games, and, of course, after Lions games in the fall, Locked on Postcast. Locked on Detroit Sports Postcast with my man Jake Reapma, who is on live on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts talking about the games. He was on last night following the Red Wings' disappointing loss to the Capitals.

Iser plan will be in year 15 and nothing will happen. The media won't say anything. It's incredible to me. Red Wing fans, they don't make the playoffs. You got to be kidding me. But I'm not as close to it as Jake is, and he does a great job, as does Brian Fisher, the host locked on Red Wings.

um all right so this viking situation is interesting how do we look at it from the lions perspective well number one the lions finished one game better than the vikings this year minnesota under sam darnold justin jefferson aaron jones that defense their head coach kevin o'connell won 14 football games last year and made the playoffs and we know they lost in the first round regardless

According to Tom Pellicero, the Aaron Rodgers to Minnesota idea should be done. The Vikings are committed, according to Pellicero from the NFL Network, in J.J. McCarthy for the upcoming season to be their starting quarterback. J.J., of course, was drafted in the first round last year. Season-ending injury. Has been rehabbing all year. And it looks, it sounds like the Vikings are going to draft, not draft, they are going to sign some sort of veteran quarterback

whether it be Jameis Winston or one of these people, and go and roll with JJ and not Aaron Rodgers. The talk around the league is that Aaron Rodgers was hoping to land in Minnesota, best chance for him to win, but now he's going to have to decide on the Giants or Pittsburgh or retirement. How did we look at it from a Lions perspective? Well, I was kind of rooting as a Lions fan for the Rodgers situation because Aaron Rodgers isn't a team player.

Aaron Rodgers isn't the quarterback he was four or five years ago. Heck, the Lions ended his run in Green Bay in week 18 back in 2022.

And of course, goes to the Jets in 23, shreds his knee. Last year, had his moments where he was decent. But this is a guy that last year, for mandatory minicamp, skipped out to go on one of his ayahuasca trips overseas while the rest of his team had to work out without him. What kind of a leader is that? I think Aaron Rodgers would have been very poisonous in that Vikings locker room.

And I think this is a bad thing for the Lions. Not that I'm telling you. I think J.J. McCarthy is all of a sudden going to be, you know, rookie of the year this year and the best quarterback of the young class. And again, he's going to be a rookie this year because he didn't play this past season. Didn't even stand on the sidelines holding a clipboard in uniform.

I like JJ. I think he'll do well. I don't know if he'll do as well as Sam Darnold did this past year. I mean, look, Sam Darnold got paid by the Seahawks. It was obvious the Vikings were not going to pay him 30 plus million dollars a year, especially after the last two games of the season where the Lions basically destroyed him and made him look horrible. And he made bad throws too on top of the Lions pressuring him. And then the playoff game against the Rams where he failed miserably in that game too.

That game was played in what, Arizona? It wasn't even a home game for the Rams. So, no, I'm not celebrating this. I'm not sitting here telling you, oh, man, I'm glad Rodgers is not going there. Or the opposite. I think as a Lions fan, we should be upset Rodgers isn't going there. I think Rodgers brings a circus with him. I think Rodgers brings distractions with him.

Kevin O'Connell and Brian Flores and that coaching staff have done a heck of a job the last couple of years in Minnesota because that team on paper is not as good as Detroit and probably isn't as good as Green Bay. I know they've remade their offensive line. Ryan Kelly's coming over from the Colts. They released Bradbury. They've made some other signings.

Minnesota is going to be good again. And I think if McCarthy can do what he did at Michigan, which was win a lot of football games, make the proper throw it. I don't have the biggest arm in the world and everything else, but he can move and he's a winner and a very good leader. And I think the Vikings will like his energy as opposed to Rogers who comes in and does the weirdness.

I'll be interested in what you guys think about this. Hit me up on social media, on our YouTube comments as well, what you think of the Vikings going forward with J.J. McCarthy and a vet as opposed to signing Aaron Rodgers. So Rodgers is going to end up with the Giants or Pittsburgh. Can you imagine Aaron Rodgers and Pittsburgh with D.K. Metcalf and George Pickens? I mean, that could be a free-for-all. And the Giants, I mean, that's a bad franchise right now.

That I don't think would want Aaron Rodgers, but they're waiting on somebody. They don't have a quarterback. They've got Tommy DeVito, but you can't do that again. Hey, Drew Locke, you can't do that again. They can't do that again. Can you? And the Giants had their chance to pick second ahead of the Browns. Heck, have the number one pick. And of course, they beat the Colts. Was that week 17? Week 17, meaningless win over the Colts, and it knocked them down a bunch of spots in the draft.

They probably still could get Shador Sanders, but I don't know if that's going to be a fit either having Shador in New York.

We'll have to see. All right. Tomorrow, Brett Whitefield is going to join us from Fantasy Points. Go to fantasypoints.com. He is the COO. Brett breaks down the draft and free agency as good as anybody. We love having Brett on. And we will on tomorrow's program right here on Locked on Lions. Thanks again for checking us out wherever you get your podcasts. All the everydayers that are out there that watch or listen to the podcast daily. Appreciate you guys. Really do. Thank you so much for checking us out daily, telling your friends about us.

Please, if you've got Lion fan friends that are maybe not podcast listeners or viewers or whatever, have them check us out. We would welcome them, certainly into the mix here with us on Locked Online. See you tomorrow.