Four moves the Detroit Lions could make to improve but will not.
By Ash Thompson
A better backup quarterback
Robert Griffin III has looked pretty good for the Ravens, but he is in a situation where there is an established starter ahead of him in Joe Flacco and a developmental quarterback behind him on the depth chart in Lawrence Jackson. The Ravens may keep three quarterbacks on their roster, but this is a call that Bob Quinn should make.
Griffin is on a one-year $1.1 million dollar deal and would only hit the Lions salary cap for $1 million for the season. The Lions would have a week of giving Griffin all of the reps he could handle before letting him play the fourth preseason game in its entirety.
The Ravens are reportedly unsure whether they will keep Griffin or not, and he would be an infinite talent upgrade from Matt Cassel. The Lions would be out $350k in salary cap space, but better off as a team.
The days of RG III seeing football as a means of advancing his brand are far behind him. What has emerged in his second act is a player that just wants to go out and play football. If God forbid, Matthew Stafford was to go down, Griffin would be a much more likely player to take the Lions to half decent record than anyone they have on the roster right now.
There is, of course, no chance that the Lions are going to make any of these deals. The Lions organization under Quinn has never been one for making the obvious moves to fill glaring holes in the roster.
Next. Lions trade 49ers for Eli Harold. dark
The Lions will continue to tinker with the bottom of the roster, making moves like yesterday’s Eli Harold trade. Those moves will ultimately affect almost nothing. The team is what it is at this point. It could, however, be so much more.