Chuck House tells us the five things he is looking for out of the Lions in pre-season!

It is almost time for the Lions first preseason game. August 9, 7:30 pm at Ford Field, against Cincinnati. I am starting to get a little geeked. Not too geeked, but a little.

 

 Right now I am not worried about the Lions going 10 and 6, or 6 and 10. I am interested in who makes the team. The have gone through a huge personnel change in two years, and I do no think it is over. There are new kids trying to move in and take over. Besides the overall roster changes, (which I am really, really interested in), the... 

  

Top 10 Things that I am most interested in. 

  

1A)The D line. New talent: IAF, DeWayne White. (Plus a healthy trio in Rogers, Cody and Redding  and this could be a lot of fun.) 

A1)The O line: New talent: Ed Mulitalo, Manny Ramirez, George Foster (Plus an inspired Damien Woody) 

I wish the Lions released game films so I could watch the lineman and only the lineman perform. 

3)Offense in general: We were a strong offensive tam last year and look who we have added (Calvin Johnson, Shaun McDonald, TJ Duckett) We've added so much to our offense, I can hardly wait to see them on the field. 

4)Defense in general: Donnie Henderson - out. Joe Barry - in. Will the change in defensive mind set mean anything. I am eager to see. 

5)Injuries. The Lions have had some horrible luck with injuries the past few years, especially last year. This year they hired a stud Athletic Trainer - Dean Kleinschmidt, who will oversee injuries (and I would suppose general conditioning). Look for nice things happening here. 

6)TJ Duckett. I got to watch him practice in the pre-season and he looked exceptional. (I am no Kevin Jones fan, so I hope TJ can push Kevin, (or re-place him). 

7)JT O'Sullivan. Last year the Lions kept 7 WR's going into the season (and it hurt them because they needed another lineman). Will they keep 4 QB's this year? 

8)Linebackers: The linebacker core is largely unchanged. Does this mean it is solid? 

9)Defensive backs: We have a lot of new faces here, but none get me really excited. Do we finally have a defensive secondary that can stop a two minute offense. 

10)Quarterbacks coach - Adam Gase. Last year the Lions did not have a QB coach, Mike Martz pulled double duty. I felt this was one of the biggest mistakes of the Lions offense. Martz is supposed to be running the whole offense. Tough to do this and coach your QB. Too many things were being missed. Hopefully Gase's contract is one year longer than Martz'. If the mad man leaves, it would be nice to have a little continuity in our offense. (That said, I do not think Martz is going anywhere.) 

  

Bonus)Tim Martz - offensive assistant. Actually I am not all that interested in Tim, other than he is Mike Martz' kid.