Detroit Lions' Daniel Bullocks Avoids Getting Cut by Hitting IR

Daniel Bullocks entered the 2009 NFL season with a target on his back, and everybody has been shooting.

Guys like Kalvin Pearson and Louis Delmas were aiming for his job.

And guys like me have been gunning for him to get cut in training camp.

It’s not that I wanted it to happen. I’ve got nothing against the man. I didn’t even predict him to get cut when I had the chance (Note: the man I did pick, Tra Battle, has since signed with a UFL team). It was just one of those things that seemed likely, and making predictions like that is what fuels the sports writing community.

But it’s a moot point now. For the second time in his four-year career, Bullocks will miss the entire regular season with a knee injury, likely ending his career with the Detroit Lions.

Bullocks, who was entering the final year of a four-year contract with the Lions, landed on IR in his rookie year, had quiet 2007 and 2008 seasons, and now is on IR again. If a player is supposed to play his best football in a contract year, the rubber “bust” stamp can now safely come down on the former second-round pick.

To accentuate this, consider that Bullocks had to clear waivers in order to make it to IR in the first place, and 31 other NFL teams decided they could live without him.

Bullocks has spent a great deal of his professional career injured, which overshadows the fact that when he has been healthy, he has shown a complete lack of play-making ability. The beginning of the 2009 season was no different, with Bullocks showing weakly in training camp and OTAs before getting injured.

I predicted Bullocks would make the cut at training camp, simply because the Lions had nobody better to plug in alongside Delmas.

After weeks of Bullocks under-performing, Pearson looking better than expected, and hometown boy Stuart Schweigert forcing people to learn his name, it is very possible I’m wrong about that. Pearson was looking more and more like a starter on every play, and now it appears he will be.

Admittedly, I’m still not convinced Bullocks would have been cut without the injury, because the safety position is lacking quality depth. Anthony Henry could plug in at safety, and likely will in the next season or two, but if he were to do so this season he would leave a gap at cornerback.

Bullocks’ injury is another disappointing chapter in a string of unfortunate second-round draft picks this decade, joining Teddy Lehman, Barrett Green, and Boss Bailey as another second-round pick derailed by injury.